It was refreshing to read Mayor Sharon Cadwallader’s comments (Echo, January 15 and 25) addressing the route cause of youth crime.
Too much space is given over to the deeply flawed mantra of ‘adult crime, adult time’. Ironically this mindset results in totally the opposite outcome to what it hopes to achieve. Sentence a kid to adult time and you most likely will create an adult criminal!
It should also be noted that crime in general is decreasing, even if in local areas it does spike on occasion.
The mayor’s solution to create and fund diversion programs for these kids makes so much sense, rather than removing them further from the communities they are already drifting from.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
