Yukon Delta leads AK in sex cases

adn.com | crime : Delta leads state in sex cases
Dysfunction, alcoholism, abuse and neglect seems so common out here in the Bush that I fear they are PREVALENT: not just a problem, but actually LIKELY. In other words, for any given child in rural Alaska, it is more likely than not that the child will grow up in a violent, alcoholic, abusive and/or neglectful environment. Or, put another way, growing up in a severly dysfunctional environment is NORMAL here.

It is also the case that those children will most likely by Inuit.

That means being Inuit in rural Alaska and growing up in a serverly dysfunctional environment are closely related, but it doesn't mean that one causes the other: correlation is not causation.

There are other places in the world where geographically isolated communities of poor people exhibit the same high levels of dysfunction. I'm thinking especially of the Aborigines in Australia. I'll find a link to a recent story I saw on the BBC website. It's also true on Indian reservations in the US and Canada. I bet it's true in very poor urban neighborhoods in the US and in Europe, too.

It's tough to understand the dynamics. It seems to me that there is special combination of lack of resources, a cultural confusion, isolation, and a lack of a stake in the political economy, that, once it mixes with the inevitably toxic effects of addiction, creates a terrible feedback loop of despair and neglect.

I further suspect that these same forces are at work among people who are not "minorities," nor poor, nor isolated; however, the material success of the more fortunate people perhaps mitigates and masks the effects of the despair and neglect.

But if you come out here to rural Alaska, one can witness first-hand the slow motion disintegration of a people, laid bare for all to see; one can earn a decent living participating in the decline, or trying to mitigate its effects; but no one - no one - has any clue whatever on how to rescue them, to rescue US.

What's really wierd is that its basically legal to neglect yourself and your family, and shift the costs of that neglect onto everyone else. Technically, much of that meglect is illegal, but practically it is, because the resources are not available to deal with all but the most extreme cases.

I wonder if perhaps the resources were limitless, would it help? Or is it the resources that are contributing to the vicious cycles? So much money and so many programs have failed to break the vicious cycles - are the programs flawed, or simply underfunded? If, instead of expanding the American empire to control foreign lands of oil and poppies, we instead diverted those resources to rescue our neediest families, to really break the cycles of despair and pain, could it be done? Would all of us eventually reap the rewards of safer towns, smaller prisons, less need for social programs, happier people?