My eight years as a City Court Judge reinforced my life-long belief in the fundamental importance of work in the lives of Americans.

Spending years arraigning mostly young men (we had relatively few young female defendants) between 18 and 30 from all over our area on a wide range of criminal charges, a pattern became crystal clear. About 4 out of 5 criminal defendants told me they did not work.

When asked how they supported themselves, some said girlfriends, some said food stamps, some just shrugged. A few said they worked “under the table” to pick up a few bucks.

Most said they had dropped out of high school and had not gotten a GED.

These young men seemed aimless, with no positive goals.

Many were arraigned on fairly minor charges, such as petit larceny, misdemeanor drug possession or disorderly conduct. Their goal in life was apparently to steal enough to get that day’s supply of heroin or methamphetamine. (Methamphetamine is a huge problem across New York’s Southern Tier, adjacent to rural Pennsylvania.)

Sadly this is not close to being unique to Chautauqua County. In New York State in 2020, 15% of high school students did not graduate.

Similarly about 30% of men between 20 and 24 are not in the workforce. That means that they are not working and are not looking for work.

America, historically, has embodied the “Protestant work ethic.” Martin Luther who ignited the Protestant Reformation in 1517, dignified all work proclaiming that all honest work is a calling, a vocation that is pleasing to God.

In other words, work in America is hopefully personally rewarding. Work is a big part of who you are. Work is a source of pride.

Recently, millions of French have taken to the streets to protest raising their retirement age from 62 to 64. Some commentators report that, unlike Americans, French society views work as something you endure until you reach 62 and then you finally begin to enjoy your life in retirement.

In America, President Franklin D. Roosevelt set 65 as our retirement age with the founding of Social Security in 1935. The writer, George Will, points out that when FDR set our retirement age at 65, average life expectancy was 66!

In 1983 when the Congress and President Reagan agreed some changes must be made to keep Social Security solvent for years to come, they amended the Social Security Act to gradually raise the full retirement age from 65 to 67, and unlike in France this year, there were no protest marches across America.

Keeping our young men in high school until graduation and teaching them the value of work as both a source of self esteem and a source of financial rewards, will directly reduce crime and use of illegal drugs.

Presiding over City Court’s Drug Court, I heard so many of our graduates speak of the importance of a job in helping them raise their self esteem and achieve a “clean and sober” life. A job meant 35-40 hours a week of doing something productive and not thinking about using illegal drugs out of boredom or idleness.

The late, great Daniel Patrick Moynihan, an adviser to both President Lyndon B. Johnson and President Richard M. Nixon, and a Senator from New York from 1976-2000 wrote many great observations.

Moynihan wrote “Progress begins on social problems when it becomes possible to measure them.” Statistics are some of the measures that can guide us in our role as citizens and guide our government officials.

We can see in young men the relationships between dropping out of high school and not having a job, with illegal drug use and committing crime.

Let us do more to lead our teenage males to at least finish high school, and then get an honest job or serve our country in the military.

These young men will be the better for it and we will reduce chaos in our communities.

Fred Larson is a 1973 graduate of the Princeton University Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs; a 1976 graduate of Yale Law School and served as a Jamestown City Court Judge from 2014 to 2022.