Pot times July 18, 2005
The Key To Cutting Crime Involves Locking Some
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v05/n1135/a10.htmlNewshawk: Stop the War on Youth - www.DARegeneration.com
Pubdate: Sun, 17 Jul 2005 US TN: COLUMN: THE KEY TO CUTTING CRIME INVOLVES LOCKING SOME
UP, BUT KEEPING OTHERS OUT
Source: Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)
Copyright: 2005 The Commercial Appeal
Contact:
letters@commercialappeal.com
Website: http://www.commercialappeal.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/95
Author: Michael Kelley
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/prison.htm
(Incarceration)
Violent crime in the United States dropped for the third year in a row last
year, property crime for the second.
Crime is down in metropolitan counties and rural counties. It's down in
the South, in the West, in the Midwest, in the Northeast. Either property
crimes or violent crimes or both decreased last year in Memphis, Nashville,
Knoxville, Chattanooga, Little Rock, Jackson, Miss., Atlanta, Louisville, Ky.,
and New Orleans.
Experts disagree on why. No doubt demographic issues play a role. In
"Freakonomics," a provocative best-seller, University of Chicago
economist Steven D. Levitt argues that legalized abortion began reducing
the demographic cohort responsible for most crime in the 1990s.
Conservatives maintain that we're experiencing less crime because get-tough,
three-strikes-and-you're-out, gun-time-is-jail-time, mandatory sentencing
strategies are putting so many of us in prison for longer stretches.
But it's not just putting a lot of people behind bars. Crime rates drop
when you put the right people behind bars, says Richard Janikowski, chairman of
the Criminology and Criminal Justice Department at the University of Memphis.
That's why law enforcement agencies are collaborating like never before in
Shelby County on metro gang units, metro DUI units, joint task forces for this,
joint task forces for that.
"It's making sure serious criminals are incarcerated," Janikowski
said. "It's innovative prosecution efforts like Project Safe
Neighborhoods, the anti-gun violence initiative. There what you're
targeting are repeat offenders on firearms. When you've got felons in
possession of firearms, those are good predictors of someone who poses a real
danger. Previously they got probation. It's not much of a deterrent.
You're seeing the effects already in decreases in homicide and robberies.
It's smart law enforcement and smart prosecution."
It's also, frankly, smart public relations -- making sure that criminals know
that their buddies are getting caught and facing swift and sure punishment.
What other reason could there have been to round up more than 30 suspects in
unrelated drug cases on the same day last month in a highly publicized roundup?
Obviously police were using the news media to send a message.
The law enforcement and sentencing strategies are expensive. Offender
populations are swelling all over the country, in prisons and jails as well as
in probation, parole and Community Corrections programs. The number of
state prisoners in Tennessee, who cost about $50 a day to house, feed and
provide medical care for, has grown by an average of almost 800 a year for the
past five years, while the number of parolees, probationers and Community
Corrections offenders, who cost taxpayers $2.50 to $4 a day to supervise, is
increasing by almost 2,000 a year.
It's not just Tennessee. The United States has the highest incarceration
level in the world, and it's increasing rapidly. And we're tough on people
after they're released. Some jurisdictions forbid ex-cons from voting,
from receiving public assistance, living in public housing and receiving
financial aid for college. Technology has made it easier for employers to
exclude people with records.
The problem with that approach is that it makes an already tough job - --
bridging the gap between prison and society -- even tougher. Shelby County
Sheriff Mark Luttrell calls rehabilitation one of the biggest weaknesses in the
criminal justice system.
But even the weakest link of the system is being fortified. Lawmakers
concerned about recidivism rates among parolees, which top 25 percent some
years, have granted significant budget increases the past two years to the
Tennessee Board of Probation & Parole.
The new money will put 50 new probation and parole officers and five new
supervisors to work this year, decreasing caseloads from an average of about 85
to about 75. The board also is expanding the Community Corrections
program, a sentencing alternative that keeps offenders from furthering their
education in crime at Bighouse U.
Helping convicts make the transition to the straight life has always been one of
the most difficult missions in corrections. But it's obviously one of the
keys to perpetuating the crime rate decrease. Most prison inmates
eventually make it out of prison alive, even with the extra-long sentences that
are being handed out nowadays.
A recent appellate court ruling put Tennessee's parole board on notice that it
had to quit dragging its heels on inmates who have been awaiting hearings for up
to 20 years in some cases.
Combine that with the knowledge that the population we're talking about sprang
from a lot of dysfunctional families, dysfunctional school systems and unhealthy
environments and one thing becomes clear: Factors that will continue to ease our
fear of crime lie beyond what's customarily considered the criminal justice
system.
That's why you might see sheriff's deputies and police officers in places you
don't ordinarily see them -- working with elementary school principals in
Northaven, for example, and addressing such issues as boredom among children in
after-school programs.
In General Sessions Court a few weeks ago I watched as a middle-aged, red-haired
woman in an orange jumpsuit began a series of appearances she would have to make
on charges related to a burglary at my home.
It happened on a mild Sunday morning in February while I was doing yard work and
my wife and daughter were inside the house. A sneak thief had lifted a
driver's license and a bank card from the breakfast table and headed for the
nearest supermarket. Charges immediately began showing up on the account.
We wrote the experience off as part of what my wife calls the extra tax we pay
to live in Memphis.
We'd been hit before: jewelry, stereos, lawn care equipment, bicycles and stuff
I can't even remember now. But this case was different. It was
solved a few weeks later when a woman with a rap sheet that read like an Elmore
Leonard novel was caught in a stolen car with the missing driver's license on
her.
Now here she was in court, looking comfortable in her jail attire, speaking
animatedly to a public defender and respectfully to the judge. She'd done
time before, and seemed like someone who'd spent a lot of hours in this
environment. She's in a revolving door, I thought, and doesn't even seem
to care whether she gets out of it or not.
How can we ever feel safe or confident about our property, our privacy, even our
safety in a community with thousands of people like her -- people who can't seem
to imagine what their lives might be like if they made different choices?
The lock-em-up approach is without a doubt having some effect on crime, but to
keep the crime rate dropping we need to make fundamental changes in the society.
We can get into a heavy discussion about what that means.
Is it covenant marriages? Is it vouchers that allow more kids into religiously
oriented schools?
Is it shaping a stronger economic climate that eases fears among parents about
where they're going to get the money to buy food and pay the utility bill? Is it
a universal health care system that leaves nobody behind?
Is it better drug rehabilitation programs?
Is it even possible to get to the point where it would seem out of the question
for someone to walk into your house while you're otherwise occupied and help
herself to whatever's handy?
The crime statistics might be encouraging, but we're keeping the doors locked
for now. The time to relax, even around the house on a lazy Sunday
morning, has not yet arrived.
