I won't lie. As I approached this group of upper class white women, all impeccably presented at a very swanky affair, I assumed the topic might be how hard it is to get good help. Yet on second glance my stereotype was shattered, knowing that these '50 something' women were very much thinking women extremely knowledgeable in current affairs, I broached the topic of crime. Well, move over Antoinette, and watch out Ms Cooper because these ladies got attitude!

Drastic measures

It started politely, commiserating on how crime had reached catastrophic proportions and something needed to be done. A little chit-chat on the success and perceived failure of the Grants Pen project and then, lady to the left got warmed up. She called for drastic measures, "Shoot them!" Lady to the right and middle lady, tensed up immediately, "That is not the answer!" Lady to the left clearly thought the other ladies were unrealistic and idealistic, "A man who burns a child to death for reprisal cannot be reformed, shoot him!" Middle lady who was now irate with this hard- line approach, storms off.

Lady to the right wanted to know if we were to shoot the police too, they also committed crimes, a good use of logic, except lady to the Left didn't really seem to have much problem with that either, her frustration with crime was palpable. Lady to the right stomped her umbrella firmly into the ground. As the debate unfolded, they began to enunciate each syllable of their names clearly, the accents got far more formal. Lady to the right had by now dug a considerable hole in the ground, giving countless examples of police brutality and statistics on police killings, while lady to the left gave examples of gruesome heartless murders. Occasionally, they looked to me for the deciding vote, I stayed neutral. Who wants to get hit by a Luis Vuitton at a society event?

Type of conversations

The conversation ended as fast as it started, but now they were at polar opposites on the topic, and it had been the type of conversation that left everyone thinking. I was sure lady to the left would burn some of it off at her gym class the next day, and lady to the right might retreat further into her work. I certainly gave it some thought, how the right wing and the left wing of the same bird could be so far apart. Then it occurred to me, the right wing cannot fly without the left, and neither can the left soar without the right.

While these two women argued like antagonists on different sides of the war, they were actually on the same side. They both, in their own way were passionate about finding a solution to crime. The enemy is the criminal. Likewise in recent weeks as the crime issue has become an undeniable crisis, we are beginning to argue among ourselves. We are picking at semantics, we are rejecting those who are actively involved in the process, and divided we will fall.

Hard-line policing

Recently in Chicago, hard-line policing removed that city from the crime capital of the United States, yet as the policy to remove the criminals at any cost and with impunity thrived and crime rates fell, the crime fighters soon became criminals and even attempted murdering their own. The Mayor brought in a former FBI man to clean up the police force and the gross corruption was uncovered, as the police force was cleaned up, the crime rate began to rise again. In Chicago the experts have now accepted the need for aggressive policing, yet it must be done within the law because crime is crime no matter who commits it. The balance is key.

We look around for the solution to crime, and scratch our heads because we can never agree on what must be done. Yet perhaps we have the answer, perhaps we are the answer, the left and right challenging the police force and all united against one common evil, the criminal.