True or not true: The family can do more to stem drug use
Alcoholic Myth-of-the-Month: It’s the families’ fault
“The family can do more than the law in stemming drug use.”
“I’m going to continue to make a hard run at the families of these gang members. You are responsible, partially, for the lack of help your child gets.â€
So said Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, stepping up his pressure on parents to take responsibility for their children in the wake of the cold-blooded murder of Deputy Jerry Ortiz, allegedly by known gang member Jose Luis Orozco.
One of the more obvious problems with this is that Orozco is 27. His parents, described as “religious and hard-working”by a former neighbor who was “offended”by Baca’s remarks, moved to Las Vegas two years ago to get away from the neighborhood.
Another is that relatives of those charged with crimes are not allowed to stand in judgment in the jury box for good reason: they typically will not vote to convict, regardless of the evidence. Families, in other words, are not good at offering tough love in uncompromising fashion and at imposing logical consequences on the perpetrator, particularly as the crime worsens. At some point, the law needs to step in to perform this function.
Sheriff’s Department Homicide Bureau Capt. Ray Peavy said there wasn’t much more authorities could have done to prevent the tragedy. Yet, Orozco’s rap sheet spanned more than a dozen years and reportedly included arrests in four counties for vehicle burglary, assault with a deadly weapon, floating bad checks and possession of cocaine and marijuana. He had not been in contact with his parole officer since January, after serving time for a weapons violation.
I asked several former gang members at an addictions conference earlier this year what percentage of gang members were alcoholics. Their estimates were, in every case, 100%.
Note to Capt. Peavy and Sheriff Baca: the criminal justice system could have done far more to prevent this tragedy. While there’s nothing wrong with parents doing what they can to intervene in the lives of young addicts, the rest of us cannot count on them doing so. The law has the excuse to intervene and the means to effectively do so by coercing abstinence. Recovering addicts don’t act like ruthless animals and murder people.