Society ruins Childhood

Mr. House
English101
November 28, 2005
The Child’s Inside
When I was a young child, I can remember being outside all day long. Now, when I drive down the streets of the once child filled city, all I see are leaves blowing across the street. Parks are bare with not a child in site. Society has worsened so drastically that parents no longer feel safe to allow their kids to experience the outdoors. Gangs, drugs, alcohol, molestation and abductions have become an epidemic that has parents fearful of their child’s future.
One major fear parents have is child abduction. There is a reported 797,500 children missing in the United States alone (missingkids.com). This has become such a prevalent issue that the government has established the AMBER Alert. The AMBER Alert notifies the public that a child has been abducted. It was created in 1996 when Amber Hagerman was abducted and murdered in Arlington, Texas. “AMBER is an acronym for America's Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response" (AMBER Alert). Although the AMBER alert recovers many children, thousands are never found and sometimes it’s too late for children when they are found. Therefore, parents find it much easier to just keep their child inside rather than allow this risk to happen.
Along with child abduction is child molestation. Children can’t play a sport or even go to church without a parent anymore. Those used to be the places a parent could drop their child off and be free for a couple hours. In the US alone, “there are roughly 4,000,000 child molesters” (kiddefense.org). Children ages 8-11 are more commonly molested and a third of females are molested before the age of 18 (kiddefense.org). What’s even worse is that “seventy percent of those adjudicated guilty of child molestation serve no time for the crime” (kiddefense.org). All over the world there are catholic priests molesting children. Many children won’t even admit that they have been sexually assaulted because the priest tells them to never tell anyone. What is a real shame is that these molesters are supposed to be the most trustworthy people in the world. They are supposed to be the closest people to god. Therefore, why would they even be suspected as child molesters? A sex offender could live right next door and no one would even know. This is why Megan’s Law was established. Megan’s Law requires “every state to develop some procedure for notifying concerned people when a person convicted of certain crimes is released near their homes” (Megan’s Law). This is because a young girl named Megan was kidnapped, raped, and murdered by a convicted sex offender whom lived directly across the street from her. In Vineland New Jersey, a local soccer coach had recently been accused of several molestations. David Durling molested children in his own home “mostly during sleepovers at his house” (NBC 10 News). Parents obviously trusted him with their children only to find out he was a bad man. Some of the nicest people turn out to be a parent’s worst fear.
Drugs and alcohol are two big worries parents are afraid their children will get into. Both are illegal, addictive and can possibly put hardships on the future. Both drugs and alcohol are extremely easy to get a hold of. All a child has to do is ask an adult to buy alcohol for him/her. If this certain adult is in need for money, they can easily over charge the child and the child will never know it. Drugs can be found right on the street. Narcotics are dealt all over and if a child really wants to try them, there is nothing stopping them. Thirty nine percent of children sixteen and under have tried alcohol and twenty one percent of children sixteen and under have tried marijuana (Juvenile Offenders 8). Parents realize the easy access to these harmful substances and don’t want their children exposed to it. Once again their resolution is to keep the child inside.
Gangs have also become quite common nowadays. These gangs get people arrested and basically kill any chance of a future. Once a person gets into a gang it is extremely difficult to get out of it. The problem with children joining gangs “is substantial and affects all sorts of communities” (Juvenile Offenders 27). In a 1995 study, there was an estimated 846,000 gang members and “more than half of these members were under the age of 18” (Juvenile Offenders 27). Besides joining gangs, parents also tend to be worried that their child could be a victim of gang activity. Many gangs harm people for little or no reason at all. On November 21, 2005, in Vineland High School North, a boy was hospitalized after being severely beaten by five people (Dunn). The cause of this fight was an unavoidable bump in the overcrowded high school hallways. Although it was originally believed to be a non gang related issue, it is now suspected to have been gang related. No parent wants to watch their child suffer.
Avoidance is the key to parenting nowadays. Maybe if the problem is never exposed to the child, it will all just go away. It doesn’t matter how many laws are made to protect children, parents aren’t going to be able to feel safe with their children outside. These laws are only good to things that are reported. Many things aren’t reported because it is kept a secret, like the Catholic Church accusations. Due to all of these crucial problems in society, children will never again have the ability to experience the good old days.

Works Citied
“AMBER Alert.” 8 November 2005. Wikipedia. 21 November 2005 org/wiki/Amber_alert>.
Dunn, Colleen. “Teen Beaten in Vineland High Critical.” Bridgeton News. 23 November
2005. 30 November 2005 .
“FAQ’s and Statistics.” 2005. National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. 30
November 2005 LanguageCountry=en_US&PageId=242#0>.
“Juvenile Offenders.” 1999. National Criminal Justice Reference Service. 30 November
2005 .
“Megan’s Law.” 21 November 2005. Wikipedia. 21 November 2005 wikipedia.org/wiki/Megan%27s_Law>.
“Sexual Assault of Young Children as Reported to Law Enforcement: Victim, Incident,
and Offender Characteristics” 11 July 2000. Bureau of Justice Statistics. 24 November 2005 .
“What Are Some Recent Abduction Statistics?” 2004. Kiddefense.org. 21 November
2005 .