5 critical social ills mandatory national service might improve

 I have wondered why the US doesn’t have a mandatory national service since I was a kid. Of course, when I was little there was a military draft in force and guys had to go off to war – so having to go off to take care of the country was a bit of a no-brainer.

There seem to be values around participation, civic duty, Americans want/expect that we haven’t found a way to teach. It makes no sense to me to expect parents and schools to provide this education and experience. And even if it does make sense, it certainly hasn’t worked. As a nation we are facing a mucky mire of social problems that are currently only being addressed by the prison system(s). Criminalizing and capturing people who aren’t behaving is expensive, damaging, wasteful, and doesn’t help the community. I wonder if a civic requirement for national service might not be less expensive than prison, and more useful to both individuals and communities.

One year of active civic duty upon high school graduation or at age 18 for those who aren’t attending high school anymore.

·      Assignment to work, live in another state

·      Provide transportation, medical, clothes, food, shelter & pay

·      Boot-camp

·      Saturday school

·      40 hours of work per week with on the job training (apprenticing)

While I find AmeriCorp an interesting program, the voluntary nature of it means that it’s a bit soft in order to entice and keep participants.

1. Health care
* require physical conditioning
* establish preventative health practices
* assess and treat mental illnesses early
* get people signed up for health insurance upon program exit

 

2. Unemployment

* vocational work experience - on the job training for a variety of critical services would improve people's chances of getting a job in the future - even if they were planning to leave civil service and attend college. Examples of the kinds of work a person in the civil service could learn and do.
     - child care
     - care for the elderly
     - construction, maintenance and repair
     - landscaping
     - data entry
     - public arts projects
     - transportation/ drivers
     - etc...

* job creation  - everything about the civil service would require creating jobs to support the infrastructure of the services.

3. Child care and early childhood education
The civil service could provide workers to child care centers that would create additional care for those who need it.

4. Pollution
Clean up and maintenance of the environment would be a terrific job. It might also establish lifelong better habits about waste.

5. Intolerance
I think this is where Saturday school would come in. If the civil service could educate all it's members about basic common courtesy in 4 hours a week for a year it might be a way to increase tolerance and civilized behavior.
Also, living spaces and cooperative living tutoring.

I can think of other social ills that this might help with including reducing the burden on our current criminal justice system.