Would a manadatory volunteer program in your city be a positive reinforcement for good behavior?

The problem is the combination of voluntary and mandatory. My answer sort of depends on which is which.
But if you truly mean voluntary, I think that is a good thing and I would encourage people to do it.
If you truly mean mandatory, then the principle is no different than slavery or a military draft, which nobody thinks is a good thing.

Duly noted, I should clarify. By voluntary I mean unpaid, like a rural Fire Dept. Mandatory would mean no more than males having to fill out the Selective Service card or having to take a drivers test. It would of course be part time, not so much as slavery.

Am I making sense? If not I do apologize.

Sounds like an oxymoron.

Same answer.
Voluntary, yes absolutely.

Mandatory no. There is a difference between being required to sign a form or pass a test, and mandatory service.

I say this without intent to disturb the sleeping peace of Fluther, or society but, not making some do something is telling them it’s OK to do nothing. Younger people all want something handed to them, at least some or a lot I know. They seem to believe everyone owes them something and they shouldn’t have to work to get ahead in life. Right now, one can already volunteer to do everything I’ve listed but you don’t see each of those doors being beat down to volunteer.

I say it’s a good thing.

And not to belabor this point, but enabled children is a symptom of bad parenting, not lack of volunteer work.

And since parents have been around for a few thousand years, if there was something anybody could do to offset bad parenting, we would know what it was and we would be doing it.

S.I. Hayakawa, the late Senator from California who was opposed to the then military draft, proposed universal service for all for the year after high school. No one would get out of it; even those with a medical condition would participate.

I would support that.

Your list of programs is a little off. Ride along with the police? This wouldn’t be an episode of Friends.

I like the volunteering idea, but to make it mandatory seems like it’s almost a sentence for something. Maybe make it part of having a drivers license or something along those lines.

My thought too (the oxymoron part)

Actually, as an avowed liberal I see nothing wrong with mandatory two year service to the community either on a local, state or national level.

Our local, rural, high school has mandatory community service in order to graduate. I don’t know how many hours they require. I know it is easy to get out of.

On an idealistic level, I think it’s a great ideal. On a practical level (i.e. the bureaucracy involved, possible repercussions for non-compliance, etc.) I find the idea impractical.

Maybe we could start with a substantial reduction in tuition to public universities if a student completes 30 days of volunteer work prior to starting school? Say a one-week minimum immersion and the rest as single days monitored through the HS?

We sure could use some volunteers here at the ranch today.
Right now the chicken coop needs cleaning, the manure pile needs to be tractored out to the compost zone, our pet ducks and geese need to be let out to go swimming and have their barn cleaned.
More hay needs to be hauled down to the barn from the hay barn and more bales of stall shavings and stalls need to be cleaned. Right now I have one ancient donkey tied up outside the paddock so the other donkey won’t eat her equine senior that takes her 30 minutes to eat because she is so old.

She needs to be put up again soon, and the evening feed needs to be set up, hay weighed, buckets measured with supplements, horses moved around from their paddocks. We need more firewood brought down to the house for a storm rolling in Friday night and the horse blankets need to be washed. I also need help in the kitchen, made peanut butter cookies this morning and am prepping to make a big pot of 500 bean soup. Care to help with the dishes, any volunteers? lol

@ibstubro fantastic idea! Make them WANT to do this by rewarding them for doing so.

Its a decent thought, i’ve never understood why gangs of kids feel the need to trash their own town, counter productive bullshit.

I understand your “oxymoron” of mandatory volunteer. By volunteer you mean unpaid. If you had said “mandatory unpaid program” more people would get it.

I think it is a great idea. It would be a golden opportunity for people to better understand the situation and gain experience.
Several times I have proposed that if someone is getting more than, for example, 80% of their income from welfare, public assistance, or whatever your state calls it, they should be required to perform a minimum of 5 hours public service per week or the payments are reduced by 12.5%. (5 hours out of a typical 40 hour work week). If the person does not work the 5 hours, the next week the check is reduced another 12.5% and so on.
Nobody should get something for nothing. Nobody.

@LuckyGuy I do wish I could edit my original text. I had it in my head what I wanted to say but, the fingers chose something different.

Cutting of funds always works! If my boss came in tomorrow and said, “Crissy, I’m going to cut your pay immediately because…..” I would make sure I did….......... to get my money back, that’s for sure.

Good point, sir!

I wonder if this idea could be combined with another really great idea – time banks In a time bank, people earn time credits by helping others. You are entitled to an hour of help from other members for each hour of work that you do. Time banks are run privately, but I was thinking that they could be expanded to allow people to get time credits for government volunteer work. You don’t want to overdo this, because you could end up with a kind of inflation with too many time credits chasing too few jobs.

Interesting concept, @LostInParadise. It would need tweaking but, a future option indeed.

I thought of something along the same lines today. In witnessing how much food goes to waste in restaurants, I thought about what would happen if someone’s job was to take that food and give it to social service programs. There’s some liability, but I wonder if businesses would pay someone to do that. Or do they all just care about profits?

@dxs I agree, a shameful amount of throw away food that is still perfectly good, but health concerns do not allow leftovers to be used for anything other than animal feed. Like we have discussed before in another Q. here, dumpster diving okay but not serving decent leftovers.
Thing is I wonder how many restaurants serve 3 day old soup and other warmed up leftovers unbeknownst to the customer? Same difference.

The best restaurants cook food to order, and a decent kitchen manager can re-purpose almost anything at least once. The chain restaurants are the wasters, and also the least likely to get on board.

In principle, I like the idea but I agree that once you make something mandatory, it looses its appeal for many. I do think our societies would be better, happier places if there was a stronger volunteering culture.

@ibstubro Good point, agreed.

@crissy14 , One idea that I have is that everyone would have a government service debt in hours that they owe. The government would offer volunteer opportunities for paying the debt, but it would also accept payment from a person’s time bank account. That would make the government as just another member of the time bank and open up the number of ways that a person could fulfill obligations, which should make it more acceptable.

Some schools across America do require community service in order to graduate. http://www.brighthubeducation.com/high-school-teaching-tips/15126-should-volunteering-be-a-high-school-graduation-requirement/

It is a good idea, I think.

Yes, but riding in a police car would not be a community service. Nobody would benefit. And Big Brother, Big Sister programs require a serious commitment, not just one month. The community service must fit the one participating, and must actually be of use to the community.

I have to disagree, @snowberry.
I think Black kids riding in a police car in a community like Ferguson Missouri would be a huge community service.

In fact, I would consider making it a prerequisite?

^^Uhh…what?