Officers, deputies need better benefits
During recent weeks there has been much written concerning policing in Carroll County. The recent budget hearings involving the requests from the Carroll County Sheriff's Office and Maryland State Police concerning the resident trooper program has fueled this debate. What has unfortunately been lost is the actual issue, which is a fair and standard retirement and disability plan for members of sheriff's services, not who will be primary - the sheriff's office or a county police force.
The current resident trooper program will be phased out, as indicated in the past by State Police Superintendent Tim Hutchins. To implement a county police force is a matter to be addressed by the Board of Commissioners and the citizens.
The most sensible and cost effective option is to utilize a resource they have used for the past several years, the sheriff's office, a full service law enforcement agency, which has obtained accreditation through the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA). The savings of utilizing the sheriff's office vs. a county police force is estimated in the millions of dollars.
However, as stated by Commissioner [Julia Walsh] Gouge, her main concern with using the sheriff's office is that the commissioners cannot control and appoint a sheriff, but they can control the chief of a county police force. As a citizen of Carroll, a taxpayer and voter, Commissioner Gouge will have a difficult time selling that idea.
Law enforcement is a profession based on commitment to the citizens of whom they serve, sacrifice and protect. All police officers, as with our fellow firefighters and EMTs, are specially trained and continually place themselves in harm's way. Police must undergo a physical agility test, a thorough background investigation, a polygraph examination and a battery of psychological tests. They must master certain objectives and pass requirements of the Maryland Police and Correctional Training Commission.
In order to remain a certified police officer, they must annually train within requirements set forth by the training commission. In short, it is not an average career.
Members of the sheriff's office have been conducting primary law enforcement duties for the citizens of Carroll County and working hand in hand with all agencies within the county for many years. All of those allied agencies have a law enforcement retirement and disability plan.
Sheriff [Kenneth L.] Tregoning and the men and women of the sheriff's office only request what is fair and reasonable from the county commissioners: an industry standard defined benefit retirement plan, to include a disability and survivor death benefit.
John Shippee
The writer is president of Carroll County Lodge 20 of the Fraternal Order of Police
Kids need lesson on world events
Carroll County Public Schools have ignored one huge portion of children's education: knowledge of current events in the world.
As a senior enrolled in the Carroll County Public Schools system, I thought I was aware of what was going on in the world. However, a month ago my AP literature teacher placed Escape From Slavery by Francis Bok into my hands.
After reading this book, I was astounded by the horrors of the real world. Escape From Slavery tells Bok's story. He was kidnapped at the age of six and was forced into slavery by another culture that did not speak his native language. The book told of the hundreds of thousands of women and children forced into slavery when one day before they had been safely playing at home.
I thought that slavery and racism was in the past, not happening today. Yet no one, until now, felt it necessary to educate me about the real world. We students memorize history, analyze literature, and compute mathematical equations instead of taking action against the atrocities around the world.
My international studies teacher brought another story of suffering in to my life. Hotel Rwanda tells the true story of a man's experience in Rwanda during a civil war that killed over 800,000 people. The people were begging U.N. forces to intervene; however, the U.N. did nothing and eventually pulled out of the country leaving innocent people to die.
Why would the U.N. do that? Most people, including me, don't know that 27 million people are enslaved across the world. India has some of the highest slavery rates in the world with an estimated 16 million to 115 million children enslaved as laborers in India. Debts owed in India are paid through slavery as well, making the poor even poorer.
The conflicts and genocide come because of a lack of food, protection, and freedom. Starvation leads to a call for help and the most likely attention-getter is violence.
People are revolting -- as seen in Rwanda and Darfur -- in a desperate attempt to make their lives better. It is hard to imagine that less than 5 percent of the world lives in luxury while a huge majority of the world lives on less than five dollars a day. The wealthy and well-off part of the world blatantly ignores the issue as if it is not their problem; it is.
These countries need help. People need to be liberated, but the most powerful nations in the world are not doing anything.
President Bush signed the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act of 2006, but placing sanctions and freezing assets of their government can only do so much for a Third-World country that seems to support the genocide, rather than stopping it.
The resources in Darfur and other war-torn countries have dwindled to almost nothing, and there has been no great effort to help fund aid for these countries. The U.S. is supplying 84 percent of the food and supplies in Darfur. It is not only the United States' responsibility.
It is irresponsible for the world to ignore one of the biggest cases of genocide and slavery in history. The Holocaust is one of the most well-known cases of genocide and was highly publicized.
But in Darfur lives are continually being lost, and it seems that no one is talking about it. Since 2003, 200,000 civilians have been killed and 2.5 million lives have been disrupted and displaced around their country.
The sad thing is most people are indifferent. We should be worrying about things other than cell phones, iPods, cars and American Idol.
Anyone reading this should put himself in the place of someone living in a war-torn country with death and enslavement lurking just around the corner. How would you feel, knowing that help is not coming as your loved ones die around you?
People need to take action. Educators need to get the word out. They should have their students read Escape From Slavery as my teacher did or watch Hotel Rwanda.
Parents should learn with their kids, watch movies about real life stories, talk about the news and discuss life outside of their protected and safe home. Everyone can write to Congress and the Senate in hopes of someone finally paying attention to this atrocious situation. Ignorance and indifference are causing massive numbers of innocent deaths worldwide.
I wish that I had been educated about the events happening all over the world before my senior year in high school.
Schools have a responsibility to educate, and an awareness of life outside high school is just what the world needs.
Laura Murphy Hampstead