Save the Children

Last week, I was devastated to see a little girl around my daughter's age (13) in handcuffs at the children's hospital. I have no idea of what see did to be placed in handcuffs but just to see it hurt me to the heart.  As a mother it sadden me to see this little girl with these two police men at her side. I wondered what she could have done and wonder where her family was, how did we get to this point where children are committing crimes.  In Philadelphia they have had children forming flash mobs and mugging adults, racial gang fights in schools the violent crimes committed by children increasing.  Where is this coming from, why are the children becoming so violent and what as adults and parents can we do to help these children? Building more jails is definitely not the answer. Can anyone tell (preferably a Politician) me why we put more money into war, jail systems and weapons than we do in education, books and the school system? Okay, we are the people and we can make anything possible in large numbers, so why haven't we made it know to our local politicians that we want our children saved not jailed.  Build more school hire caring qualified teachers and pay them well and provide them with the proper tools to teach.  Give our children more books and mentoring programs for children with deceased parents, addicted parents or absent parents. Show them that they count and not just around election time when they are old enough to vote.  When I was growing up, we had caring teachers who loved their jobs, books, pleasant school environment and a mentoring program which I might add helped my baby brother greatly.  When did we drop the ball and our children became the sacrifice, let's pick it back up and take another shot. The children need our help for one day we will need theirs.