The letters accepting and assigning guilt for the behavior of the suspects in the Eve Carson killing are as predictable as the shortcomings of our society.
Yet the questions arise: Why don’t we pass some get smart laws? Well, the laws are there. What could we have done to keep them in school—art, music, dance, drama? Well, those are available. Why don’t we stop blaming and start addressing the problem? Well, the churches are there. The courses and the teachers are there. The schools are there. (I spent my first eight grades in a one-room school, with one teacher, the whole thing surrounded by cornfields. It worked.)

Then, on March 18, I saw the column about Rep. Thomas Wright. He was a role model until he got caught. Where and how did we let him down? What might we have done—perhaps some dance lessons? How much quiet, determined effort and altruism does it take to overcome one Wright?

Crime will always be with us. My cynicism has not been assuaged. But we are trying; moreover, in most cases we are succeeding. I concur that we must keep trying. In the words of a well-known late philosopher, we must never, ever, ever, ever give up.

Quentin Haning, Ph.D.

Raleigh