What do you think? Is it really "for the children"?

[madmusic]

I'll admit I'm very skeptical when someone grandstand "for the children." Too often they have another agenda. Is this one of those cases?

VENICE HIGH SCHOOL-AREA SWEEPS ORGANIZED BY CITY ATTORNEY'S
OFFICE LEAD TO ARREST OF FIVE WANTED FELONS

LOS ANGELES - Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo today announced
the arrest of five wanted felons and the placement of four children into protective
custody following Venice High School-area sweeps undertaken by the City
Attorney's Strategy Against Violent Environments near Schools (LA SAVES)
program.

Three teams of officers representing the Los Angeles Police Department, the Los
Angeles County Probation Department, and the State Parole Board yesterday
morning conducted targeted sweeps for wanted felons living near Venice High
School. These sweeps led to the arrests. In addition, officers confiscated a
shotgun, rifle, a handgun and a machete as well as illegal drugs including
methamphetamine and cocaine. Four additional suspects face charges for new
parole violations after providing invalid addresses to authorities.

snip

Since the launch of the Safe School Zones project, LA SAVES has conducted 15
operations around Los Angeles Unified School District campuses including a
September sweep near Banning High School. To date, the program has resulted
in the arrest of 46 felons from Safe School Zones, the rescue and removal to
protective custody of 49 children, as well as the confiscation of six firearms,
narcotics and hundreds of rounds of rounds of ammunition.

edit: http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:SU5QIQBb3b4J:www.cityofla.org/atty/attypress/attyattypress6940851_10052006.pdf

What is especially bothersome is the "rescue and removal to protective custody of 49 children..." Granted, maybe in some cases the children really were in some danger, but given the trauma of being romoved from their home, and given how ruthless and dangerous some foster homes can be, the danger they are "rescued" from should be real and not arbitrary.

We don't know what these felons were wanted for - failure to appear on traffic tickets, technical violations of probation or parole, dirty drug test? There are a lot of possibilities that may not have put their children at risk at all. So it seems these people are targeted only because of where they live: within 1000 feet of a school. And there is no evidence they were any danger to any one who attends those schools.

Again, this could be grandstanding with sound byte slogans that sound great, but after some thought could actually do those 49 children more harm than good without actually making the neighborhood safer. Someone will bring up the drugs and weapons, but it's possible only one person had the drugs and weapons and no child was removed from that home, so as good as it sounds to get drugs and weapons off the street, that may not factor into the risk to the 49 children at all.

They could also wait to make the arrests until another parent comes home, or call a parent to come get the children.

What do you think? Is it grandstanding or a good program?

[Vexatious Ape]

1. Grandstanding

I understand that a lot of these kids come from shitty homes, but their lives will only get worse by pulling them out and sending them through the system. The war on drugs has got to go.

[madmusic]

2. Maybe the City Attorney running this thing wants to be mayor.

There's something uncanny about this program.

[Solo_in_MD]

3. Anyone who uses "its for the children" meme does not get my support

Be it for bonds, schools, guns, crime, energy etc. My experience has shown that anytime that is invoked its for some other agenda.

[madmusic]

4. Sometimes it's genunie...

But this programs looks very muddy and it is not at all clear if the benefits, if any, outweigh the potential damage to the confiscated children.

I would hope the victim's/children's rights advocate with some clout in L.A. look into it.

Then there are the civil rights issues. The program would have to accomplish far more than free publicity for the city attorney to be worth it.

[benEzra]

5. Ooooooooo.....wow, six firearms and six boxes of ammunition...

and three of the guns came from one house. Sounds like they're not finding many guns in these raids. Of course, felons aren't allowed to own guns...

I agree that my BS Meter starts creeping up the scale whenever somebody says to do something "for the children," whether it's enacting TV or Internet censorship or banning protruding rifle handgrips. It's usually a cover phrase for "I can't come up with any rational reasons to support my position, so just trust me on this."

[VelmaD]

6. this is how it starts

They convince people it's ok to do this kind of sweep since it's near schools and "we gotta protect the children" but eventually they just keep moving outward until they can do it anywhere at any time.

[meow2u3]

7. Every time I hear "for the kids", I get my back up

When the authorities take kids from their parents arbitrarily, it's not to protect the kids from parents whose lifestyle authorities don't like. It's to protect the authorities from the consequence of their own misdeeds.