The Crime and the Glory

According to the 2004 statistics for crime in Baltimore City, the figures are a bit appalling:

47,726 incidents of crime (translating to 7,524.4 crime index per 1000 people)
11,667 murders
4,050 reported robberies
7,159 reported aggrevated assaults
36,059 reported crimes against property

All this from a city that has a reported population of 651,154 people.

Now, if you are a resident Baltimorean, this is no surprise. There is no shock when people discuss the crime in this city. When you say, "my car was broken into," in any other town, there is a sense of shock, a disturbance in an otherwise peaceful mind. Say the same phrase in Baltimore and the listener most likely will cluck their tongue in empathy, launching them into a story about a similar experience.

What gives? Where is the sense of outrage in this city? The only answers that local government cook up involve technologically advanced cameras that film unwatched footage of people walking around the corner to rob at gunpoint.

The main problem is that there is a willful ignorance toward the issue of crime. Who is the enemy? What does the thief or murderer look like? It would be easy to target certain groups of people, which is the tact that the city officials have followed. However, the only way to stop crime is to go to the root cause of crime: unhappiness. Our society is designed so that the all-mighty greenback has an iron-fisted grip of all people. Money is the cause of both supreme happiness and utter despiration.

However, what is the solution? We can't overturn our capitalist ways, try as extreme liberal groups might. Money is here to stay. So is bankrupcy, poverty, and living paycheck to paycheck. We as a society cannot undo the ills that plague us. We cannot stop the pain.

So here's my theory people: give crack out for free.

For those who have nowhere else to turn, self medication is the answer. Numb the pain, the mind is free from the unhappiness of the body. That's why people turn to this stuff. It feels good compared to the relative agony of conscious existence.

That's my bet why someone broke into my car last night. They didn't take anything. I had cleaned out my car in preparation for my parents' visit. However, they rifled through my glove compartment and through the interior, looking for money. That is the only explanation why they didn't take anything else: my satellite radio, the bag of sellable stuff in the trunk...like the last time my car was broken into, the bandit was after cash.

Imagine the frustration for this contemptable soul. No quarters for their dime bag.

How do we stop petty crime? We will never stop rape and murder under our current system. People are too willing to pay the price of getting caught: as Richard Wright intimated, what punishment is worse than living in America's ghettos? However, we can do something with these annoying crimes: give them what they want. Supply the soma to dull the pain. That, or let the bandits roam around rich people's houses. They can afford weekly replacement of vent glasses on their Bentleys.

To end this rant, I have one other story to share on a lighter note. My predictions for upsets in March Madness.

First Round

Texas A&M over Syracuse

NC State over California

Winthrop over Tennessee

Second Round

Bucknell over Memphis

Final Four: Duke, UCLA, UConn, and Villanova: UConn takes it all (and that prediction hurts as a Blue Devil fan)