I've become so numb.
What happened to me? You know, we all change. The college experience is life changing, no matter who you are. I’d like to think that my core has been untouched…. And I think for the most part that’s true, but the other parts of myself have changed. I’m becoming anti social. It’s not that I don’t want to be, it’s that I can’t be. I used to be so outgoing, I could start a conversation with anyone, about anything. I LOVE intellectual exchange, I love conversation. Even if it’s not intellectually based, the passing of feelings ideas and emotions form one person’s being to another is something I like, and now, I feel I can’t do. I just have nothing to talk about, I have nothing to add. What do I say, I don’t know. It’s why sometimes I just walk by people without acknowledging them. I have nothing to say to them, all I would be able to say, is “hi, what’s up” or something shitty like that, then I’d have nothing else to say, and it would be awkward. Then I would try to leave the conversation or exchange, because I have nothing to say, but would try to find an unawkward way to do so. All my conversation is based on questions. I ask questions about people. But then sometimes I feel like I’m being too nosey. There’s two ways of looking at conversation when it pertains to getting information from a person. One, is that you can ask, two, is that if the person feels like telling you, they will. But people almost never open up on their own. I like to talk about personal stuff. I’m very upfront with my feelings and emotions, not everybody is. At some point, you run out of questions to ask. Nobody asks me questions. Nobody asks “What’s new, how are you, anything new and excititing going on, what do you think of the philosophy of existentialism, blah blah blah” I don’t get asked anything. It’s like nobody cares.
I’ve lost conversational skill. It can happen, and with few people, I can converse naturally all the time, others, sometimes, but on the whole, my conversationalist nature has almost disappeared. I have no personality. I feel like I’m just a vessel, going through life, I feel plain and normal. I feel like nothing defines me, like I am just there. What’s something Eric would do? Nothing. I have no opinions anymore. Everything I just don’t give a damn about. I have no feelings one way or another, I don’t care, and I mean it. I have no preference for so many things. All choices are equal.
I have no emotions. They are there, I guess, and I recognize them, but I don’t feel them. I have this demeanor of blanch neutrality, and I hate it. The last time I’ve felt a real emotion, a powerful emotion, an extreme emotion, was almost a year ago, and it was negitave emotion. Almost a year ago…
I want them back, I want my emotions back. I want to feel again, I want to feel something so I can express it in all forms of my consciousness. I’m not happy, I’m not sad, I’m not worried, I’m not sick, I’m not fearful, I’m not angry, I’m not myself. Even when I seem like I’m some of these things, I’m just acting that way because I know I’m supposed to. It’s not zombie mode, but it’s damn close. I know I should be happy. I have a lot of friends who like me, I have fun (and I guess that’s an emotion….), I switched majors to something that I find interesting, and a genuine curiosity about, hell, I even have an extra awesome reason to be happy, which I’ll talk about later, but I don’t feel it. This is one reason why I drink more now, and smoke a ton less (almost not at all). When I’m high, all this negative stuff I have been talking about is amplified. I’m extremely quiet, and generally just sit to myself and contemplate the mysteries of the universe. When I’m drunk, I feel like I’m myself again, how I was a year ago, or more like it anyways…..
I am someone who is driven by affiliation. Emotional connections, interpersonal bonds, powerful feelings, attachment to others, friends, family, those things probably more than anything else make me happy. I need attachment with others. I feel though, that with my personality being non-existent, that I won’t be able to attain these attachments that I value so much, and I think this explains my recent explosion of sexual experiences. A lot of them I haven’t even wrote about, I didn’t want people knowing everything about me, some of them I’m ashamed of, some of them I’m not. But the reason for all that, was that I didn’t think I could find an emotional attachment to someone, so I substituted physical attachment for it. I needed SOMETHING. You know? It turned out, that the physical attachment wasn’t even that good. There was no emotion there. I’ve only got off three times ever from sex. I’ve been doing a good deal of that lately, and three times is not a lot.
This started with Rachael over the summer. Rachael was awesome, I already described her here before, so not going to do that again. Despite how awesome she was, I did not really feel any emotional bond with her. Nothing. I know I may have said I did, but I was just trying to convince myself of it, because I value it so much. I don’t miss her, I didn’t yearn for her when she wasn’t there. I wasn’t overly joyful or happy when she was there. Why though? Why could I not feel what I wanted to so bad. I was worried, terribly worried. Something was wrong. It was then, that I started to realize all this stuff about my personality, demeanor, and emotions (or lack there of). I was worried that I was not going to be able to ever love again. I still am worried. I remember Rachel telling me she loved me….. I felt like shit. This girl fell in love with me (even though we established that it was a summer thing) and I didn’t feel it for her. I didn’t say I love you back, I couldn’t. I can’t say that unless I mean it. People use “I love you” way to easily now, love is not something to be thrown around. You can’t love someone after seeing them for a week or two, sorry.
What’s the cause of all this? As much as I hate to say it, the only plausible cause of this rapid change in myself were the events that occurred almost a year ago, and I hate to sound like a whiney emo bitch, cause like I said, I’m not sad or depressed or anything, but it’s a broken heart. I don’t mean broken in the sense that it typically does, that love is gone, taken away, and people cry over it, I mean broken in the sense that I don’t think it’s going to work anymore. I think that part of me shut off. The events and circumstances of the ending of my last relationship were extremely traumatizing to me. I would have been fine I think if it were a normal breakup, but it wasn’t, it was the worst possible thing that could ever have happened. Nobody will understand that. I was shocked, and I mean that literally, I actually went into shock. Needed 2 vikadins so I could breath/stop shaking. I Wrote about that also, it was a late night memories entry a long time ago. I think that part of me died, for good. I don’t think I wanted to go through with that again, so I shut it off. My mind/body does this naturally. Zombie mode, I call it, but it’s never permanent. This time it might be.
I’ve met someone here, who I’m going to start dating come next semester. I’m just waiting for her to go break up with her current boyfriend before stuff happens. Again, this girl is awesome. I like her a lot, she is extremely similar to me. She is generally quiet, but very active. LOVES the outdoors, and physical activity. Hell, I went rock climbing with her a few days ago (and my arms still hurt). She likes video games, fantasy, sports, drinking, she’s fun. Like I said, a lot like myself. I really want to be able to feel for this girl, and I’m going to try real hard. What if nothing happens though? What do I do? This relationship has the potential to be awesome, but I’m worried that I may fuck it up because of my state.
Shit, it’s almost 6am. I still have a final today. Best be going to sleep. I’m going to leave you with this, because I thought it was amusing how good it came out. Here’s a paper I wrote pretty drunk a few weeks ago. It’s about how crime policy is based on faith rather than fact. I had to go back and add a few pages before I passed it in (I completely forgot to mention one topic) but it’s not in here, this is the drunk copy (with spelling errors fixed). Again, just because it’s funny.
In the United States, crime and crime policy are huge issues that get discussed and debated about vigorously in classrooms, police departments, federal departments, and elections. Many people have different opinions of how we should control and react to crime, and often times the way we act on these opinions is not in the best interests of society. Many things we believe to work or think that make sense and should work to deal with crime don’t. In the United States, the approach on crime is often based on faith rather than research and fact, some examples of this are policies regarding drugs, punishment and imprisonment sentences, and police strategies; this discrepancy is often a result of politics, and the undedicated public.
The crackdown on drugs that started in the 1980’s known as the “war on drugs” may be one of the worst policies every adapted into the United States’ justice system. The crackdown on the drugs shifted the view of dealing with drugs by treatment, which was more socially and cost effective, to harsh punishment, which has less of an effect (if any) and costs ludicrously more amounts of money. Treatment, which was more commonly given out before the war on drugs, does have an effect on drug use. A study done on a treatment program administered in Philadelphia called the Phoenix House program found that after treatment, “crime days” per month of subject decreased 66%, days worked per month increased almost 75%, and recidivism dropped 31% compared to before the treatment. Other studies have found similar positive results, including one study where recidivism dropped 65% (Walker, 268). While treatment programs do not always work, if they were used more and better funded, treatment methods could be matched specifically to patients, which has shown to have even higher results. People who really want treatment also have overwhelmingly positive results, and generally stay drug free afterwards, as opposed to just punishment through jails and prisons, where people more often than not will turn to drugs again. Not all treatment and drug education programs work however. D.A.R.E. Is an example of this. Spawned form the war on drugs, D.A.R.E. is an education program that is administered to school children between 4th and 8th grade to attempt to steer them away from drugs. Numerous studies have found this program to have little to no effect on drug use, with only a small effect on tobacco use (walker, 265).
The War on Drugs also has had large cost to society. The war on drugs costs the united states about 17 billion dollars a year, and it costs the economy about 4.5 billion dollars a year due to lost job and work productivity (Hess). People believe that “getting tough” on drugs will reduce crime, but this is false. Getting tough increases the amount of people in jail, in 1980, only 25% of people incarcerated were behind bars for drug offences, in 1996, that number rose to 60% (Walker). Numerous reports show that there is racial discrimination across all levels of the justice department, but this can be seen substantially in the war on drugs. Although African Americans only comprise 12% of the population and 13% of drug users, they make up 38% of drug arrests, and 59% of drug convictions (www.drugpolicy.org). Injustice and discrimination that can be observed is not good for the justice system. It will cause minorities (especially blacks) to not respect the justice system, and perhaps view it with contempt. This will cause strain, and lead to more crime. A study of one police crackdown in New York showed that drug trafficking was just displaced to other areas. When people are arrested for a drug crime, they are just replaced on the streets with more dealers and buyers. Often times, when someone arrested for drugs completes their sentence, the need for the drug is still there, so they also resume using and selling drugs. Opposed to treatment programs, where the need to use the drug or sell can be eliminated, harsh punishment and crackdowns seem like an expensive and senseless policy.
Our Justice Department has been steadily getting more and more harsh with the length and severity of the sentences it hands out. While keeping known criminals incarcerated for longer periods of time may have an effect on crime by not allowing those individuals to commit further crime, stricter sentences do not deter criminals, and are often avoided. This can clearly be seen with the death penalty, the most severe form of punishment. Statistics from the National Office of Vital Statistics show the homicide rates of three states, two with the death penalty, one without, have no correlation or effect on homicide from the death penalty. Two sets of years for example, have Michigan (death penalty) with homicide rates of 3.6, and 6.6, Ohio (death penalty) with homicide rates of 3.2, and 5.1, and Indiana (non death penalty) with homicide rates of 3.2, and 4.7 (Walker, p 104). It can clearly be seen that the death penalty does not deter crime.
Mandatory minimum sentences and “three strikes laws” have also been increasing in popularity and use, and they also do not seem to effect crime. If we consider the law of criminal thermodynamics, that the more severe a punishment is, the less often it will be handed out, and the more arbitrary the circumstances will be when it is handed out. This applies to mandatory minimum sentences. This is true here. Plea bargaining is used more often with mandatory minimum sentences, and more cases tend to be thrown out or dismissed when these laws are in place. A 1996 study of several states’ mandatory minimum sentencing laws concluded that there is no correlation between mandatory minimum sentences and crime (Walker, 139). Three strikes laws have similar consequences. Again, the laws of thermodynamics apply here, many of the cases do not get their “Strikes” counted against them through plea bargaining. Several adverse effects stem from three strikes laws. Many more of the defendants, fearing conviction, ask for trials by jury as opposed to plea bargaining. This in turn makes them wait in jail for a trail, which causes overcrowding in jails. To help ease this overcrowding, jails release other people much earlier. Convicts serving time for one year sentences in California were released 200 days early on average. The increased number of trials by jury also costs a lot of extra money, in fact, in California, three strikes laws have cost an extra 5.5 billion dollars a year (Walker, 140).
Three strikes laws cost extra money, do not deter crime, and back up the already overworked justice department.
If the justice department is so overworked, why not simply increase it’s size? While this seems like a good idea when police forces are effectively used, most of the time they are not. Simply increasing the amount of police and detectives will not deter crime. In 1994, President Clinton authorized the Violent Control and Law Enforcement act. This act cost over 9 billion dollars, and trained 100,000 more police to be put to work (Walker, 77). The 100,000 extra police had little effect on overall crime. In a famous study done in Kansas City, several forms of policing were studied in three different types of areas (which were randomly assigned). In one type of area, the amount and frequency of cops patrolling the streets was increased (proactive patrol), in another type of area, the amount and frequency was decreased to only responding to calls (reactive patrol), and in another type of area, the amount and frequency remained the same (control). The results were astonishing. Crime did not increase in areas with proactive patrols, or decrease in areas with reactive patrols; crime stayed the same across all field. The experiment concluded that more police patrol does not reduce criminal activity, crime rates, or the public perception of crime (Walker, 81).
It is apparent that many of the means by which we attempt do deal with crime in the United States have little to no effect. If this is true, then why are so many of these methods still employed? Two of the most significant factors may be politics, and the uneducated public, and how they play hand in hand. Crime is often a huge issue in politics, and is important to the people. Those who run for office may be motivated more by their needs to be elected, than what actually works. Getting “Tough on Crime” is generally popular with the common people, and getting tough on crime means locking up people for longer periods of time, more police, and harsher laws governing sentencing. To the public, this sounds great. One could see how it would make sense to the average person that doing these things could help reduce crime. People as a mass however, are generally uneducated about what actually works with crime and what does not. Politicians attempt to appeal to as many people as possible, and they do this by imploring tactics that usually do not work. One of the better examples of this is D.A.R.E. . Drug Education programs for children in our public schools sounds like a great idea, who wouldn’t want that. While the message and means are very honorable, it is apparent that D.A.R.E. does not work, people just believe it does, so politicians endorse it. Perhaps if politicians would listen to more of what actually works, and educate the common people about it, a needed and valuable change would arise. Until then, we will just have to stick to what doesn’t work.
By the way, I’m playing World of Warcraft now. It’s an MMORPG. I know I said I would stay away, but several of my dorm mates are playing. We’ll see how I do with this one, I think I have learned with 2.5 years off from MMO’s, and my past experience with EQ, on how to handle them. Wish me luck! Hah.
I’ve lost conversational skill. It can happen, and with few people, I can converse naturally all the time, others, sometimes, but on the whole, my conversationalist nature has almost disappeared. I have no personality. I feel like I’m just a vessel, going through life, I feel plain and normal. I feel like nothing defines me, like I am just there. What’s something Eric would do? Nothing. I have no opinions anymore. Everything I just don’t give a damn about. I have no feelings one way or another, I don’t care, and I mean it. I have no preference for so many things. All choices are equal.
I have no emotions. They are there, I guess, and I recognize them, but I don’t feel them. I have this demeanor of blanch neutrality, and I hate it. The last time I’ve felt a real emotion, a powerful emotion, an extreme emotion, was almost a year ago, and it was negitave emotion. Almost a year ago…
I want them back, I want my emotions back. I want to feel again, I want to feel something so I can express it in all forms of my consciousness. I’m not happy, I’m not sad, I’m not worried, I’m not sick, I’m not fearful, I’m not angry, I’m not myself. Even when I seem like I’m some of these things, I’m just acting that way because I know I’m supposed to. It’s not zombie mode, but it’s damn close. I know I should be happy. I have a lot of friends who like me, I have fun (and I guess that’s an emotion….), I switched majors to something that I find interesting, and a genuine curiosity about, hell, I even have an extra awesome reason to be happy, which I’ll talk about later, but I don’t feel it. This is one reason why I drink more now, and smoke a ton less (almost not at all). When I’m high, all this negative stuff I have been talking about is amplified. I’m extremely quiet, and generally just sit to myself and contemplate the mysteries of the universe. When I’m drunk, I feel like I’m myself again, how I was a year ago, or more like it anyways…..
I am someone who is driven by affiliation. Emotional connections, interpersonal bonds, powerful feelings, attachment to others, friends, family, those things probably more than anything else make me happy. I need attachment with others. I feel though, that with my personality being non-existent, that I won’t be able to attain these attachments that I value so much, and I think this explains my recent explosion of sexual experiences. A lot of them I haven’t even wrote about, I didn’t want people knowing everything about me, some of them I’m ashamed of, some of them I’m not. But the reason for all that, was that I didn’t think I could find an emotional attachment to someone, so I substituted physical attachment for it. I needed SOMETHING. You know? It turned out, that the physical attachment wasn’t even that good. There was no emotion there. I’ve only got off three times ever from sex. I’ve been doing a good deal of that lately, and three times is not a lot.
This started with Rachael over the summer. Rachael was awesome, I already described her here before, so not going to do that again. Despite how awesome she was, I did not really feel any emotional bond with her. Nothing. I know I may have said I did, but I was just trying to convince myself of it, because I value it so much. I don’t miss her, I didn’t yearn for her when she wasn’t there. I wasn’t overly joyful or happy when she was there. Why though? Why could I not feel what I wanted to so bad. I was worried, terribly worried. Something was wrong. It was then, that I started to realize all this stuff about my personality, demeanor, and emotions (or lack there of). I was worried that I was not going to be able to ever love again. I still am worried. I remember Rachel telling me she loved me….. I felt like shit. This girl fell in love with me (even though we established that it was a summer thing) and I didn’t feel it for her. I didn’t say I love you back, I couldn’t. I can’t say that unless I mean it. People use “I love you” way to easily now, love is not something to be thrown around. You can’t love someone after seeing them for a week or two, sorry.
What’s the cause of all this? As much as I hate to say it, the only plausible cause of this rapid change in myself were the events that occurred almost a year ago, and I hate to sound like a whiney emo bitch, cause like I said, I’m not sad or depressed or anything, but it’s a broken heart. I don’t mean broken in the sense that it typically does, that love is gone, taken away, and people cry over it, I mean broken in the sense that I don’t think it’s going to work anymore. I think that part of me shut off. The events and circumstances of the ending of my last relationship were extremely traumatizing to me. I would have been fine I think if it were a normal breakup, but it wasn’t, it was the worst possible thing that could ever have happened. Nobody will understand that. I was shocked, and I mean that literally, I actually went into shock. Needed 2 vikadins so I could breath/stop shaking. I Wrote about that also, it was a late night memories entry a long time ago. I think that part of me died, for good. I don’t think I wanted to go through with that again, so I shut it off. My mind/body does this naturally. Zombie mode, I call it, but it’s never permanent. This time it might be.
I’ve met someone here, who I’m going to start dating come next semester. I’m just waiting for her to go break up with her current boyfriend before stuff happens. Again, this girl is awesome. I like her a lot, she is extremely similar to me. She is generally quiet, but very active. LOVES the outdoors, and physical activity. Hell, I went rock climbing with her a few days ago (and my arms still hurt). She likes video games, fantasy, sports, drinking, she’s fun. Like I said, a lot like myself. I really want to be able to feel for this girl, and I’m going to try real hard. What if nothing happens though? What do I do? This relationship has the potential to be awesome, but I’m worried that I may fuck it up because of my state.
Shit, it’s almost 6am. I still have a final today. Best be going to sleep. I’m going to leave you with this, because I thought it was amusing how good it came out. Here’s a paper I wrote pretty drunk a few weeks ago. It’s about how crime policy is based on faith rather than fact. I had to go back and add a few pages before I passed it in (I completely forgot to mention one topic) but it’s not in here, this is the drunk copy (with spelling errors fixed). Again, just because it’s funny.
In the United States, crime and crime policy are huge issues that get discussed and debated about vigorously in classrooms, police departments, federal departments, and elections. Many people have different opinions of how we should control and react to crime, and often times the way we act on these opinions is not in the best interests of society. Many things we believe to work or think that make sense and should work to deal with crime don’t. In the United States, the approach on crime is often based on faith rather than research and fact, some examples of this are policies regarding drugs, punishment and imprisonment sentences, and police strategies; this discrepancy is often a result of politics, and the undedicated public.
The crackdown on drugs that started in the 1980’s known as the “war on drugs” may be one of the worst policies every adapted into the United States’ justice system. The crackdown on the drugs shifted the view of dealing with drugs by treatment, which was more socially and cost effective, to harsh punishment, which has less of an effect (if any) and costs ludicrously more amounts of money. Treatment, which was more commonly given out before the war on drugs, does have an effect on drug use. A study done on a treatment program administered in Philadelphia called the Phoenix House program found that after treatment, “crime days” per month of subject decreased 66%, days worked per month increased almost 75%, and recidivism dropped 31% compared to before the treatment. Other studies have found similar positive results, including one study where recidivism dropped 65% (Walker, 268). While treatment programs do not always work, if they were used more and better funded, treatment methods could be matched specifically to patients, which has shown to have even higher results. People who really want treatment also have overwhelmingly positive results, and generally stay drug free afterwards, as opposed to just punishment through jails and prisons, where people more often than not will turn to drugs again. Not all treatment and drug education programs work however. D.A.R.E. Is an example of this. Spawned form the war on drugs, D.A.R.E. is an education program that is administered to school children between 4th and 8th grade to attempt to steer them away from drugs. Numerous studies have found this program to have little to no effect on drug use, with only a small effect on tobacco use (walker, 265).
The War on Drugs also has had large cost to society. The war on drugs costs the united states about 17 billion dollars a year, and it costs the economy about 4.5 billion dollars a year due to lost job and work productivity (Hess). People believe that “getting tough” on drugs will reduce crime, but this is false. Getting tough increases the amount of people in jail, in 1980, only 25% of people incarcerated were behind bars for drug offences, in 1996, that number rose to 60% (Walker). Numerous reports show that there is racial discrimination across all levels of the justice department, but this can be seen substantially in the war on drugs. Although African Americans only comprise 12% of the population and 13% of drug users, they make up 38% of drug arrests, and 59% of drug convictions (www.drugpolicy.org). Injustice and discrimination that can be observed is not good for the justice system. It will cause minorities (especially blacks) to not respect the justice system, and perhaps view it with contempt. This will cause strain, and lead to more crime. A study of one police crackdown in New York showed that drug trafficking was just displaced to other areas. When people are arrested for a drug crime, they are just replaced on the streets with more dealers and buyers. Often times, when someone arrested for drugs completes their sentence, the need for the drug is still there, so they also resume using and selling drugs. Opposed to treatment programs, where the need to use the drug or sell can be eliminated, harsh punishment and crackdowns seem like an expensive and senseless policy.
Our Justice Department has been steadily getting more and more harsh with the length and severity of the sentences it hands out. While keeping known criminals incarcerated for longer periods of time may have an effect on crime by not allowing those individuals to commit further crime, stricter sentences do not deter criminals, and are often avoided. This can clearly be seen with the death penalty, the most severe form of punishment. Statistics from the National Office of Vital Statistics show the homicide rates of three states, two with the death penalty, one without, have no correlation or effect on homicide from the death penalty. Two sets of years for example, have Michigan (death penalty) with homicide rates of 3.6, and 6.6, Ohio (death penalty) with homicide rates of 3.2, and 5.1, and Indiana (non death penalty) with homicide rates of 3.2, and 4.7 (Walker, p 104). It can clearly be seen that the death penalty does not deter crime.
Mandatory minimum sentences and “three strikes laws” have also been increasing in popularity and use, and they also do not seem to effect crime. If we consider the law of criminal thermodynamics, that the more severe a punishment is, the less often it will be handed out, and the more arbitrary the circumstances will be when it is handed out. This applies to mandatory minimum sentences. This is true here. Plea bargaining is used more often with mandatory minimum sentences, and more cases tend to be thrown out or dismissed when these laws are in place. A 1996 study of several states’ mandatory minimum sentencing laws concluded that there is no correlation between mandatory minimum sentences and crime (Walker, 139). Three strikes laws have similar consequences. Again, the laws of thermodynamics apply here, many of the cases do not get their “Strikes” counted against them through plea bargaining. Several adverse effects stem from three strikes laws. Many more of the defendants, fearing conviction, ask for trials by jury as opposed to plea bargaining. This in turn makes them wait in jail for a trail, which causes overcrowding in jails. To help ease this overcrowding, jails release other people much earlier. Convicts serving time for one year sentences in California were released 200 days early on average. The increased number of trials by jury also costs a lot of extra money, in fact, in California, three strikes laws have cost an extra 5.5 billion dollars a year (Walker, 140).
Three strikes laws cost extra money, do not deter crime, and back up the already overworked justice department.
If the justice department is so overworked, why not simply increase it’s size? While this seems like a good idea when police forces are effectively used, most of the time they are not. Simply increasing the amount of police and detectives will not deter crime. In 1994, President Clinton authorized the Violent Control and Law Enforcement act. This act cost over 9 billion dollars, and trained 100,000 more police to be put to work (Walker, 77). The 100,000 extra police had little effect on overall crime. In a famous study done in Kansas City, several forms of policing were studied in three different types of areas (which were randomly assigned). In one type of area, the amount and frequency of cops patrolling the streets was increased (proactive patrol), in another type of area, the amount and frequency was decreased to only responding to calls (reactive patrol), and in another type of area, the amount and frequency remained the same (control). The results were astonishing. Crime did not increase in areas with proactive patrols, or decrease in areas with reactive patrols; crime stayed the same across all field. The experiment concluded that more police patrol does not reduce criminal activity, crime rates, or the public perception of crime (Walker, 81).
It is apparent that many of the means by which we attempt do deal with crime in the United States have little to no effect. If this is true, then why are so many of these methods still employed? Two of the most significant factors may be politics, and the uneducated public, and how they play hand in hand. Crime is often a huge issue in politics, and is important to the people. Those who run for office may be motivated more by their needs to be elected, than what actually works. Getting “Tough on Crime” is generally popular with the common people, and getting tough on crime means locking up people for longer periods of time, more police, and harsher laws governing sentencing. To the public, this sounds great. One could see how it would make sense to the average person that doing these things could help reduce crime. People as a mass however, are generally uneducated about what actually works with crime and what does not. Politicians attempt to appeal to as many people as possible, and they do this by imploring tactics that usually do not work. One of the better examples of this is D.A.R.E. . Drug Education programs for children in our public schools sounds like a great idea, who wouldn’t want that. While the message and means are very honorable, it is apparent that D.A.R.E. does not work, people just believe it does, so politicians endorse it. Perhaps if politicians would listen to more of what actually works, and educate the common people about it, a needed and valuable change would arise. Until then, we will just have to stick to what doesn’t work.
By the way, I’m playing World of Warcraft now. It’s an MMORPG. I know I said I would stay away, but several of my dorm mates are playing. We’ll see how I do with this one, I think I have learned with 2.5 years off from MMO’s, and my past experience with EQ, on how to handle them. Wish me luck! Hah.