>Of course, the long-term solution is to eliminate the root causes that
>promote criminal behavior - that is, change land use patterns and promote
>stable and viable communities. But before those policies take an effect
>(it took a generation or two to get where we are now) - short term solution
>must be implemeneted to protect people from the rogue elements. I do not
>think that a zero tolerance policies - provided they are implemented with
>community cooperation and control and with the safeguards against police
>abuses - are not an irrational option to deal with that problem.
If the war on drugs & crime is your short-term solution, you had better lock up all offenders for life or execute them all upon conviction. Otherwise, you might one day bump into a walking time bomb of your own creation. As you know, most prisoners are neither lifers nor on the death row. They eventually return to society, some of them to your neighborhood.
Yoshie