but they can't be forced to want to stop being poor.
True, to a large extent. There are many with criminal records who make a decision they don't won't to go "there" again, and so begin to make tracks with getting their GED, which is a vast improvement.
Not even truancy laws can help a child want to learn, especially if the parent(s) is not encouraging education as a near religion in the home.
If your chosen skill set in life is stoop labor, stoop or starve. Better model for the kids than fat welfare moms and players who father 15 kids and brag.
Faced with starvation, they will find something to do.
“There are many with criminal records who make a decision they don’t won’t to go “there” again, and so begin to make tracks with getting their GED, which is a vast improvement.”
Until our society identifies the ex-offenders who really dont’ want to ‘go there’ again, and seriously helps those people out of that life, then there won’t be any improvement.
I’m not sure how you identify the ones who really want to change but if we can find a way it would vastly improve things. Right now it’s tough for those people who want to change to re-enter society.
While the military is by no means a dumping ground of any sort, OTOH, I have seen over and over again how those who are willing and able (emphasis: willing and able) opt for service as their ticket out of the ‘hood and out of poverty.
If a person can pass the entrance exams, make it through basic, and do the best job he or she can do in whatever is assigned, a person can go far in the military.
There is no one in America who, if willing and able, can’t walk, take a bus, call and 800 number, or send an inquiry off a public computer at the library to a recruiter to get the process going.
This is all to say this is just one way out of poverty for the willing and able. Not only out of financial poverty, but out of living in a culture that has a poverty of values that lead to success and fulfillment in life.
Our nation was begun and populated by the “flight of the willing and able” from England-—and later from the east coast to the western frontier. A person said, “if I have to be an indentured servant for seven years to pay for me and my family’s passage across the ocean, so be it. I’ll get out of this place, pay my debt, and then I’ll make something of myself.”