[*BCM*] Bostoncriticalmass Digest, Vol 39, Issue 48

[ian schwartz]

I don't know if I agree. When you consider that casual drug use is so
prevalent among the youth in Boston, terms like addict become blurred.
Somebody in his 20's using drugs on a bi-weekly basis might not think
of himself as a drug addict, and indeed may not be judged by other
drug users as being one. How many days a week do you have to get high
before you get the label?

Perhaps there are actual numbers in existence somewhere rather than conjecture?

> Message: 3
> Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2007 13:16:46 -0400
> From: John Hays <jjhays2 at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [*BCM*] John Hays
> To: Boston Critical Mass <list at bostoncriticalmass.org>
> Message-ID: <46FD36FE.7030603 at gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> I apologize if my language was unclear - I didn't  mean to suggest that,
> as individuals, college students and 20 year olds are, generally
> thieves. I was expressing, in perhaps too colloquially a manner,
> generalizations about those groups across a large population. If you
> were to take a million people in their 50s, and a million people in
> their 20s, the odds are overwhelming that the group of 20 year olds
> would contain far, far more thieves than the group of 50 year olds. Of
> the data we have about criminal behavior, we are able to make a few
> highly supported generalizations, among them being that young people (as
> a group) commit more crime than older people, and men (as a group)
> commit more crime than women (as well as a few other, less fashionable
> generalizations that we don't necessarily have to get into).
>
> I should point out that I am 24, and the overwhelming majority of my
> friends are obviously in their 20s.
>
> And I rather think my position is far, far more defensible than the
> ludicrous notion that --drug addicts-- are responsible for most of the
> city's property theft.
>
> - John
>
>
>
> ian schwartz wrote:
> > "College students, and young people in their 20s generally, are
> > inveterate thieves"
> >
> > Is this really your viewpoint? That 20-somethings and college kids
> > steal out of some long-ingrained habit? Or were you just making a
> > broad sweeping generality for the sake of driving home your poorly
> > thought out point?
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> End of Bostoncriticalmass Digest, Vol 39, Issue 48
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