So if it's not the handicaps we've imposed on cops
and prosecutors, and it's not institutionalized
racism, and it's not material want, then what is
the fundamental cause of predatory street crime.
Moral poverty.
...[M]oral poverty is the poverty of being without
loving, capable, responsible adults who teach you
right from wrong; the poverty of being without parents
and other authorities who habituate you to
feel joy at others' joy, pain at others' pain, satisfaction
when you do right, remorse when you do
wrong; the poverty of growing up in the virtual
absence of people who teach morality by their own
everyday example and who insist that you follow
suit.
...
The twin character scars left by moral poverty--lack
of impulse control and lack of
empathy--reinforce each other and make it far more
likely that the individual will succumb to either
the temptations of crime, or the blandishments of
drugs, or, as so often happens, both.
-Body Count
One of the more comforting aspects of conservatism is that you can adopt
one set of principles--most elements of which are hundreds (capitalism
and republican democracy) or even thousands (10 Commandments, Golden Rule,
Sermon on the Mount) of years old, and have stood the test of time--and
then stick with it your whole adult life. At any given moment several
of the positions you adhere to will certainly be out of favor, but just
as surely the tide will eventually turn back in your favor. New ideas
and fancy fads will come and go, leaving trend-sucking liberals with their
heads spinning, but you can just stick to your guns and ignore them all,
secure in the knowledge that folks will eventually return to their senses
and come scurrying back to the timeless virtues. This is especially
the case when it comes to Crime and Punishment. Few issues, other
than the equally intractable Taxation and Education, have been so
susceptible over the years to "innovative" thinking and "radical" solutions
as the problem of Crime. But time and again we all end up returning
to the conservative mantra : what's needed are a societal emphasis on loving
families and traditional morality, vigorous law enforcement, and harsh
punishments.
This book then is an unsurprising call for a return to these first principles,
in particular a clarion call for an effort to combat moral poverty, and,
equally unsurprisingly, its policy prescriptions are currently back in
vogue. Between the candidacy of Joe Lieberman and the victory of George
W. Bush, religious belief is once again a central part of our national
debate, morality is a hot topic, and a broad consensus has formed around
the idea that faith-based institutions, with their manifest moral component,
are better at delivering social services than government bureaucracies.
Coauthor John
DiIulio has, in fact, been named to be the coordinator of President
Bush's Faith Based Initiative. And, what with now former
President
Clinton mired in a new scandal (which will inevitably come to be known
as Pardongate) Bill Bennett is popping up all over the networks and editorial
pages, getting to say, "I told you so" and preach the importance of morality
in public life.
Meanwhile, in New York City, Rudy Guliani has proven that crime can
be reduced and civic manners restored by relentlessly prosecuting even
minor infractions. Perhaps most importantly, reforms like building
more prisons, Three Strikes and You're Out, mandatory sentencing, and incarcerating
even low level drug offenders, have helped to bring about a tremendous
reduction in crime rates. It would seem that, in a sense, this book
has been made superfluous by the very success of the ideas it advocates.
But never fear, already we hear calls to relax drug laws (many of them
fueled by the new movie Traffic)
amidst hand-wringing over the burgeoning prison population. Perhaps
the best aspect of this book is that the authors actually go beyond just
drugs and demonstrate the close connection between alcohol and crime.
One of the most effective arguments of those who support legalization of
drugs is the comparison to alcohol. The authors head off this line
of reasoning by indicting
alcohol too. You've got to admire a conservatism so fierce and
intellectually honest that it's basically willing to refight some of the
battles of Prohibition.
Another phenomenon we've witnessed in recent years is one of those patented
psychic disconnects on the part of liberals that we conservatives so treasure,
folks on the Left have actually taken to arguing that the statistics showing
a drop in crime can not be right because of the size of the current prison
population. Their characteristically fuzzy logic maintains that if
crime really were going down there would perforce be less people in prison.
This confusion over cause and effect, obvious as it seems, and the accompanying
appeals to middle class white guilt will inevitably lead to an eventual
relaxing of our guard and the pendulum will swing back towards leniency
and permissiveness.
This book is somewhat dated now, because of its reliance on statistics
and because too much of what it has to say has been adopted as public policy,
but put it on a shelf for a few years and you'll be able to take it down
during the next explosion in crime. Think of public policy making
as a huge game of "Whack the Mole" conservatives always remain poised with
the same hammer (a consistent set of ideas) and periodically have to bang
away with the hammer when experimentation with liberal ideas manages to
unleash a plague of vermin. Lift this book and you wield the hammer.
