“Crime is naught but misdirected energy.”

Those words are from Emma Goldman. Nobody needs to tell me that we have a lot of misdirected energy here in Oakland. A recently released report gave the police department's ninety day crime suppression program mixed reviews. One area showed "a small reduction in homicides, but there also has been an increase in other major crime categories during that same time period, including auto theft, assault with a deadly weapon and burglaries." Three hundred and twenty thousand dollars later, "Robberies, burglaries and shootings (also) continue to be a challenge." In the past week there was a shooting at a local movie theater, and another out by the zoo. Motivation for all this gunplay? Maybe the ten fifteen show of "Spider Man" was sold out, or perhaps the Meerkat enclosure was closed.
Maybe they're just plain mad. Out in Chicago, things are worse. Chicago already has had two hundred seventy-five murders this year. Putting an extra thousand officers on the street didn't make the dent city officials had hoped. Mayor Rahm Emanuel blames gangs. "We've got two gang-bangers, one standing next to a kid. Get away from that kid. Take your stuff away to the alley. Don't touch the children of the city of Chicago. Don't get near them. And it is about values. ... And I don't buy this case where people say they don't have values. They do have values. They have the wrong values. Don't come near the kids—don't touch them." He asked nice. Sort of.
Back here in the Bay Area, the Santa Cruz police department has decided to let computers help out. Officers are dispatched to places where machines anticipate there might be crime. You may have seen this in the Steven Spielberg/Tom Cruise film, "Minority Report." Future crime. Arrest them before it ever happens.
Or try and eliminate the causes of crime in the first place. Use computers if you have to. And stay away from the kids.