The most convenient thing to do is point fingers at who or what is responsible for the rocketing teen crime problem in Vicksburg.

Citizens will blame the police. The police will blame parents. Parents will blame the schools anda  lack of activities for our young people. The young people blame, well, no one — they are too busy committing crimes.

Sean P. Murphy is Web editor. He can be reached at smurphy@vicksburgpost.com

The solution to a problem affecting everyone associated with this city is not easy.

Teen arrests in 2009 ballooned from 395 in 2008 to 663 in 2009. The arrests range from shoplifting to simple assaults to killings. About 35 percent of those arrests have occurred in the past 4 months alone.

The police cannot be everywhere every minute of every day. It is unrealistic to believe that a police force the size of Vicksburg’s will be able to control crime completely. A beefed-up police presence around known hot-spots for crime is a must, but not the complete answer.

VPD Chief Walter Armstrong on Monday said his department has added officers and plans to begin youth activities in an effort to get the teens off the streets. Off the streets would, in theory, lead to fewer crimes committed.

But what is there to do here for our young people? Youth baseball and softball provide needed outlets for mostly pre-teens. For too many, though, activities in and around the city are few. Remember the saying, “The devil finds work for idle hands to do”?

It seems as if too many of these teens should be in the classroom, but instead walk around at all times of the day. The number of young people congregating together is staggering. Seeing groups of young people during the summer is common, but it should not be common to see those young people during a school day.

Education provides the foundation for life. Knowledge is power. An uneducated society is an enslaved society.

Vicksburg has a problem facing it, but any amateur historian will say this city has had its share of problems before. Each time a major problem presented itself, the people who make this city what it is pulled together.

The troubling statistics — almost doubling teen arrests in one year — mean it’s time to pull together. 

The community — from Marcus Bottom to Lakewood to Kings to Wildwood— will be the solution.

What cannot happen, what must not happen, is for the community to throw up its collective arms in surrender.