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October 30, 2011

Re: Deal with crime before it occurs, Reuel S. Amdur

Anne Marie Elderkin

What Prof. Irving Waller did not say is that to put the infrastructure in place for people to have greater access to skill development in groups sorted out to gain skills and debrief on the good and evil in our lives, our families, communities, nations and the World and set short & long term goals once we have gained enough knowledge to address these issues in our lives.

I believe the main groups for skill development are education, counseling, consultation, medical attention, community development as well as restorations of our physical, spiritual, emotional environments and economies from the inside out.

Addressing the war at home, the abuses, the violence, the ignorance, the apathy in the right manner can and will inspire each of us to accept responsibility and accountability for our share of the world’s problems & through groups sorted out for skill development, education and treatment we can turn the tide on crimes on all levels of society.

Anne Marie Elderkin

Author’s Response:

Waller does address the issue of prevention including education, for example, his reference to the Fourth R program. In my interview with him, he also addressed mental health issues.

Spiritual issues can be ambiguous. Religion has been used and is being used to justify criminality and oppression of others. Examples include the Catholicism of the Mafia and the attacks in Iraq by Sunnis and Shias on each other.

I must disagree with Sister Elderkin when she talks about working through education, counseling, etc. to "turn the tide on crimes on all levels of society," which seems to refer among other things to international affairs. International affairs cannot be reduced to things like gang violence or break-and-enter. The lack of effective international law leaves countries in a condition which Hobbes called "the state of nature". Nations behave in ways that would be criminal if committed within a country, and war criminals such as George W. Bush are not called to account for torture. As Cavour put it, "What cads we be were we to do for ourselves what we do for Italy." 

Reuel S. Amdur

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