[Golden Legacy]

This was a fairly heated debate I experienced in my history class the past year, and I felt it worthwhile to bring it up here.

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So the basic idea. It's unfortunate, but in society, there are... certain groups of people, people who experience lives of crime and even terror, and are constantly breaking the law. Now, these people (I'm avoiding making actual references here, but I am certain you can figure out who I am referring to), because of the way they are, education is almost meaningless to them. Maybe it's how they were raised, maybe it's just how they are.

But the point is, they would rather commit crimes, or really not make anything of themselves, than go to school.


Question: Should society try and send these people to vocational schools, where they pick up practical skills like how to be a mechanic, perhaps a construction worker, etc.? Do these people deserve a chance at "liberal education", like we have, with history, math, language, etc.? Should we try and change the people who live in slums and ghetto areas, or should society just accept that it's not worth trying to reach out to these people, and instead just send them to vocational schools and have them learn skills that they might use? Or perhaps just put them to work on community service projects only? Or, more extreme yet, should society just sweep through them all and deny them everything, or even jail them, because it's likely that they'd grow up in that way?

Doesn't it then become an issue of discrimination and racism? If all we say is to send this specific group of people immediately to vocational schools, aren't we then saying that they are generally bad people who don't deserve to be accepted as normal individuals in society, and that their ethnic group/social class is doomed to be such people?

[Someone Else]

Everyone deserves a chance, so I don't think shipping them to jail straight away is right... plus, it'd probably harm us MORE, because then we have to use more of tax payers money to hide them in jail when we could have used it to make them better people.

Vocational schools sounds like an okay idea. Something should be done, I think we should give it a chance.

[Mindpatch]

The worlds society is based on trying things out and giving people a chance.
Keeping criminals off the street will always be better then letting them comit crimes. I read on the news that some chinese people commit crimes just to get into prison, which to most of them is like a vacation. If the worlds society has sunk so far that even prison is better then on the street then something has to happen.

[Golden Legacy]

Now, I'm going to play Devil's Advocate here and present this argument (I will also modify my original post to include this):

Point 1: Doesn't it then become an issue of discrimination and racism? If all we say is to send this specific group of people immediately to vocational schools, aren't we then saying that they are generally bad people who don't deserve to be accepted as normal individuals in society?

[Toasty]

I think they desreve a chance. Besides having to pay extra taxes to keep them in jail, or the fact that they would commit crimes if we didn't, or even that it's underlined in my religion to forgive, everyone deserves to have a second chance, no matter what they've done. I don't like the fact that they commit crimes any more than anyone else here, but if they can change and become good people, why not put faith in them?

[Someone Else]

Waait, you added the bit about racism in later! I didn't realize what you meant by "groups of people".

****. Not all "groups of people" consist entirely of bad people! Don't treat people like big groups, everyone is on an equal scale here. Which, in turn means, that we're all suspects of being "bad people", even white people and asians, entirely capable of being sent to vocational schools. It's best to have that sort of view here, to avoid any discrimination problems.

So, what then? Send people to vocational school early. I'm talking about sending the bad eggs to rehab as little as in pre-school and such. I'm talking about the little kids that repeatedly trip the other kids in mud. I probably sound like and idiot there, but that's how bad people start. The little kids that just don't get it, you know what I mean?