okay um does is this something that concerns you
well i think it does um especially because i just moved to Massachusetts and uh they're having real problems because they have so many uh police layoffs
uh-huh
and uh personally i don't live in a real bad section of town but uh just because of the general area i live in the insurance rates are real high on your car and there's a lot of crime within a few miles of me
right
how about you
yeah well i live outside of Dallas and it's kind of in a little suburb so i feel pretty safe out here but i know the murder rate is going up every year
yeah i uh
in Dallas and that worries me
yeah i recently moved here and when i was looking for a job there was a lot of openings right in the in the worst areas of town and uh my husband was was what he his concerns were well not that i think you'll get involved in anything but it just
be an innocent bystander just to be in that location and i thought how sad it was that just to be in a wrong location at the wrong time and and a lot of kids you know are caught that way
yeah
yeah there's a little boy just got shot and killed like last weekend down in what they call the projects which is
but
uh-huh
you know sort of a bad area but he was just out riding his big wheel and a couple of drug people got into a fight with a gun and he got hit and killed by a stray bullet
yeah that exactly
that's really sad i've so you know it must be frustrating
exactly what happened down here
frustrating for the parents who can't get out of a situation like that
uh-huh
it'd be so scary
i know they asked in the topic for ideas on how to control crime and it doesn't seem like anything is working
it really doesn't it's kind of scary i think that uh
i think the laws have gotten so lenient you know the court systems are too lenient
i think that's part of the problem
but in in on the other hand they have to be because the jails are full we can't at least in this area you know they don't have any room to put anybody so a lot of people just get out you know back on the streets because there's no they can't keep that many people in the buildings they have
yeah they do that here too but i say you know they commit crimes let them be overcrowded you know let them suffer a little bit
uh-huh
i know it they have all sorts of of rights that you know are questionable maybe they gave up that right when they committed the crimes
yeah i think so i think if they knew it was going to be really horrible wherever they were going maybe they'd think twice about doing it
that's true maybe the punishment should be more severe
yeah it the other thing that worries about it is kids that are doing such bad crimes so young you know like eleven and twelve and thirteen year olds that just go out and kill
i know it
people they i don't know if that's just a symptom of society and the breakdown of family and everything but that worries me i wonder what the next generation will be like
yeah
exactly exactly exactly because they get involved in things so young that they don't really realize what they're involved in
yeah
and uh some people prey on that you know they'll take uh kids who don't really realize the seriousness even at fifteen
yeah
and uh get them involved in things because
uh well i don't know i was watching on a movie on TV i don't know how true those can be but you know they one guy got all sorts of kids under eighteen to do it by telling them you know you won't have a record because you're under eighteen to steal cars and everything
oh
so i guess if they had more of a deterrent if they had more severe punishments it might be but the courts are so backlogged right now it takes forever just to go to trial
yeah
seems like if they had immediate more immediate uh consequences to their actions it would sink in faster
i think it would concern me even more if i had children which i don't but if i had children i wouldn't know where to raise them to protect them
really yeah
yeah because it seems like now even in the country you hear about
bad things happening so
uh-huh
it's true they uh and they they talk about too the gangs
spreading you know like everybody thinks of them only in LA and New York but they spread out
to cover more area and i don't know if if gangs occur much down in Texas do they
yeah i think they have them in Dallas because i hear them talking about in the schools different things happening and they've had some drive-by shootings outside of the schools
yeah the same in some of the areas around here but i've never had any personal you know i never met anybody that i knew had anything to do with it or seen anybody but uh
me either
that's a scary thing too because at that age kids want so much to belong to a group and i think that a lot of people that sort of control them
control what they're doing are older you know business you know trying to control whatever you know
yeah seemed like like in the fifties when gangs were big it was just to be part of the gang but now they're so much into selling drugs and weapons and all that
uh-huh
it seems scarier
it's true and the weapons my God the weapons that people have are some people are more seemed to be armed better than the military or the same as the military i don't know where they get them
really yeah those machine guns and all that yeah that's scary it's a wonder there's anybody who's willing to be a policeman anymore
uh-huh
that's the other thing uh is
it's hard to even i can't even think of what the benefits of the job would really be especially if you're an inner city you know you can't really feel like you're putting much of a dent in what's going on and you're putting your life on your on the line everyday
yeah Dallas they were saying in Dallas that they can't hire anymore policemen but they keep losing them all the time and that uh you know eventually we're going to be way short on the number we need because
i
they won't let them hire any new ones and they keep leaving
uh
yeah i just read an article yesterday um where this what used to be a nice town in this area
they had a lot of budget cutbacks
Massachusetts is broke right now and a lot of the towns are declaring bankruptcy and they had to cut twenty guys from their forces and the crime wave rate went up almost instantly because it was so well publicized that everybody in the area knew that town wouldn't be patrolled as well
it's like
huh yeah they figure what a heyday huh
this is a depressing conversation though
it really is well there's someone at the door so i guess i'll have to go see what my dog is barking about but it was nice talking to you
okay i hope things look up
well thanks same for you bye
bye-bye
