oh, the humanity...

I was watching a program on animal planet about animal cops (like animal services, not domesticated animals running around and catching bad guys [K9 units in a different more involved sense]) and how they were investigating someone killing and mutilating cats in a Florida neighborhood. And it made me thing that it saddens me that all we can do is react to problems. Our justice system can't take preemptive strikes against wrongdoers; we have to wait until the crimes are committed until we can act. And hopefully we will catch them. Often times the perpetrators get away, or it takes years to catch up to them, time in which many more casualties could amount. Yes it's a flawed system, but what are we going to do? We obviously can't just arrest any shady looking guy who wears a dark hooded sweatshirt and baggy clothing and hangs out in dark alleys at night and has shifty eyes. We can't scare people into doing the right thing, because that would go against people's constitutional rights, and I don't want to start on a whole discussion about what is "right" in this blog.

As much as it would be nice to get rid of all of the shady looking people, I know that this is not plausible, and I wouldn't even want this to happen. Some of those people are not as bad as their appearance might suggest. Many are good people who would never do anything illegal or worthy of being arrested. I'm not going to lie, I get nervous when a group of thuggish looking guys approaches. And I know it's not fair for me to start steroetyping people right when I see them. But I know that if a new person acts one way that reinforces that sterotype, I am more fortified in my assumption, and it is then harder to break my preconcieved notion of them before I have even begun to get to know them. I'm not trying to be racist. I'd be scared if Triads or Yakuza-looking people approached me. I don't want to be beaten up or robbed, and I certainly do not want to be forced to be a hitman. That was a tangent, and not a very well thought out one. But I'll keep that in as a reminder to myself for a future meditation: how the appearances of people display a sterotype to me.

But back to the main topic. I don't believe it is fair to the victimized population that our Justice system only has the ability to intervene after something happens. It is not right that we have to wait until a girl is kidnapped and raped to put an individual on a community watch list. Or that we can only apprehend the misguided teenager after he held up a store at gunpoint, threatening the lives of civilians. But we can't arrest people for things they haven't done. We can't tell a person that they are evil before they snap. For the man whose life has almost hit rock bottom, he will not accept that he needs help until after a serious consequence haunts him in his sleep. We cannot file a restraining order on the crazy ex until after they break into your house and defile your living quarters. We cannot give the child a time out until after he punches his friend for stealing his crayons.
I wish people were all born inherently good. The world would be happier, safer, more enjoyable. In my ideal world, although our ideas of "evil" could not be eradicated, there would be less greed, more acceptance, and more goodwill towards others. I think I'm going to have to do a post about humans being good vs. evil in the future. Should be fun.
So final thoughts. 1. I don't know how to end this. 2. I'm not really in a contemplative mood right now, so none of this post feels very deep or has the meaning that I wanted it to. 3. My mom is yelling at me because I haven't packed yet. 4. I'm hungry