Unequal funding resources also results in unequal educational opportunity when you consider studies that show that one half of low income students who are qualified to attend college do not attend because they can't afford to.

And what is needed to prevent them from joining gangs was ample recreation for boys as well as girls, jobs and internships for training and money, and assistance to allow their families to live in decent homes.

Mandatory minimums have been shown to be discriminatory and waste the taxpayers' money.

In fact, the Harvard study data indicates that 70 percent of African American children attend schools that are predominately African American, about the same level as in 1968 when Dr. King died.

Obviously, there has to be a profound change in direction. Otherwise, interest on the national debt will start eating up virtually every penny that we have.

We live in an information and knowledge-based economy.

Rather than following through on the proven crime and violence prevention techniques that work, we are back to tough-talking sound byte policies that have been proven to not only fail to reduce crime but actually increase crime, waste taxpayers' money and discriminate against minorities.