In my eight years as a City Court Judge my biggest surprise was not our society’s drug problem but the hundreds of young men who appeared before the Court who did not work.

These young men, most between 18 and 25 were “lost.” Many had dropped out of school at 16, which New York law still allows.

Perhaps one-fourth of the way through the 21st Century we should decide to keep our young men in high school until graduation and teach them the value of work as both a source of self esteem and a source of financial independence. We know this approach could reduce crime and the use of illegal drugs.

Presiding over City Court’s Drug Court, I heard so many of our graduates tell the Drug Court participants of the importance of a job in gaining self-esteem and achieving a “clean and sober” life.

For a person dealing with drug addiction, a job means 35-40 hours a week of doing something productive and not thinking about using illegal drugs out of boredom or idleness.

Most of these young men had no aspirations, no dreams, no plan for their lives.

Some lived off their family, some said their girlfriends worked, some sold drugs for some “walk around” money or worked “under the table.”

These “lost” young men are not just wasting their own lives but are a huge loss to our society, to Chautauqua County.

These young men have no sense of the centrality of work to a meaningful life.

They do not understand the “Protestant work ethic.” Martin Luther, the original Protestant, said that all honest work is a calling, a vocation that is pleasing to God.

Not working and not looking for work has real world consequences for Chautauqua County.

Economically, in Chautauqua County two things are true at the same time; even though employment in the County is down from about 68,000 to 54,000 in the past 15 years, our labor force (those working or looking for work) is also down by about 14,000.

Employers still here in Chautauqua County find it hard to find workers because of our shrunken labor force. This hinders our economic development efforts. Wells Enterprises (formerly Dunkirk Ice Cream) said it almost did not commit to its massive investment in its current expansion in Dunkirk due to a concern about its ability to find the 270 new workers it will need.

The bottom line is our existing employers like Cummins and Wells as well as our few new employers like Electrovaya in the South County Industrial Park next to Bush Industries, need these “lost” young men to enter the workforce.

As a City Court Judge, I viewed our County Probation Department as a vehicle to direct these “lost” young men into either a job or obtaining a GED as a condition of their completing a term of Probation.

Just as the late Senator from New York, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, suggested reducing the cost to taxpayers of supporting single mothers on welfare by “Make the daddies pay,” we can “make these young men go to work.”

If these young men are so lacking in education or any job skills, they need to be required to get their GED and/or job training.

Chautauqua County government should play a significant role in job training. Unfortunately, neither the County nor its Chautauqua County Industrial Development Agency, budgeted any money in 2025 or 2026 for job training.

The County as a sponsor of JCC could contract with JCC to create a long-term program of job training opportunities. JCC would then be a dependable job-training resource for use by our existing employers and for attracting new employers to the County.

As a community let us do more to encourage our teenage males to at least finish high school and then get an honest job or serve our country in the military.

These young men will be better for it and our community will be more prosperous.

Fred Larson is a graduate of the Princeton University Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, is a retired Jamestown City Court Judge and a sitting Chautauqua County legislator.