It's not really tough to figure out, is it, armed with nothing more than common sense? As the incendiary debated raged over affluent teens going unpunished for a recent drinking party in Cobb, the not-so-white elephant in the room sits silent, as always, unnoticed and unimportant in the corner. It's not pompous parents behind exclusive communities that cost us in Cobb. It's juvey hall, get it? But not because affluent youths or parents who are judges act any better or more moral. It's not who we let get away with it that costs us dearly, it's who we punish and why.

It's long been known through ad hoc studies and incarceration counts that a disproportionate number of our community's at-risk, minority youth population get arrested by local cops patrolling easy streets instead of busting dangerous burglars, because they are easy targets, while affluent kids and parents hide the same alcohol and marijuana use in nicer neighborhoods and only hit the papers when summoned to a well-known house.

There's a huge elephant in the corner of Cobb County, as with most, going unnoticed, while this pointless Cobb Teen Drinking Party story reaction rages. The elephant that we won't deal with is this - Georgia's juvey halls are bursting with troubled teens, overwhelming the system. So is Georgia's prison system. The populations incarcerated for substance related charges are above 20 percent; the population is growing exponentially, but the tax base to pay for all this so-called moral incarceration is not growing. It's eating up more and more of your paycheck each year.

The system is broken, because we bust disproportionate at-risk youth of color, black and Latinos, who then enter a system and emerge having been exposed to adult criminals ready to take them in and who now have a record and a blight on their self-concept. You can change a juvey record, but a self-concept is a fragile thing. It's no small coincidence, in fact its causal, that kids busted and spending time in juvey hall have a much higher propensity to become adult criminals, for these reasons and more. So say social work agency studies across the spectrum.

So, if you want to reduce your taxes, reduce Georgia's overcrowded prisons, juvey hall, and overwhelmed, underfunded social work safety net system for at-risk kids in Cobb who see violence and trauma and look for alcohol to self-medicate a bleak future - then stop worrying about what happens to rich kids in Cobb and start worrying about what happens to the poorest kids in Cobb, who are busted more often, with worse penalties and worse outcomes.

So let's not let this event and opportunity go by without framing the debate for public utility - namely, how to stop targeting our at-risk youth for juvenile justice, in order to reduce the growing need for social services, and thus reduce tomorrow's prison population, and the needs for more and more of your tax dollars to house today's victims, which uncared for, will become tomorrow's predators. Instead of three strikes and you're out, how about one strike means we need to care more?

Think of the energy spent by Cobb citizens on this story, wanting somebody to pay - when they are the ones paying the biggest tax price, for that attitude.

Believe me, the affluent teen drinkers will learn their own lessons much too late, when their special privileges run out and meet up with life.

Meanwhile, let's use this event to help those children without special privileges being targeted every day for arrest unfairly. Give them the chance to do better without a record that we give affluent kids every day. Put the focus back on fair crime and punishment, and you instantly relieve the burden on Cobb's social services safety net, to improve youth, reduce teen depression and suicide and reduce dropout rates.

Give the right people a break for once!

Cliff Johnson is enrolled as a master's candidate at UGA's School of Social Work. He has worked with at-risk, traumatized youth, recently incarcerated homeless populations, and social service agencies to study Georgia's mental health system, from metro hospitals to indigent care throughout Atlanta.