Baby burglars?

By Edmund W. Lewis
Editor

According to several media reports, a group of kids, some as young as nine, have been breaking into people’s homes in the Faubourg Marigny and burglarizing them.

Needless to say, this is a troubling situation especially when you consider the age of the perpetrators and the way such activities can place a cloud over their futures before they even enter high school.

To their credit, most of the homeowners who were interviewed appear to be as concerned about the plight of these young people as they are about their homes being violated.

The last thing we need to see is another kid being shot in the head by an angry or frightened Marigny homeowner. Clearly, these kids are lost and need guidance, structure and discipline. Instead of being challenged and fully engaged with a full slate of summer activities, these kids are wandering aimlessly and getting into all kinds of trouble. Whether we choose to see it or not, this is all of our problem. This is what we get when we shut down swimming pools, playgrounds and summer day camps and privatize the city’s recreation department.

This is what we get when we play games with public education, practice educational apartheid; push struggling students of schools and act like we don’t see children being left behind. This is what we get when we refuse to raise the minimum wage and offer struggling families very little in the way of economic opportunities or services to lift themselves out of poverty. This is precisely what we get.

When I was a youngster, I used to be able to make a little money with a newspaper route, mowing lawns, raking leaves or working at an amusement park. Nowadays, most of those jobs are held by grown men and women. Most of the jobs teens once had at summer day camps have been eliminated and there are considerably fewer opportunities for them to get summer jobs at fast food restaurants. With many small businesses struggling to make ends meet, part-time jobs for teens appear to be few and far between. But there appears to be no shortage of work in the streets.

A former classmate told me about a year ago about a young man who was being relied upon to be the breadwinner for his family at the age of 10 or 11. He would spend his days in the French Quarter hustling for money – tap – dancing, helping tourist, singing, stealing and snatching purses when desperate enough. Apparently, he had so many run-ins with the law that most of the cops knew him.

When he finally decided he had had enough and was ready to go back to school, his mother became so upset that she kicked him out of the house. That led him down a more dangerous path that resulted in a conviction on a drug charge that landed him in prison. Considering that he is still relatively young, has earned his GED and plans to enroll in college when he is released in 2020, he is on of the lucky ones.

While this young brother made his share of mistakes, he benefited from a safety net and is a testament to the fact that there are no throwaway people. It is up to all of us to provide safety nets for at-risk youth and to always be on the lookout for ways to help those less fortunate.

Churches need to open their doors to youth. Athletes, celebrities and businesses need to adopt schools, and all of us need to start acting like we care.

This article originally published in the June 25, 2018 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.