The "homeless" guy I helped on Friday did tell me some truths.
One, he's a felon. I looked him up in the Illinois Dept of Corrections Inmate register. He's there, picture and everything. In the past, he'd been picked up for possession of controlled substance, forgery / document alteration, and theft.
There were other truths there, too, so he wasn't completely full of shit. For example, he is 25, and he is on parole.
I never asked if he'd been in prison before, but, like I reported above, he certainly has. During our time spent, he came across like this was his first time in prison, but that interpretation was due to my lack of objectivism during Friday's matter. The fact that he's been in and out of prison got me wondering about recidivism and how some people continue to stay in trouble.
I don't know if this guy is really going to get out of this cycle he's been in for the last four years. From our discussions, he seemed...well, I don't know. I guess I learned that these types of people are always living lies, telling lies and stretching the truth. (In my thoughts, I frequently go back to the ethical philosophy book LYING by Sissela Bok, and, during my convo with this "homeless" guy, I referenced the three "forms" of truth obfuscation: Failure to Reveal, Deception and Lying. Prof. Schrag would be proud.) I suppose once you're in, you're in. It's hard to stop old habits. It's hard to change. Much like many things in life, I suppose.
This in-and-out of prison cycle reminds me a lot of the situation with poor families living in housing projects. With her job, my wife deals with these situations every day. In short, people don't want to leave the housing projects because it's what they know. To leave would mean massive change, change for which they are not mentally, emotionally, or practically prepared. Very, very few are willing to do the work to prepare themselves for life outside of the projects. In my opinion, that's why you gotta write off the adults and focus on the kids.
The adults are bums and will continue to manipulate the system because they can. The focus has to be on the future of the kids in the projects, getting these kids to understand that life in the ghetto is not how the world operates, that life in the ghetto is not healthy or productive.
The hardest part of all this is that you have kids that listen to their dumb, lazy, weak parents. My wife tells me stories of kids who say that they want to grow up and have the same lives as their mothers. "Why?" my wife may ask. "Because," they say, "she doesn't work, gets everything for free, and gets more money if she takes care of more babies." What?! Yes, you read that correctly. Kids are sponges, and, basically, until they mature intellectually, they believe everything their parents believe, whether it's religion, racism, politics, economics, whatever. That's why we gotta focus on the kids, help the kids, get the kids away from these environments and, frankly, away from their parents.
There's little hope for the "homeless" guy I met on Friday or the ghetto moms near my wife's place of employment. We must keep them from harming others, provide just enough "care" to appear less than cruel, and assume, unless they are willing to make the sacrifices to change, that they belong in the dustbin of society.
One, he's a felon. I looked him up in the Illinois Dept of Corrections Inmate register. He's there, picture and everything. In the past, he'd been picked up for possession of controlled substance, forgery / document alteration, and theft.
There were other truths there, too, so he wasn't completely full of shit. For example, he is 25, and he is on parole.
I never asked if he'd been in prison before, but, like I reported above, he certainly has. During our time spent, he came across like this was his first time in prison, but that interpretation was due to my lack of objectivism during Friday's matter. The fact that he's been in and out of prison got me wondering about recidivism and how some people continue to stay in trouble.
I don't know if this guy is really going to get out of this cycle he's been in for the last four years. From our discussions, he seemed...well, I don't know. I guess I learned that these types of people are always living lies, telling lies and stretching the truth. (In my thoughts, I frequently go back to the ethical philosophy book LYING by Sissela Bok, and, during my convo with this "homeless" guy, I referenced the three "forms" of truth obfuscation: Failure to Reveal, Deception and Lying. Prof. Schrag would be proud.) I suppose once you're in, you're in. It's hard to stop old habits. It's hard to change. Much like many things in life, I suppose.
This in-and-out of prison cycle reminds me a lot of the situation with poor families living in housing projects. With her job, my wife deals with these situations every day. In short, people don't want to leave the housing projects because it's what they know. To leave would mean massive change, change for which they are not mentally, emotionally, or practically prepared. Very, very few are willing to do the work to prepare themselves for life outside of the projects. In my opinion, that's why you gotta write off the adults and focus on the kids.
The adults are bums and will continue to manipulate the system because they can. The focus has to be on the future of the kids in the projects, getting these kids to understand that life in the ghetto is not how the world operates, that life in the ghetto is not healthy or productive.
The hardest part of all this is that you have kids that listen to their dumb, lazy, weak parents. My wife tells me stories of kids who say that they want to grow up and have the same lives as their mothers. "Why?" my wife may ask. "Because," they say, "she doesn't work, gets everything for free, and gets more money if she takes care of more babies." What?! Yes, you read that correctly. Kids are sponges, and, basically, until they mature intellectually, they believe everything their parents believe, whether it's religion, racism, politics, economics, whatever. That's why we gotta focus on the kids, help the kids, get the kids away from these environments and, frankly, away from their parents.
There's little hope for the "homeless" guy I met on Friday or the ghetto moms near my wife's place of employment. We must keep them from harming others, provide just enough "care" to appear less than cruel, and assume, unless they are willing to make the sacrifices to change, that they belong in the dustbin of society.
posted by Brian at 12:51 PM
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