Where Are the Parents?

          This month we commemorate the end of World War II in Europe.  While we are reminded of the worst atrocities committed by police states in Germany, Russia, and elsewhere, cops across this nation are being accused of abusing their power and causing social unrest.  Are the sign-carrying protesters who link Nazis and our police officers being fair?  I think not.

          When I was a little kid, we played stickball in our yard using rubber balls called Spaldeens.  Sometimes a batter would clobber the ball clear over the street onto the neighbor’s yard.  The neighbor didn’t like that, so every time he saw a ball bounce into his yard, he went out and grabbed it before we could get to it.  Many a game ended that way. 
          Our supply of Spaldeens exhausted, my brother and I decided to retaliate by vandalizing the neighbor’s black DeSoto.  But the neighbor caught us before we did any damage and called the police.  That evening the town sheriff came to our house and spoke to my father.  The next thing I knew, my brother and I learned a painful lesson in Crime and Punishment 101 taught not by the sheriff but my father.
          I never forgot that lesson.  In fact, I thought of it when I saw Tonya Graham smack her son and drag him away from the Baltimore riot.  It should be clear to everyone that juvenile criminal justice is best administered by a parent.  When there are no responsible parents around to teach their kids the difference between right and wrong, we get Ferguson and we get Baltimore.  We get dead kids and we get dead cops.
          We don’t need to focus on police abuse as the cause of arson and looting.  We need to focus on a worse kind of abuse:  parental neglect.