British humorist Douglas Adams wrote that it is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.

He was writing about a fictional society so excessively violent that in order to calm everyone they decided anyone who carried a weapon as part of their normal work -- police officers, elementary school teachers -- had to spend some time each day punching a sack of potatoes to work out their aggression.

This worked wonderfully until they realized it was much more efficient simply to shoot the potatoes. That, of course, led to renewed excitement for shooting all sorts of things.

Adams' point is that simple solutions to complex problems do not exist.

The other night the local television station aired a report about another shooting in the Good Hope neighborhood. As has become increasingly common, the suspects taken into custody are teenagers.

One area resident interviewed for the story said programs such as midnight basketball are needed to give kids something to do other than blowing each other's heads off. He even is considering starting such a program himself, he said.

It is a mistake to think you can solve any problems just with basketball.

Midnight basketball may keep potential lawbreakers otherwise occupied for a couple hours every week or so, but what about the rest of the time? I suppose they are to keep busy working on their outside shot and rebounding skills so they can look cool during the next nocturnal hoops session.

But what is to prevent an industrious young hoodlum with a knack for planning to schedule law-breaking activities around basketball? Dinner at 6 p.m. ... Simple assault at 7 p.m. ... Drug deal at 8:15 p.m. ... Burglary from 9:30-10:30 p.m. ... Knock over liquor store at 11:15 p.m. ... Basketball at midnight.

There is no evidence that shows basketball is an effective crime deterant.

If it does indeed have a crime-stopping effect, instead of sentencing offenders to prison, judges should enroll them in organized leagues. Serious offenders could be sentenced to careers in the NBA. "Starting for the Phoenix Suns, a 6-6 guard from the Missouri Department of Corrections in the sixth year of a 20-year sentence ..."

If the constant reports of college and professional athletes getting into big trouble are any indication, jocks are no less likely to break the law than anybody else.

Midnight basketball isn't without benefits. The Cape Girardeau Police Department has in the past sponsored such a program, and it served as a good opportunity for kids to get to know local constables in a friendly setting. But as a crime-fighting tool, basketball isn't very powerful.

Of course, no one is actually silly enough to claim that basketball is a solution to crime; it is simply meant as a diversion. However, crime is not a hobby or a way to spend leisure time. Idle hands may sometimes lead to trouble, but not too many murders are committed out of boredom.

The cause of violence is the utter lack of a moral center (no, not the Shaq in priest's garb) and the increasing inability of people to feel responsible for their own actions. If they don't feel something is wrong, or that it's their fault, what is to stop them from doing it?

The increasingly popular solution is to round up such miscreants and shoot them through the lungs. The ALCU, however, will never go for it. Brainwashing people into accepting standards of behavior, I suppose, is also out. Free will can be such an inconvenience sometimes.

How are you going to convince people to behave? That question has been pondered for a long time. But basketball sure isn't going to teach this.

~Marc Powers is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.