Philadelphia Mayor Nutter - parents go to jail with kids

[True Earthling]

Mayor laying down the law on flash mobs...

This nonsense must stop,” he thundered at Mount Carmel Baptist Church. “If you wanna act like a butthead, your butt’s gonna get locked up. If you wanna act like an idiot, move; we don’t want you here anymore.”

“Parents, if you don’t know where your kids are, you’re gonna find yourself spending quality time with them in jail,” he said, calling absent fathers “walking ATMs” and “sperm donors.”

“A black man may not have an opportunity to take care of his children. There are no jobs,” said security officer Douglas Jordan, 49. “More police will solve nothing. You have to get to hearts. Throwing their mom in jail ... is just going to cause more havoc.”

While Nutter admitted that “99 percent” of Philadelphia teens are law-abiding kids, he said the other one percent are doing irreparable damage to their peers — and to their race. “Some of them have made chains on our wrists,” he said. “I am forced by the stupid, dumb, ignorant actions of a few to take actions tomorrow that will affect many.”

http://www.metro.us/philadelphia/local/article/937253--flash-mobs-mayor-nutter-takes-pulpit-to-talk-youth-mobs

“Take those God-darn hoodies down, especially in the summer,” Mr. Nutter, the city’s third black mayor, said in an angry lecture aimed at black teens. “Pull your pants up and buy a belt ‘cause no one wants to see your underwear or the crack of your butt.”

“If you walk into somebody’s office with your hair uncombed and a pick in the back, and your shoes untied, and your pants half down, tattoos up and down your arms and on your neck, and you wonder why somebody won’t hire you? They don’t hire you ‘cause you look like you’re crazy,” the mayor said. “You have damaged your own race.”

Parents will face increased fines for each time their child is caught violating the curfew.

The head of Philadelphia’s chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, J. Whyatt Mondesire, said it “took courage” for Mr. Nutter to deliver the message.

“These are majority African-American youths and they need to be called on it,” Mr. Mondesire said.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/aug/8/mayor-talks-tough-to-black-teens-after-flash-mobs/

[Drale]

1. I'm willing to take the bet that

most of those teens have parents who are or have been locked up before.

[Drale]

2. Self Delete.

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. Oh goody

These are from a little known fact from Mexican prisons... and a stain too.

Mr. Mayor you got lessons I guess

[True Earthling]

4. Did those kids commit a crime?

I don't see the correlation.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Their mom did, so the kids get to serve time with mom

It's been kind of a partial scandal for decades...

[SoCalDem]

5. Sorry Nutter,

Children learn what they live.

By the time a kid is a teen (and old enough to participate in flash mobs etc), they are pretty much "fully cooked".

The time lost in their toddler, adolescent years cannot be made up by sending their parents to jail, or sending just them to jail.

Parents who can make enough to live on, and live in a decent place for child rearing, will probably turn out "better" kids.

Giving Mom a handful of WIC vouchers and a food stamp card is not enough.

Children who raise themselves often do not do a very good job of it.