Sixty-nine percent of those convicted in 1996 were sentenced to
incarceration.

Almost two-thirds of defendants charged with a felony in the 75
most populated counties in May 1996 were released from jail
pending disposition of their case.

Thirty-one percent of those who were released were rearrested for
a new offense or did not show up for a court date or violated some
other condition of their pretrial release.

These are statistics from the Bureau of Justice that can be found here.

Maybe the problem isn't the weapons at all, no matter what they are. Maybe the problem is that the System keeps putting criminals back out on the streets to commit more crime. I personally feel (despite being an ardent pacifist) that murderers and rapists should just be put to sleep like the dangerous beasts they are. That would solve the problem with overcrowded prisons. . .

However, I also think that there should be some serious changes in American society. I haven't always been a good kid, and there are a very few things that I've gotten away with behind my parents' backs, but for the most part my parents have always been reasonably well-informed of my whereabouts and actions. I think that my parents would notice if I began hoarding weapons or building homemade bombs in the garage. I think there are a lot of kids who are simply victims of benign neglect. I honestly believe that most parents love there kids and that most parents also like to think that they do right by their children, but I think that parents have become very lax in their supervision of their children.

People seem to be complaining all the time about what their kids see on television or on the internet, but what kind of parent allows their children to look at pornography or to constantly see gratuitous violence in film? I think the answer is a LAZY parent. The excuse that children are sneaky and devious and that they purposefully go out of their way to look at smut secretly is a myth. If "behind a parent's back" means while the parents are leaving a 9-year-old at home unsupervised, then I suppose that is behind their back. But again, do people do this? Who are they and where do they live? I had a baby-sitter before and after school until I was out of 6th grade, and I was mature for my age. It seems like people don't want to take action until their kid does something bad. Then they want the government to step in and take over their job as parent.

The government shouldn't have to raise children--parents should. The simple fact is that parents don't do their job. This, I think, is the single biggest problem with my generation--many of us were never supervised.

Where are parents when their children are looking at porn and playing violent computer games and watching R-rated films?

Peace--Keli