EDITORIAL: Midnight basketball isn’t about basketball
Macon-Bibb County Commissioner Virgil Watkins Jr. believes it’s time to revive the midnight basketball activity of a generation ago and is asking the commission to fund the idea at a cost of $25,000. While we have reservations about whether the concept remains valid 13 years after the initial federal grant, it’s worth a try.
The concept of midnight basketball has been derided as a waste of time and money, but basketball, though in the name, wasn’t what the program was about. Basketball was just the hook to catch disaffected youth who, unfortunately, had no adult supervision at home and ended up running the streets and getting into more than mischief at all hours of the night.
It will take more than the proposed funding, however, to pull together a program that can be successful and sustainable. It will also take a number of community partners, the sheriff’s office, school system, churches, DFCS, Central Georgia Technical College and other agencies for it to make an impact. Once reeled in, the players and observers can learn what services are available to them from caring adults who can help steer their lives in a more positive direction.
This can also be an effort to confront an issue -- a rise in murder rates -- that’s already facing many other cities across the country. Some of the increases are dramatic. While it’s fairly normal to see the murder rate seesaw locally (Macon-Bibb had 23 murders in 2012, 17 in 2013, 16 in 2014 and 16 so far this year), other cities are seeing wide swings. According to The New York Times, Milwaukee, not a city usually thought of as a murder capitol, has had 104 murders already this year. It had 86 during all of 2014. Washington, D.C., Baltimore, St. Louis and Milwaukee have experienced more than 40 percent more murders this year than last. New Orleans, Chicago and Kansas City, Missouri, were up 20 percent or more.
No one can explain the rise, but it started before the high profile police versus citizens confrontations. Most of the murders involve black men 30 years old or younger. The data from other cities show the most common thread in the murders is not gangs or robberies but disagreements. There seems to be a low threshold for settling petty arguments -- whether more than a social media post, a girl or some slight -- with a gun.
Will midnight basketball address this plague before it hits the streets of Macon-Bibb County? We don’t know, but it’s worth a try. If success can be tracked by some of the measures Watkins has suggested -- enrollments in GED classes or CGTC or other institutions -- then $25,000 would be a bargain. It costs more than $20,000 to house and feed one inmate in the Law Enforcement Center or a state prison for a year.
This story was originally published September 2, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "EDITORIAL: Midnight basketball isn’t about basketball ."