Crime runs in families according to a front page article in the NY Times this morning. That is a conclusion made by Oregon particularly about one family whose 28 members enjoy incarceration in that state. “Rooster” Bogle is the “patriarch” of a family whose practices include: sending out children as young as 10 to steal, sexual abuse of children, beating wives, repeated crimes, repeated jailing, going to court and finally being “punished” by spending large portions of their lives being hosted by the State of Oregon.  All of this has prompted the State of Oregon to make a study of such families. It is the “cost” to the citizens of the state that promoted this study.  Crime does not pay for these people but people of the State of Oregon have to pay for the courts, prosecutions, incarceration, parole supervision, medical care and in one case, hospice care for the rest of a prisoner’s life.

One conclusion is the notion that crime runs in certain families. This idea is supported by our records that clearly show certain physical and mental anomalies also run in families.  We know some families perpetuate religious, cultural and belief systems that are unique and are a threat to the peace of the whole of society.  One extreme conclusion, although perfectly logical, is that society should rid itself of those families.

In the beginning of last century a study was made of mental retardation in certain families in an area of New York State. This was celebrated in the cartoon by Al Capp    who created “Lil Abner” a pictorial rendition of a rural backwoods family with a high degree of problems with living in an urban world. These families, the Kallikaks and Jukes, were the focus of a study to learn how many were the wards of the state where the state had to pay for their living in abject poverty.  One extreme conclusion, although perfectly logical, is that these people should be sterilized in order prevent new Kallikaks and Jukes and to avoid requiring their neighbors pay for their care in perpetuity.

Sterilization and incarceration are methods that remove irritants.  One is by making sure that no new recidivists are produced and others are “put away”.  Society is protected from its own members.  The cost of building prisons in our new millennium is going up because the costs of education and other social controls are too much for the powers that be.  We will go to war and destroy the best of our children but put up with the presence of habitual criminals and the innocent but incompetent.

In one state we have learned that the Bogle family trains and supports criminal behavior.  We know that in other parts of our country, and indeed in the world, that such anti-social behavior is perpetuated by families that mold their progeny to be just like them. At least in Oregon they are trying to build a data base and the phrase, “Driving While Bogle” provides a system where the cars driven by the Bogle family are stopped for checks by the police because their licenses are on record.

This is one of the “I spy” types of behavior with respect to possible terrorists who are stopped because they fit a profile for Muslim men with names and beards. Black people are stopped because their color is one of the indicators of the profile of persons involved in crime.  It is just one more step towards the kind of state that existed in the totalitarian countries we have met with in battle before.

If we become like them, what are we? Are we our brother’s keepers? I think we are. Who else would be responsible for them if they cannot be responsible for themselves? Why do we send our best and brightest out to war to kill and be killed?  Have we ever learned to be different?

I think it is a good thing to take the Bogles off the streets when they maim and thieve.  I think it is a better thing if we can break the cycle and prevent the training of new anti-social Bogles.  I think it is a good thing if we can find the genes that create the helpless innocents who must be cared for.  I think it is a better thing if we prevent them from reproducing themselves.

It is a hard choice, but I would agree to pay the costs for proper care and treatment of these “special” families than on the weapons for war and making soldiers out of the best and the brightest. It would be far cheaper and much more humane.