Crime vs. character

By April M. Silvaggio  

SEPTEMBER 29, 2010 10:51 a.m. (0)

The percentage of crimes committed by children in Greenville County has increased steadily since 2005.

Youngsters between the ages of 10 and 17 over the past decade have been responsible on average each year for about a third of the arson, vandalism and sex offense cases prosecuted by law enforcement officials, FBI arrest records show.

Juveniles in that age group are charged in nearly a fourth of all property crimes cases, officials said.

Those statistics equaled the arrests of 2,979 young people in 2007, the most recent detailed data available. Of those arrests, 170 were for violent crimes.

It is the sort of thing that is troubling to folks like Marc Howard Wilson, a former congregational rabbi in Greenville who is one of the individuals behind Greenville County’s first observance of Character Counts Week, slated for Oct. 17 through 23.

The goal of the week, sponsored by a new initiative called Character Matters in Greenville, is to underscore the fact that good character taught to a community’s children and practiced by all citizens is a basic key to the successful growth of any community.

“Quality of life is about more than Falls Park, the Liberty Bridge and the business community,” Wilson said.

The local initiative is the brainchild of Greenville’s Dick Berger, who has modeled his program to mirror Character Counts!, a nationally recognized character education program established in 1993 by the Joseph & Edna Josephson Institute of Ethics, a nonprofit and nonpartisan teaching organization based in Los Angeles.

Character Counts! promotes what are known as the Six Pillars of Character – trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring and citizenship. It isn’t religiously or politically based. It is simply about right and wrong.

National members of the Character Counts! coalition includes organizations such as the American Red Cross, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, Little League Baseball, National 4-H and the National Honor Society.The 478 members nationwide who participate ranging from school districts, educational organizations, schools, service organizations and businesses benefit though access to an educational framework for teaching universal values and by having an established network of organizations that support each other.

The only members from South Carolina are Greenwood High School and Fort Jackson’s Operation Military Kids program in Columbia.

Locally, the goal of Character Matters is to build its reputation by partnering with individuals in the community known for their dedication to working to improve the lives of children.

Among those individuals are Greenville County Schools Trustee Leola Robinson-Simpson; Greenville County Councilwoman and retired educator Xanthene Norris; local attorney, businessman , civil leader and municipal court judge Merl Code; and local attorney, civil leader, former chief of staff to U.S. Secretary of Education Dick Riley and former vice chairman of S.C. First Steps to School Readiness under Gov. Jim Hodges, Frank Holleman, Wilson said.

Another goal will be to build awareness through the media and work with schools to promote the city’s first Character Counts Week.

“We don’t see ourselves as reinventing the wheel, so much as perhaps assessing where the gaps are,” Wilson said. “This isn’t something that can be taught one day or added on to the school curriculum. This is something that needs to be integrated into the fabric of our community.”