Broken Windows

In her Sunday NY Times column, Big City, Ginia Bellafonte focuses on differing opinions regarding the NY Police Department's "broken windows" policy but is there a policy for a broken system?

Dorothy Day railed against the “dirty rotten system” that the police are called upon to enforce.  Unfortunately, the academics and policy makers work within that system.

If one thinks outside that system, perhaps with the eyes of a Christian anarchist, one can envision window breakers being turned over to a board of neighborhood parents which would find humane ways to turn the troublemaker to more social behavior without imprinting a criminal record while also helping the miscreant find dignified work within the community.  This will require the promotion of strong families.  Not faux families as proposed by the system but real families with mothers and fathers who lovingly police their children by teaching them self-mastery.

These thoughts arise in the wake of my previous blog post, Dorothy Day and Ferguson, with a long quote from Emma Goldman.