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An ounce of prevention against crime
The old saying goes, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
All of us have experienced things in life that a little bit of prevention on our part would have saved us a lot of pain and misery later. For some, it might have been taking care of their body when they were young. For others, it might have been listening to their parents and taking advice.
A couple of problems that seem to trouble Quincy are gangs and crime. Before I go any further, let me clarify something. While there may be a long listing of crimes in the police reports in the newspaper each week, we don’t have sections of town that we are scared to walk through for fear of our lives.
And while we have gangs, we don’t have sections of town that are known to be gang infested like other cities, such as Chicago and Detroit. And unlike those cities, we don’t have numerous unsolved murders.
In reality, Quincy is safe. But we must not let that knowledge lure us into becoming lax in our efforts to combat crime. Yakima did not think they had a crime problem and did not take measures to prevent crime until the city had a problem they could not control.
Quincy is being proactive in crime prevention. Some of those ways are through school classes and after school-programs. Another way is through town hall meetings.
The town hall meetings were instituted by the police department after citizens of our community said they wanted a chance to get to know Quincy’s police officers and have a chance to express their concerns.
These meetings have no set agenda. Topics discussed are those brought up by citizens.
I have attended some of these meetings and have found them informative and, occasionally, entertaining.
I am able to put names and faces with some of the Quincy officers. I have a much higher respect for our city’s law enforcement because of it. I encourage you to attend next week’s town hall meeting and take a step in crime prevention.
