At Monday’s meeting of the planning committee on “Turning the Tide on Youth Violence” some interesting ideas and perspectives were discussed.

Crimes committed by juveniles in Selma seems to be on the rise, leaving local leaders and law enforcement agencies looking for answers.

Monday night some of those answers came from people who have been there.

In the book “To Kill a Mockingbird” Atticus Finch explains certain human behaviors to his children by telling them “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view — until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

Monday night, we had that opportunity.

Two former gang members who are also Selma residents explained that some young people feel gangs are the only place they have to turn.

The gang becomes their family. If they need money; the gang does what it has to do to get them money. If they need shoes; the gang does what it has to do to get them shoes. In their eyes the gang is taking care of them.

The same is true for young parents with no family to back them. One of the speakers made a strong point when he said “If you have a family and you have tried and can’t find a job and you don’t have a way to move somewhere else what are you going to do? You have to do something to make sure your babies have some food.”

For people who have jobs, homes and food on the table, it’s easy to write off young people with criminal records. It’s easy to accept that they will be in and out of detention centers with no hope for rehabilitation. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Someone has to teach these young people that gangs are not the family unit they appear to be.

Gangs are growing. They are taking advantage of young people by pretending to give them an easier life, all the while using them to increase their stranglehold on communities.

It’s going to take more people who have been there and moved on to better things to convince these young people there is a better way.

Planning commissions are great, but until we can find more people who have walked around in the same skin, we may never reach these young people.

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