Homicides in Los Angeles.

As we are treated to the gathering of stars, glitz and glamour of the Oscar ceremonies in Hollywood give some thought to the continuing carnage on the streets of Los Angeles. Recently, we entered an earlier posting on this subject. To today so far, since January 1st, 105 homicides have been recorded there may well be dozens more. The Los Angeles Times is recording incidents of homicide, stabbings, shootings, in the city, often gang related violence.

The victims tend to be Afro-American and Latino youths and sometimes White. These killings are draining the lifeblood of the city, youths who because of failure to find gainful employment and trapped in a cycle of poverty and drug culture, yet have we heard any real concerns from presidential candidates on how to tackle this hemorrhage of youths? Unfortunately, this subject seems to be escaping all presidential candidates, this blog just refers to L.A. and yet all major American cities witness similar events daily.

What is happening in the city of glitz, glamour and wealth is a tragedy and it is being added to everyday and yet outside the local community, the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles Times there is a deafening silence and ultimately a complete failure by all politicians to address this issue.

DNA Database?

Last week’s successful trials against two very unpleasant criminals was a result of the police having access to the DNA of both following earlier crimes. If these records had not been retained then clearly the police would have had a much harder job of catching these men.

So there is a strong argument  for retaining the DNA records of those who have been known to have broken the law this it would seem be the wisest step to take.

Whilst we would see no objection to a national database we are sure that when fingerprinting  became standard procedure in solving crimes someone must have suggested a national database of fingerprints. If it means criminals can be apprehended via DNA stored on a national database we would see this as useful. We are law abiding citizens and therefore would not object to a national DNA and fingerprint database and care little about the whimpering and moaning noises from Liberty.

Mosquito.

Mosquitos, no not the winged variety but a gadget which has been installed, (4,000) outside shops due to anti-social behaviour is apparently regarded now as a more serious nuisance to children. Al Aynsley Green the Children’s Commissioner has joined forces with Liberty to outlaw the use of mosquito alarms as the buzzing noise it emits can hurt the ears of anyone under 20.

We would agree that there is a genuine problem here as it doesn’t just create a problem for anti-social youths but innocent people under 20, including babies.  In a sense it somehow misses the point that the problem of anti-social behaviour committed by youths is merely moved on elsewhere and doesn’t solve the problem.

As we have writen before there is a real need for local and national government to provide facilities for youth so that they do not become bored and hang about outside off licenses and supermarkets.

So let’s see some policies for youths from local government councillors and mayors to create youth facilities and youth activities.