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# Youth gone wild is result of mismanagement This past week, Q-line asked
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/youth-gone-wild-is-result-of-mismanagement-this-past-week-q-line-asked/
- Published: 2003-10-24T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T03:07:37.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Community, Pico, #archive-import

“How should we address youth violence, and is creating jobs for them going to help?”

Here are your responses: ■ “I think youth violence should be addressed by the parents. It should have been addressed way back when they were children. I don’t know any other way to do it. I don’t know how many of those youths wants to work. You see them sitting around at the Promenade, and I don’t think that they even want to work.” ■ “The young people today do not turn the other cheek. No one has a kicking or slapping license. If young people are slapped, they will slap back. If they are kicked, they will kick back. That which is described as violence is actually street justice, known as getting even.” ■ “Creating jobs for youths at risk, and youths in general, is nice and helpful, but far from the answer. In fact, it is only a Band-Aid. Society at large is really to blame for the violence in the youths. Witness all the violence and smut being shown on TV and in movies these days and it’s not even a double standard they are being perplexed by — it has become the only standard. A cesspool climate of morality prevails. Also, God has been taken out of the schools; courtesy, kindness and caring are almost non-existent. It isn’t cool anymore. So what are the young people left with but bad direction or no direction at all.” ■ “Every bar and liquor store on Pico Boulevard should be replaced with resilient uses of space, such as preschools, day care centers, elder centers and hospitals. Youths could learn construction, auto mechanics, body shop and auto upholstery. Youths could be trained to become child care professionals, home care professionals or help elders. This would make a large improvement in communities like mine — the Pico neighborhood.” ■ “Arrest those who are committing the violence. Put the police where the most violence is happening. If criminals tend to see more police on the streets, they tend to not want to commit the crime. Creating jobs for them is not going to help. There are plenty of jobs out here for anyone who wants to work. Some in the Pico neighborhood are saying that these youths deserve to be making $15 to $20 an hour — so-called “living wages” when they are unskilled and uneducated. Who wants to hire someone with a gang attitude? When you’re in the professional world, you have to act professional. You have to shed your street mentality and act like an adult instead of a punk. In the Pico neighborhood, it is the city’s fault for putting in so much low-income Section 8 housing in a small area, thus creating these people with a false sense of security. These developments also bring in outside influence and outside gangs.” ■ “Let’s give these kids something to feel proud about. If jobs can be created that will give these kids a boost in the self-worth department, go for it. Job programs, art, music, theater programs and sports are like money in the bank for our future. I know several artists who said that they would be dead on the streets if it weren’t for Paul Simon’s art program in Harlem. I think we should give them anything we can.” ■ “Guns, drugs, liars, fake police departments and a corrupt city government are to blame for the status of the Pico neighborhood.” ■ “I think we should create new jobs for our City Council for not addressing youth violence. They don’t even address the issue.” ■ “I think what Santa Monica City Council has to stop doing is wasting money on making dog parks for $7 million and create job skills for these youths at risk and for youths not at risk. We have enough dog parks here and it’s a waste of money. What we need to do is start investing in our community.” ■ “I think they should worry about the kids and not the dogs.” ■ “It’s very hard to tell a kid to take a minimum-wage job when he can make a hundred grand a year dealing drugs. Really, drugs and the criminal activities associated with them are at the root of this whole problem, and will be until they legalize drugs or crack down on the pushers and dealers in the neighborhood. Everyone knows who these people are, they’re just too scared to blow the whistle on them. Once again, the “War on Drugs” has failed.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 24, 2003.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/102403.pdf?ref=smdp.com)