Nipping Trouble in the Bud – Making Our Community Better

Last week we read about a controversial court case where a woman was absolved of any responsibility for leaving her newly born baby in the toilet of the Walmart washroom.

Response to this was, for the most part, critical.

In early winter, Saskatoon was looking for a baby that had been thrown away in the trash.

We still reel from the man who left his babies to die out in the cold – the gang members who violate so many people in so many ways, cold hearted murders and remorseless attackers with weapons like machetes.

The very idea of such things occurring is not only shocking but, really, incredibly soul-shattering. These events touch the core of who most of us are and we cannot imagine doing such a thing ourselves. We are mystified and frankly terrified because we don’t understand a seeming lack of conscience. As a society, we don’t know what to do and that is frustrating for everyone.

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How do you punish someone who simply does not care? Further, how do you prevent violators from re-offending, if they don’t care – about anything.

For my part, I don’t think anyone is born bad, without a conscience. I really don’t, though I do acknowledge that some are born with more challenges to be good: FAS, a genetic propensity towards behavioural illness and so on.

If you look to most people who are incarcerated for crimes – there was something that happened, or didn’t happen in their development.

It is no secret that Prince Albert is a city filled with a population of troubled families – troubled people. Having worked briefly as a dispatcher for City Police, though, I can tell you these families cannot really be marginalized to one ethnic or societal group.

As a society, we cannot deal with that truth by simply punishing offenders . We cannot lock them all up and throw away the key because there is a constant flow of people waiting to take the place of every one that is locked up.

It sounds odd, but that is why I love my job as Community Affairs Editor for panow.com.

I cannot tell you the satisfaction I get from bringing attention to people, programs and services in our community who  work so hard to take people at risk of being offenders – and turning those lives around; who look at the roots of the problems – and search for achievable solutions.

On the surface, there is a lot to be discouraged about.  All the achievements are harder to see – less newsworthy.

How many people, I wonder, have been saved from a life of addictions and crime and have, instead, taken a different road towards education and community development because of an intervention program offered to them and/or their family.

There are more than we can even know.

Think about the work of the Community Schools, the centres like the Margo Fournier’s Youth Centre, the Indian Metis Friendship Centre, the Bernice Sayese Centre – the programs like those being developed by Catholic Family Services to intervene in troubled families to find positive solutions to a variety of issues; the summer playground programs. There are programs to provide adults who didn’t have a chance for intervention as children to find help for addictions, to finish their education, to learn from their mistakes so they can live the rest of their life successfully. These are but a few.

As they say, it is easy to point the finger at a problem – but there is no reward in that.

It is better for us all to point that finger at ourselves and ask what we can do to make our community better. It may be nothing more than donating a blanket but that is a significant act. There is great reward in that. Not only do you feel good about being generous – but you know that someone who was cold, is now warm because of you.

I don’t know about you – but I would rather focus attention on preventing atrocities than on punishing them.

Check out the Community Groups in Community News. There are more than 150 and I am just getting started. Find one where you can provide some help. If you know of a group that isn’t listed, then let me know by contacting me at kcay@panow.com.

Have a great week. The days are getting noticeably longer and the weather looks fine. Get out and enjoy it.