Re: your July 30 article, “Reaching kids�:
Your article singles out a 20-year-old young woman who is the mother of three and working as a waitress as an example of the effectiveness of the Gang Violence Protection Program. I wonder if any of the probation workers and law enforcement officers interviewed for the article would consider their daughter to be a success if she were a 20-year-old single mother of three working a dead-end job as a waitress for poverty level wages? I think not.
Without a trade or an education to fall back on, our society is dooming another generation to the same chronic poverty and underemployment that led to the gang involvement and drug use that started this cycle.
Further, until all young women, regardless of ethnicity and income level, are encouraged to use their God-given gifts to improve their lot in life, get a trade and education, see the opportunities that await them in the world (aside from premature motherhood) and know that they are valued, I'm afraid that history will continue to repeat itself. Society is really not doing much more than putting a small Band-aid on a very large problem.
— Deborah Meyer-Morris, Oxnard
(The writer is past president of the Oxnard Council Parent Teacher Association. — Editor)
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