How to reduce crime in Taber

If you ask anyone on the street if there is more or less crime in the Taber area than there was 10 or 20 years ago, most will say there is more.

So, if that trend continues, what will it look like in the next 10 or 20 years? Can we change that trend? In a recent Taber Times article, the solution discussed was increasing the number of police and raising taxes.

Imagine that, every decade more and more police, higher and higher taxes. We will always need police, but rather than continual increases to police forces and higher taxes, I would like to suggest another solution: better parenting.

If parents spent more time talking with, reading to, and teaching their children to be honest and obey rules, there would be less crime in the future. Enrolling children in sports programs not only keeps kids busy and gives them healthy exercise, but it also teaches them discipline, fair play, and team work. They learn that we get ahead by hard work rather than by cheating or committing crime.

Taking children to church and spiritual teaching at home would help lay the moral foundation of a life of goodness, rather than a life of crime.

Parents should also monitor the kind of movies kids watch, the kind of video games they play, and the kind of Internet sites they follow, because in the modern world, these things have a big impact on how kids learn to distinguish between right and wrong.

Yes, of course we need police and I appreciate how difficult their job must be; but I also believe that things will get worse if we only see this as a problem for the police to solve.

There will be no end to the number of police we will need and our taxes will continue to rise until more parents take responsibility and realize how important their role is to reduce crime by preventing crime long before it happens.

DAVID WALTERS
English Teacher,
Taber and District Community Adult Learning Association