Italy's most powerful and enduring organised crime groups known as mafias are built on blood ties. But a controversial program is removing children from mafia-affiliated families in the hope of breaking the cycle and giving them a chance to choose a different life.
It’s a tough question. Doing nothing obviously just leaves the cycle to perpetuate itself, and there really aren’t that many ways to break the cycle. From the article, it seems like the govt is at least putting resources into making sure the kids are cared for.
There’s a wealth of options inbetween nothing and kidnapping children. Education is probably the best, showing kids they have better options will do wonders. Another option is to imprison mafia members, it’s much more difficult to influence children from prison.
The mafia have been managing it for generations, so that option obviously doesn’t work.
We’ve had this discussion many times, though from the opposite side. School and education is for teaching kids facts and about the world, but they do not (nor should they) have the capacity to be substitute parents. And that’s for neglectful parents, much less parents who are actively teaching the kids negative values.
All in all, excepting the potential for abuse of this precedent, I’m not sure why this is such a bad thing. The parents and family have proven themselves to be bad influences and unfit guardians, why would we WANT to continue exposing the kids to their influence?
Italy needs to get serious on imprisonment for career criminals, they don’t.
It’s not morality to teach kids about all the options they can choose to earn a living.
It astounding that you can’t think of why government kidnapping is a bad thing. They have no right to take kids from homes because they want to “tame the savages”.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Indian_boarding_schools
Did you miss my big, big disclaimer? “excepting the potential for abuse of this precedent”.
In the case under discussion, the parents are convicted major criminals, there’s a big difference from targeting a certain race. I do agree it’s a potential slippery slope.
You can teach the kids their options, but the home environment obviously exerts a greater influence, especially if they are brought up to glorify it.
I have a serious, non-rhetorical question that I’m honestly interested in an answer to. Given that the parents and family have proven themselves to be bad influences and unfit guardians, why would we WANT to continue exposing the kids to their influence? This question is specific to this situation, not about the potential for abuse of the law in other situations. I don’t have a dog in this fight, I appreciate hypothetical discussions.
Only in a perfect scenario would there be no abuse, so it’s nonsensical to ignore it. The reality is how bad will the abuse have to be before this program is deemed a failure.
There was no due process to kidnap the kids. Part of the parents sentence was not loss of custody. If you look at history the state has been a much more terrible guardian.
Source? It’s an official govt program being run by a judge. Not even those opposing the program are claiming it’s against the law, they’re just saying it’s a bad idea.
Worse than grooming the kids to be crime lords? It’s a closely scrutinised program, and nobody’s calling shenanigans on the implementation, not even the kids being interviewed. It might not work out, that’s true, but I am not seeing a reason that it would be a definite failure.
I’ll know this may sound strange but just because it’s a government program does not mean due process is followed. Loss of custody was not part of sentencing, these are additional conditions applied after sentencing.
The interviews published were hand selected, the articles are very biased. I’ll sumerize a different way, only 3 of the 100 kids taken from their parents did not speak poorly about their experience.
One of the foster centers is the Catholic church. Nothing mixes better than Catholic priests and children.
Due process means the law was fairly applied and their rights were respected. I agree and understand that a govt program does not mean this is the case. In the absence of any countervailing evidence however, that would be the default assumption.
I agree with you there. The kids are not under a gag order though. Is there any other article or source that indicates a different situation from the one described here?
There have got to be better ways than forcibly breaking the parent/child bond by taking away the children, even if there has been no abuse or neglect. Just because they’re mafioso doesn’t mean they mistreat their children.
I would think that the doing something would be breaking that bond by arresting the parents. Maybe even leave the child with one of them.
It’s not about child abuse, it’s about ending the intergenerational crime cycle. Though depending on your viewpoint it could be argued that raising kids by grooming them to be crime lords is a form of child abuse in itself.
From the article:
I know, I read the article, but they’re going beyond that now. And I really don’t think that making children hate the government by taking them away from their parents is going to break the crime cycle.
Like I said, it’s a tough question. I agree it’s very much a grey area, but I do think it’s better than leaving things to continue the way they have been up to now.
I just think of all the other situations in which children were taken by their parents such as the U.S. foster system or Canadian residential schools and they tend to churn out criminals. But hopefully you’re on the right side of things and this will help break the cycle.
The obvious difference I’m seeing (at least based on the article) is that the US and Canadian systems were woefully underfunded and overwhelmed. Whereas this program has a small number of participants and seems fairly well supported. Time will tell I suppose.