Civility and mutual respect seem to have disappeared as people kill one another over ethnic differences. But civility also appears to be fading much closer to home. Civility covers a host of matters in the relationships among human beings. But everywhere about us we see the opposite. This is evident in growing gangs, whose members show little respect for life and no respect for their enemies, who mar beautiful walls and buildings with their ugly graffiti, who evidently think only in terms of self.
Crime is essentially an absence of civility.
Some question the methodology of the study, but surely no one can question the gravity of the problem. No one can comprehend a figure of that magnitude. It is appalling. It is alarming. And when all is said and done the cost can be attributed almost entirely to human greed, to uncontrolled passion, to a total disregard for the rights of others.