There’s a telephone pole on Sabattus Street that bears a morbid lesson in sociology. Cultures constantly cross paths, and outcomes of such encounters are attributed largely to self-determining prophecies.

In Lewiston, and in many other cities across the U.S. and around the world, encounters between the subcultures of youth and law enforcement have manifested devastating results. With the attention not only of the media but of all six agents of sociology focused on violence, it is no wonder that we manifest a reality of fear. It is this reality of fear that pushes the accelerators of police and young people. Both misunderstand each other’s culture, in the same way that parents and children misunderstand each other. Both are looking out for the macro-culture of Lewiston; however, the definition of Lewiston differs for each.

For the policeman, the youth becomes a criminal; ghetto trash, taking a joyride. Police do the community a great service, but they need to know when to back off. Young people aren’t running out of arrogance, they are running out of fear. They are trying to duck a punishment worse than any spanking imaginable.

Youths read the papers and know the laws. If the fear of the “menace driver,” aka the “scared youth,” convinces the public that harsher penalties should be bestowed when one is caught, the scared youngster will drive faster, and public posts will continue to bear the cross of a culture of fear, and “the one that got away.”

Luke Gizinski, Lewiston

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