Building a Better Society

“Building a Better Society” Social breakdown is the connection involving young people and crime. In today’s society there are many young people committing crimes. There are high schools made up of gangs and young people fighting for no reason. Larry Smith categories the contributing factors into three categories: enforcement, justice and socialization. If we repair the problems involved in these factors then social breakdown will fail to exist. Larry Smith argues that enforcement is the way in which society’s rules are applied or not applied. In most cases some citizens do not acknowledge these laws and do as they please. The reason for this according to the article is that if we see our leaders ignoring the laws, why then should we ordinary citizens observe the law? This makes the way clear for us ordinary citizens to also break the rules and think it is right. Larry states our leaders need to set examples and make examples of those who breach the rules of behavior. By doing so us citizen would think of the consequences of our actions before we decide to break another rule. Larry also thinks that we need foreign police officers to bring some level of impartiality and motivation to our law enforcement agencies. I don’t see the need for foreign police officers, is there something wrong with Bahamians that they are incapable of impartial enforcement and justice? There is nothing wrong with getting advice from foreigners as he uses an example of British experts training police in Trinidad to counter criminal gangs that are terrorizing local communities. But to place foreign workers in positions that Bahamians can handle is not needed. This only helps inflate the employment rate even more. Firstly employment is one of the factors of social breakdown, doing so will only limit jobs to younger people interested in pursuing this field. According to Larry Smith, justice refers to the way we process those who break the rules. He states that a single