A.
Nowadays, something has gone terribly wrong with our once-proud American way of life. It has happened in the area of (62) A key ingredient is being (63) , and I think I know what it is:accountability.Accountability isn’t hard to (64) . It means that every person is responsible (65) his or her actions and (66) for their consequences. Of the many values that hold civilization (67) --honesty, kindness, generosity, decency--accountability may be the most important of all, (68) it, there can be no respect, no trust, no law--and (69) , no society.
B.
My job (70) a police officer is to impose accountability (71) people who refuse, or have never learned. But as every cop knows, external controls on people’s (72) are far less effective than (73) restrains such as guilt, shame and embarrassment. Yet more and more, especially in our large cities and suburbs, these inner restraints are (74)
C.
The main cause of this breakdown is a radical (75) in attitudes. Thirty years ago, if a crime was (76) , society was considered victimized. Now, in a shocking reversal, it’s the criminal who is considered victimized: by his underprivileged upbringing, by the school that didn’t teach him to read, by the church failed to reach him with moral (77) , by the parents who didn’t provide a (78) home.
D.
I don’t believe it. Many others in equally dis-advantaged circumstance choose not to engage (79) criminal activities. If we exempt the criminal even partly, (80) accountability, we become a society of endless excuses where no one accepts responsibility for anything. We (81) need more and more people who believe that the person who commits a crime is the one responsible for it.