i've uh
i've
well i've had i used to have the opinion that there was that there really wasn't any more crime in America in the cities anyway than there was in previous centuries
uh before uh simply because the reason there seems to be so much was the fact that
the police now had advanced uh reporting methods with computers and other devices
compile more statistics
that's right and those statistics in turn got them bigger budgets
um-hum
however i have been persuaded lately i guess simply by the uh overwhelming data that seems to be available that there is indeed a lot more violent crime
more especially where you are you in Washington DC or Washington state
well yeah
no i am in i am in Washington D C
yeah yeah i was going to say
actually it you know i do a lot of business here and i come here quite often and and that again is a is a sort of media perception there's some absolutely lovely and marvelous and peaceful areas in Washington
oh yeah
regardless of the racial makeup but it's it's these real uh there's pockets of violence that is so violent that they uh
it just really grabs your attention it just makes the whole place seem like that
yeah
right now just to focus on that a minute i guess uh
um when um previous secretary of uh
educate Bennett i think his name was became the drug czar uh for uh uh President Bush he was going to focus on it
yeah
on this area and do something about it and i see that even he was met without with with little success even though the entire
i guess a a quite a bit of money and and other uh planning efforts went into that
what do you what do you think is is causing all this because it seems that there there even though crime though though i think it is increasing in number it sure does seem to be increasing in intensity and violence too
well
yes
well i uh i have three theories about it you know three things i have one theory and it's by two things one i i believe that this is a function of uh the violence that young people see on television and in the movies
um-hum
and i am not just talking about you know uh
role models of uh of tough guys and gangsters and things like that i'm i'm not even
i'm not even
convinced that maybe things like uh football hockey and the the and and you know the the and even baseball games now where the everything is settled with a fight you know the the immediate need to show some sort of violence to settle the uh the argument and
and then i i am an advocate of hand gun control to some degree so i think that particularly i i was reading the other day about uh Corpus Christi Texas which has the highest
i think it's Corpus Corpus Christi that had the highest rates per hand gun death in America
hum
uh per capita i mean the Saturday night special stuff so that that's what i think about it that's some of the things i think about it plus uh
yeah i i haven't seen that but uh yeah
i know what are your views
well yeah i tend to agree with you with you know it seems anymore uh a movie can not be considered good unless there's just some
some sort of violence or something in it and and along with that you know and then you start making a movie and
yes
it it has no there's no call for something violent but so they just throw something in there just to say they have it
exactly well that's that's that's the impression i get yeah
yeah
and i and i imagine it's it you know it just feeds upon itself when when we have this sort of violence in society people want to it conditions people to it and
uh you have to emphasize it has to be even uh magnified to attract people's attention i guess to have them spend money on something like that and i am sure that it does form role models for young for young men and young women and
yeah you become callous
yeah
yeah
uh i mean i i read now where where
you know women are arrested young women are arrested fighting with knives over over
whatever whatever reason which is kind of unheard of when i was young now i do not want to sound like an old fart but but that that's what it seems that those things happened before
um
it didn't happen in that manner before television and i i i i have to think that that it has some influence on it
yeah
i listening to a radio talk show today at lunch time uh Rush Limbaugh i do not know if you listen to him or not he's on AM but uh there there's a fellow that had called in and was
but
yeah
no
lamenting about the uh that there was a interview done on the assistant chief of police for Los Angeles the guy under Gates and they were just really coming down on him because of
oh yes
some of the things he was just some of the things that he believed in some of his morals for instance uh they asked him if he spanked his kids and he said you bet i believe in discipline and people i i i i guess they confuse confused discipline with punishment
yeah
you know and just it seems anymore that uh if if you have
yeah
you know this type of a moral stance
that people come down on you it's like you know hey everybody has to be free to do their own thing and i disagree and i think that's really contributing to this high rate of crime
yes yes well i mean i i guess so what i wanted to say and i stopped uh i do not know i got diverted was uh that
uh there's so much there's so much of a return from prison to prison that the rehabilitation programs seem to be a failure and
and that is not emphasized i recognize there's there's over crowding problems and and since we have decided to put everybody in jail that commits a crime now that that's complicated the entire process what i also think is that
yeah
i i guess it's the reflection of of the society where where we have so much more mobility and less
attachment to
uh you know it does not seem to be any responsibility to the community
where you where you live or i do not mean responsibility attachment and responsibility i guess i mean
any sort of
well nobody feels responsibility to do something it's like oh boy i wish they would stop doing that yeah
yes that's right that yeah
i i do not know how that's i do not think it's done by uh the changes come simply by statutory nature i do not know what it really will take
hum
huh and i do not know if i have solutions except except to you know i am sort of a a an advocate of
of uh of letting people of having free speech and i guess to curb
uh television uh the violence on television and in the movies would be contrary to my beliefs in that however there does seem to be a right now in verbalizing it does seem to be a higher need for something of that sort
yeah
yeah and then how many
and the sacrifice isn't that great
how how many studies have to be done to show that there is a link between you know what you see and how you i mean what you see affects how you think and therefore what you do
yeah
yes yes i think i think that's correct
and and yes but you know as soon as you
start uh
well Texas has uh Texas has uh has always struck me i mean i i i have lived in and out of Texas both in the service and
and uh uh short business stints and it seems to me they are a pretty pretty tough law and order state but but yet that does not seem to have effected the
amount of violent right in the state just citing that you know
yeah uh unfortunately you man got a lot of the
uh some well a lot of it can be contributed to the the
the racial differences i mean just you know we are so close to the border with Mexico we've got a lot of that influence
yeah
yeah
