Reference no: EM132282308

Response 1.

Reducing violent crime requires a myriad of public policies because there are a myriad of motivations to commit these crimes.

1. Implant all women (and men, once an option is available) with time-release contraceptives at puberty. Require that follow-up implants be kept current or the offender faces a hefty fine. People may begin skipping their implants after the age of 18 and completion of parenting classes. This will prevent unwanted pregnancies which will reduce both abortions and child abuse.

2. Reduce the wealth and income gaps between the richest and poorest in our nation. Given that much crime, violent and otherwise, is economic in nature, providing better legal opportunities for achieving economic success will help a lot. This will require universal health insurance, perhaps a universal basic income, and a limit on executive pay that limits what any employee of a company may make to 250 times the full-time equivalent salary of its lowest paid employee.

3. Subsidize the operations of organizations like Venture for America that provide training and mentorship for young people to succeed in the legal economy.

4. Hire counselors (real counselors, not guidance counselors) for every middle and high school and require that students see the counselor for a free session multiple times a year, more if needed. Teach anger management starting in middle school. Teach people to see one another as individuals that are all valid rather than seeing some people as normal and others as not normal.

5. Pass common sense gun legislation: universal background checks, mandatory biometric locks, allow mental health professionals to flag patients for non-ownership, etc.

6. Fix the broken mental health system!

These are just a few of the policy areas that require our attention if we are to fight violent crime. Yes, I know there are some civil liberty issues with some of these proposals, but civil liberties will always have a correlation to violent crime, so it is a choice.