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Is there only one answer to all our problems?

Francisco Miraval

When my daughter was in either first or second grade, she attended a local Christian school. One day, the well-meaning pastor of the school taught the students that “Jesus is the only answer to all your questions.”

The next day, my daughter had a test at the school. Happy because she saw the opportunity to put into practice what the pastor taught her a day earlier, she answer every question in the test with only one word: “Jesus.”

I still remember that my daughter was convinced that the literal application of the pastor’s teachings was precisely what she had to do. She never thought there would be interesting consequences, such as redoing the test and learning a lesson that even today, all these years later, it is a topic of conversation in my family.

I was thinking last week about that story (a real story, by the way) when I read a news article about an 11-year old Hispanic girl who attends a school in a suburb north of Denver. She was handcuffed, arrested, and taken in a patrol car to a juvenile detention center for the unspeakable crime of leaving the cafeteria to go to her locker to get a jacket, because she was cold.

The mother of the young student acknowledged that perhaps her daughter was disrespectful towards the vice principal, who told her not to leave the cafeteria. At the same time, the mother rhetorically asked if calling the police was the “only answer” to alleged youth misbehavior and related problems.

Are we answering with “police” to all our problems, in the same way that so many years ago my daughter answered with “Jesus” all the questions of her test at school?

I need to clarify, just in case somebody is missing the point, that I am not criticizing any police department. In fact, I sincerely admire those men and women who courageously every day risk their lives provide us safety and protection.

But is the intervention of police officers the only answer or the best answer to all of our problems?

Because police is called not only in cases of undisciplined 11-year old girls. If a group of homeless people gathers at a certain corner to eat or sleep, police is also called to intervene.

I wonder why, instead of calling the police, we don’t call religious people or social workers to see what they can do to provide material and spiritual food and shelter for all those in need.

Or if there is a group on unemployed people expressing their frustration at a park because they can’t find a job, we call the police. Perhaps we should call people from human resource office, so they can offer a job to those seeking for employment.

I can hear in my ears all those counter-arguments against my Utopian suggestions. Regardless, the question is still the same: Is police intervention the only acceptable answer to all our problems, from misbehaving little girls to angry and hungry unemployed adults?

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