Troublemaker's Journal

My 18-year old son Traven finally learned how to drive and got his license in his senior year; that was last year, before he went off to college. He hadn't been driving much and he didn't know his way around very well, so one morning, as he was about to take the car from our home in Clifton to Walnut Hills High School, I asked him, "You know how to get there, don't you? You take Woolper to Forest to Rockdale ..." He said, "Oh, no, I'm not going that way. They shoot people on that street."

He was right. They do shoot people on that street.

We are all more conscious of crime now, since Kabaka Oba was shot in his car and Philip Bates gunned down on his porch, both killed.

I know I'm more aware of crime. I went last week to the funeral of one of the victims, the son of my friend, the Rev. H.D. "Mac" McBride.

Samuel Burson McBride, a good but a troubled man was found beaten and dead on the street near the corner of Reading and Lexington. His sister, Lillian, sang a gospel song, "I've Seen Those Ships Go Sailing" — sang it beautifully, movingly. As she sang, she cried out in grief, "Lord, you've taken my brother." Many brothers have been taken.

I'm just like everyone else; I worry about all of this. I don't want my wife, Sherry; my younger son, Reed; or myself to come home one night to find a gunman in the shadows. I want safety on my street, in my neighborhood and in the larger community. The question is, how do we get safety?

When crime increases, politicians usually step forward to say we need more police, tougher judges, longer sentences, more jails and larger prisons. We've watched this for years now: the expansion of police forces, the construction of more jails and prisons. Still we know we're not safe.

Since the police crackdown in Over-the-Rhine, it seems the drug dealers and the crime and violence associated with them have moved north to Avondale and North Avondale. I've heard someone call this "squeezing the balloon" or "pushing around the bump in the rug."

The presumption is that crime is a given and that it's constantly expanding, that we will always have criminals and crime and more and more of them. So the answer will always be more cops and more jails. The powers-that-be don't believe they can prevent crime but can only fight it. Meanwhile, as the fight goes on, those of us caught in the crossfire can only pray and sing, "Lord, you've taken my brother."

We need a different mentality. What if in 1950 doctors had said, "We will always have polio, and always more and more polio, so we should build more crutches and wheelchairs, more iron lungs, more polio wards and polio hospitals. We will hold services to remember the victims of polio. We will commemorate those doctors who die exposing themselves to it, putting up statues in front of the hospital and photos in the lobby."

The health community had a different mentality: Find a cure. Dr. Jonas Salk invented the vaccine. The nation mobilized. Private pharmaceutical companies, the U.S. Health Department and state and local health departments cooperated to carry out a massive polio vaccination campaign. The campaign began in 1955; the last wild case of polio occurred in 1979.

Crime might be more intractable, but we should approach the issue as we approached the problem of polio. We need to invest not only in crime prevention but also in criminal prevention: We have to stop the production of criminals. To do that, we need a new ethos in our community, one that invests our money, time and energy in producing healthy people.

Human beings are intrinsically social and creative beings who seek meaningful work and meaningful lives. Almost all human beings do, if they have a human environment and experience. So, as with polio, we have to begin with the children. We have to be able to say to the children, "We will give you a great education, and then we will send you into the world to meaningful jobs that will allow you to have comfortable lives for yourself and your children." We need to be able to make that promise. To do that, we need to change our priorities.

Consider the proposal for a new Hamilton County Jail. In November we will vote on a new jail to be paid for by a regressive sales tax that will last 10 years, while property owners are given a tax break. Working people and the poor will be asked to pay for this jail with taxes on everything they buy, from clothes to school supplies.

We don't need this new jail. We have four jails and enough beds now, if properly administered. The jails are full of people who don't belong there. Full of people who are mentally ill. Full of people with drug and alcohol problems who would be better treated in appropriate facilities. Full of people who have not been convicted of a crime, awaiting trial, but who can't get out on bail. Full of people being held overnight who can't get out because we have no night court.

We need to end the crime, violence and fear in Cincinnati. But to do so, we need another approach. We need jobs. We need to keep kids in school. We need family counseling. We need alcohol and drug rehabilitation. We need a different sort of city in a different sort of state in a different sort of nation, one that will ensure education, health care and employment for all.

We can't change the world all at once, but we could begin here and now in Cincinnati. We could make a small step in this election by voting no on Issue 12. (For information on Issue 12, go to He was right. They do shoot people on that street.

We are all more conscious of crime now, since Kabaka Oba was shot in his car and Philip Bates gunned down on his porch, both killed.

I know I'm more aware of crime. I went last week to the funeral of one of the victims, the son of my friend, the Rev. H.D. "Mac" McBride.

Samuel Burson McBride, a good but a troubled man was found beaten and dead on the street near the corner of Reading and Lexington. His sister, Lillian, sang a gospel song, "I've Seen Those Ships Go Sailing" — sang it beautifully, movingly. As she sang, she cried out in grief, "Lord, you've taken my brother." Many brothers have been taken.

I'm just like everyone else; I worry about all of this. I don't want my wife, Sherry; my younger son, Reed; or myself to come home one night to find a gunman in the shadows. I want safety on my street, in my neighborhood and in the larger community. The question is, how do we get safety?

When crime increases, politicians usually step forward to say we need more police, tougher judges, longer sentences, more jails and larger prisons. We've watched this for years now: the expansion of police forces, the construction of more jails and prisons. Still we know we're not safe.

Since the police crackdown in Over-the-Rhine, it seems the drug dealers and the crime and violence associated with them have moved north to Avondale and North Avondale. I've heard someone call this "squeezing the balloon" or "pushing around the bump in the rug."

The presumption is that crime is a given and that it's constantly expanding, that we will always have criminals and crime and more and more of them. So the answer will always be more cops and more jails. The powers-that-be don't believe they can prevent crime but can only fight it. Meanwhile, as the fight goes on, those of us caught in the crossfire can only pray and sing, "Lord, you've taken my brother."

We need a different mentality. What if in 1950 doctors had said, "We will always have polio, and always more and more polio, so we should build more crutches and wheelchairs, more iron lungs, more polio wards and polio hospitals. We will hold services to remember the victims of polio. We will commemorate those doctors who die exposing themselves to it, putting up statues in front of the hospital and photos in the lobby."

The health community had a different mentality: Find a cure. Dr. Jonas Salk invented the vaccine. The nation mobilized. Private pharmaceutical companies, the U.S. Health Department and state and local health departments cooperated to carry out a massive polio vaccination campaign. The campaign began in 1955; the last wild case of polio occurred in 1979.

Crime might be more intractable, but we should approach the issue as we approached the problem of polio. We need to invest not only in crime prevention but also in criminal prevention: We have to stop the production of criminals. To do that, we need a new ethos in our community, one that invests our money, time and energy in producing healthy people.

Human beings are intrinsically social and creative beings who seek meaningful work and meaningful lives. Almost all human beings do, if they have a human environment and experience. So, as with polio, we have to begin with the children. We have to be able to say to the children, "We will give you a great education, and then we will send you into the world to meaningful jobs that will allow you to have comfortable lives for yourself and your children." We need to be able to make that promise. To do that, we need to change our priorities.

Consider the proposal for a new Hamilton County Jail. In November we will vote on a new jail to be paid for by a regressive sales tax that will last 10 years, while property owners are given a tax break. Working people and the poor will be asked to pay for this jail with taxes on everything they buy, from clothes to school supplies.

We don't need this new jail. We have four jails and enough beds now, if properly administered. The jails are full of people who don't belong there. Full of people who are mentally ill. Full of people with drug and alcohol problems who would be better treated in appropriate facilities. Full of people who have not been convicted of a crime, awaiting trial, but who can't get out on bail. Full of people being held overnight who can't get out because we have no night court.

We need to end the crime, violence and fear in Cincinnati. But to do so, we need another approach. We need jobs. We need to keep kids in school. We need family counseling. We need alcohol and drug rehabilitation. We need a different sort of city in a different sort of state in a different sort of nation, one that will ensure education, health care and employment for all.

We can't change the world all at once, but we could begin here and now in Cincinnati. We could make a small step in this election by voting no on Issue 12. (For information on Issue 12, go to www.nojailtax.org).