I agree, until all men are judged not by the color of their skin but by their character - so why did you need to inject race into this? No women were in the photos either, so what. These individuals no matter their race, age or sex broke laws, ingnored the 10 comandment and stole from others. There is no excuse, no defense no matter how hard anyone tries. Each of these thieves deserves to be where they are now except the 2 still at large. All of these grown adults chose to break the law and the law did their job very well.

I actually agree with you. However, we now spend well over $100,000.00 per pupil to graduate them in Richmond County. Since 50% are dropping out and not graduating by the 12th grade, we basically waste $100,000.00 or more per student. We have campus police in every single school, sometimes 2 officers. There are programs with the police and kids, after school programs, boys and girls clubs, church groups, etc. Problem is, the government cannot raise children, nor should they. Until parents take personal responsibility and accountability back and teenagers accept the fact that they are not owed anything by anyone, nothing will change. It is the job of the Sheriff's Office to arrest criminals and they did a good job at it. For those who were just "pawns", they would only be charged with selling stolen merchandise since it could not be proven they actually stole the merchandise. However, most arrested were in fact thieves, armed ones at that and are exactly where they need to be, behind bars. While I agree we must do what we can to help, we should stop enabling and making excuses for criminals. Our deputies do have scared striaght programs, work with students in the schools and other places but in addition to them our government already spends a great deal for social workers to "work with them" before they become bad. Being born in the US, they have more opportunity that most people, even if they are poor. They are given free food, reduced or free housing, public transportation, a free education, access to free programs, churches, and athletics - these adults failed to take advantage of any of that and instead took advantage of law abiding citizens.