You Can Take A Thug out of the Hood
But you can't take the hood out of a thug.
The answer is actually quite simple:
1. Enforce the law.
2. Put criminals in jail (and build more if you need to).
This is the policy which cleaned up New York.
We must stop treating crime as a social problem and start treating it for what it is: unacceptable behavior which must have severe consequences if society is to be civil.
Every effort to "get at the root causes of crime" has failed, primarily because the government is fundamentally opposed to addressing the true root cause---the darkness of the soul of the criminal, addressable only through religion. Since government fails at giving criminals religion, government ought to provide consequences in the form of incarceration and confiscation.
All else is noise and folly.
The answer is actually quite simple:
1. Enforce the law.
2. Put criminals in jail (and build more if you need to).
This is the policy which cleaned up New York.
We must stop treating crime as a social problem and start treating it for what it is: unacceptable behavior which must have severe consequences if society is to be civil.
Every effort to "get at the root causes of crime" has failed, primarily because the government is fundamentally opposed to addressing the true root cause---the darkness of the soul of the criminal, addressable only through religion. Since government fails at giving criminals religion, government ought to provide consequences in the form of incarceration and confiscation.
All else is noise and folly.
Labels: Politics
posted by Teflon at 10:53 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Memphis, and perhaps more importantly Shelby County, does not have the police force to fight the crime around here. When it was centralized downtown, the police were generally able to keep it under control (at least, this is what my friends who've lived here for a while have said). Now that the crime has spread out around the city, the police force is stretched very thin.
The city and county governments won't expand police forces.
The poverty line here isn't some imaginary thing. Here we call it Memphis city limits. There's blocks worth of poverty and crime-ridden neighborhoods and then you get downtown and everything is fine again. Heading out of the city you experience the same phenomenon. Blocks of crime, then you're out of the city limits and all is well again.
I would love to see an increase in law enforcement and some cracking down on crime. I'm not holding my breath though.
One heartening thing though -- a couple of weeks ago when Detroit topped the list of cities with the highest murder rate, Memphis was number two. What those statistics don't tell you is how many of those murders were justifiable. Apparently, Memphis is seeing a rise in justifiable homicide with a lot of homeowners protecting themselves. I'm glad to see this trend starting.
An addendum: I certainly don't disagree with your summation of what you have to do to effectively fight crime. But I would add that you have to elect an effective government.
I am increasingly under the impression that Memphis politics is suffering from the kinds of things Chicago was suffering from for so many decades through the 1900s. I mean, Herenton has been mayor since 1991 and has never received the majority of the popular vote, but a court order rejects run-off elections here. Crazy, no?
This last election in October just proved to me how broken the system was. There were some really good candidates out there and all Willie could run on was "look what I've done!" I'll tell you buddy, you've caused crime to move out the the compact sections of Memphis into the rest of the city.
And, talk about putting your foot in your mouth. One of Herenton's most famous quotes is: "No mayor in any American city can solve the crime problem." Giuliani would beg to differ, I think.
I could ramble on forever though. There is much to be fixed here but there is little optimism that it will happen.
Moving crime around has no impact unless the career criminals are taken off the streets for a good, long haul.
Even when the crime zones are concentrated, there are insufficient police to deal with it. The excuse then is the city budget rather than the county budget.
I suspect there is sufficient police presence at UT games and Titans games, though.
Resources are always constrained, it's what you do with them that matters.
And until a concerted effort is made to lock up career criminals, especially gang members, crime will not diminish.
Perusing outstanding warrants in many cities such as Memphis points to another problem---a huge illegal immigrant crime wave which gives the press and pols the vapors whenever it is brought up.
Lawlessness breeds violent crime. That was the lesson of Rudy's New York.
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