Name:  Mariya Lukashenko

School:  Susan E. Wagner High School, Staten Island, NY

Teacher:  Mrs. Michelle Gecevice

                                         "How Can We Improve Respect for Law?"

     Winston Churchill once said, "If you have ten thousand regulations, you destroy all respect for the law."  In a country where we have only twenty-seven amendments, we have over hundreds of thousands of laws governing and regulating us.  Regulation is controlling human or societal behavior by rules or restrictions and according to Winston Churchill that lowers respect for the law and I agree.  The law is very complicated and tricky; deceiving with loopholes and other imperfections, the law allows a criminal to walk and sometimes, convicts the innocent.  All of these issues stem from over regulation and too many holes in the system.  The best way to improve respect for law would be through an in-depth examination of its aspects.

     As students we are given knowledge that will one day help us be good citizens and contributors to the economy.  Yet, what we learn in our government classes and American history can hardly be classified as necessary.  A majority of students walk out of class and forget what they learned that very day, others graduate and not really care what they learned about.  It is one thing to teach out of a textbook and another to show the students more in-depth quality of what they need to know.  For a high school student, "respect" for the law is deemed highly unnecessary as long as you don't get caught breaking it.  However, when a student visits and interviews an inmate at a county prison, the perspective alters.  During their exchange of words, the student gains hands on look at driving under the influence and why the law prohibits such behavior.  The need to follow, understand and respect that law becomes clearer.

     Another approach used towards respecting the law would be to study and analyze laws as a class.  Through the dissection of current trials and discussion, each involved party will be able to explain their reason for guilt or innocence.  When we become involved in the law we come to respect it.  Even when we learn to understand when laws need to be changed, we have the respect for our country and our people to try and have it changed for the better.  Sometimes it is needed to address certain trials that were sentenced wrong, due to errors in the law or the case.  To educate a person on every aspect of something gives them something they can hold on to for the future. When there is so much to know and understand, on our own it gets hard so we stop caring enough to try.

     Respect comes from fully understanding something in front of us, which goes for the hundreds of thousands of laws this country has created.  If we were to involve the students more in the laws itself they might learn certain things they wouldn't normally on their own.  Hands on work or experience are the best ways to make a student understand and respect anything.  The ten thousand regulations wouldn't destroy all respect of the law if we just knew what they were and why we have them.