JAIL CAN EACH THEM A LESSON

We know the problem too well. Our kids -- yes, they are our kids --
are dealing drugs and using them, stealing guns and using them,
running girls and using them.

They can't read or write, or -- yo, yo, mo fo -- articulate a clear
and simple thought unless it's punctuated with a threat. Let's just
lock them all up. That will make us safe. That will teach them a lesson.

But if you think the kids who go to jail are tough, you should see
the kids who get out. They're tougher, meaner, colder, harder.

Is jail a serious threat? Jail is a rite of passage; as in, might as
well join my boys. And when a young man is in the can, there's nobody
on his case about not having a job, no screaming babies in wet
nappies, no nagging hos.

Okay, perhaps the accommodations aren't the best, but neither are
they the worst. When was the last time you were in social housing? Is
jail the best you've got?

I'll have some of that on a plate.

Sorry, but I'm just as angry, and just as confused, as you are. Why
don't the bad kids get the point? By which I mean, just as there is
an ebb and flow to lawlessness, so is there an ebb and flow to law and order.

The garden-variety Toronto gangsta has not figured out that it's
stupid to kill people in school playgrounds, stupider to shoot
brothers on church steps, and stupidest to kill innocent bystanders
on city streets.

If you've got a thing -- a cosa, whether it is la nostra or la vostra
- -- you'd think you'd want to play it cool. You'd be tidy about your
business. You would not litter.

And now the twin hammers of law and order are about to fall.

Mandatory minimums for anybody packing heat, and so many new cops
that we could pair them up with kids in gangs on a one-to-one basis.

I've changed my mind about mandatory minimums. I've heard too many
former gangbangers say that the prospect of five years in jail would
have deterred them from packing heat.

Plain jail is not enough.

I want jail school, because most of the people who end up behind bars
are at best semi-literate; they read and write at a Grade 6 level.
But most people who go to school in jail are less likely to reoffend.

So here's the twist: if you are nailed on a simple weapons charge,
we'll give you a choice: you complete a trades apprenticeship behind
bars, or get your high school diploma with at least a B average, and
we'll let you out upon graduation.

The sooner you wise up, the sooner you get out. But if you goof off,
you do the full five years.

I'll up the ante: if you complete your courses, your parole officer
will help you find a job when you get out.

And I'll sweeten the pot: if you keep your job for three years, we'll
erase your record.

In other words, let's give the gangstas something to protect besides turf.

Here's another plan, based in part on what I know about rude boys and
their moms:

If you are the head of a family in social housing, you ought to be
able to apply for a rent-to-own mortgage. If your application is
accepted, then you're automatically eligible for a wage supplement,
and free daycare.

But lady, if your kid is caught dealing drugs or carrying a gun, the
deal is off and you lose what you've invested, and you go back to square one.

The result? "Yo, bro, I can't carry a gun, because I don't want to
hurt my mom. I don't want to cause her to lose the house." Now that's
the protection of turf.

The youth -- I dislike the term, but that's what they call themselves
- -- keep yapping about wanting to be involved. I suppose I'd rather
have the youth involved than any pastor, domestic or foreign,
especially a pastor who charges $10,000 a day for his sermons.

So here's a plan involving half of our youth taking care of the other
half, and I'm speaking now to the sisters: Go read Aristophanes; more
specifically, the play Lysistrata. Oh, I'll save you the bother.

In the play the women of Athens, fed up with the length of the
Peloponnesian war, lock themselves in the Acropolis and go on a sex strike.

The point?

Girls, you could stop the war on the streets if you cut the brothers
off. No sugar for a boy wearing colours, no sweets for a boy packing
heat, no hugs for a boy selling drugs; lay down your arms, and I'll
take you in my arms.

And when the war is over, you girls can go to work on the war between
the sexes, the chief casualties of which are single mothers raising
fatherless boys.

You got a better idea?