Every day, every single blazing hot day, a certain group of kids come to the pool. They’re ghetto kids. They grew (and are growing) up in the “bad areas.” Their dads are in prison. Their moms are prostitutes. Their older brothers are drug dealers. Their friends are people just like them. They break the same rules everyday. They get kicked out of the pool everyday.

According to a certain book (I’m too lazy to go find out the title…it’s about little children who turn into killers and stuff like that) it says that 1 in 4 black males in America (circa 1997) will end up in prison. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, physical abuse, and emotional abuse make it almost impossible for those black males to not end up in jail.

I’m thinking about preventitive crime tracking. Any gradeschool teacher can tell you who they think will be a criminal. I will be willing to bet that not one of those kids I see everyday will avoid jail time at some time in their lives. So if we put parole officers on these people as kids, how will it affect their decisions? Will they not make that drug deal? Will they not steal that car? Will they not kill that man? Of course some will, but some won’t. If they know that they will be caught, that they can be tracked, will it stop them?

I know, I know. It’s not “Guilty until proven innocent,” so it wouldn’t be fair for them to have a police officer keeping tabs on them. It would be invasion of privacy. It would be un-American. But, how many lives can be saved? Would the results of such a program justify the costs? Would some counselling help those kids who break rules just because their friends are watching?

More on this later. I might even do a research paper on preventitve crime tracking.