This morning a friend of mine who is an attorney in New York City that defends children post this on his twitter account.
All that Andrew ask of his friends is to take a stand and
support fixing this major issue that damages our society from the earliest
stages of child development. He asks that we speak out on this issue in our states
with our political leaders.
Here are a few facts about New Mexico:
Now, I know this topic is not
new or sexy. I know that people are demanding action and not compassion when it
comes to child offenders. The mayor in the largest city in the state has the opinion that it should be lock them up but never give them a hand up. Just
yesterday two young people in our city were reported to have put twelve bullets
into a homeless man last month. The pictures they showed on the evening news were of two
very scary young men.
Those young men did not get
to that level of violence and hate overnight or without the help of our
political leaders and our communities. State Senator John A Smith, who chairs
the Senate Finance Committee in Santa Fe, has time and again fought hard to
spend as little money as possible on programs to help support our children in
this state. He has helped to drive our state to the bottom in ever sector
dealing with child development and child welfare. People call him “Doctor No.” Our lead candidate for the governor’s race is
a good friend of his that wants nothing more then the same for our state. That
candidate will not take bold actions for our children. The same children that
will one day either grow up to be happy healthy citizens or drug addicted ones
that will kill homeless people for fun.
People will criticize me for
calling out anyone candidate on such an issue. They will say that I am trying
to help the republican candidate. But this candidate is not the only candidate
in the primary. We need to demand accountability from all of our candidates on
this issue. We need to demand that our elected officials take a strong bold
stand to help protect our children. We don’t want to see another child murdered
by their parents or one that is so disturbed that they turn to killing
themselves therefore ending up on the evening news.
Our children need protection.
It can only start with funding programs like; Children, Youth, and families
department, after school programs, pre-school programs, early childhood
programs, community centered programs for parents, social workers, nurses, and
support staff in schools and in after school programs.
These types of programs are
not high profile sexy like arresting all of the criminals and dropping crime
rates overnight but they produce long-term results that do reduce all types of
crime. In the long run they are cheaper then more jails and more prisons for a
school to prison pipeline that we currently run in this state. The current
system only benefits people that are highly paid like police officers, large drug
companies, and private prisons.
The real question is do our
children matter to New Mexicans or are they a product to be sold to the highest
bidder?
