Last year, in July, I blogged about the repeat, repeat, repeat offenders in Shelby County. I had done some analysis of the data and found a person I believe has been arrested the most. Kimberly Johnson is a female black, rni # 68844. In July she had been arrested 200 times. Today she is in the county lockup and has bumped her grand total to 208 arrests. Isn't it about time something was done with people who have demonstrated they WILL NOT contribute to society? I guess you could say she stimulates the economy though. She is certainly providing work for law enforcement, courts, pre-trial, etc.
I believe people like this are the reason we have such a crime problem in our community. Until we do something that sends a strong signal to them, that we will not allow such behavior, they will continue to drag our community down. As I've said many times before, if we applied some simple Psychology, what I call the hot-plate approach to law enforcement, we would see a drastic drop in crime. How many times has anyone burned themselves on a hot stove? Usually, the answer is once. The punishment is swift, certain and severe. If we want to stop the crime, all we need do is ramp up on the negative reinforcements. Of that I'm positive!
10 comments:
Go get them. I'm glad you're back on the job.
Amazing !!!!
"How many times has anyone burned themselves on a hot stove? Usually, the answer is once. The punishment is swift, certain and severe. If we want to stop the crime, all we need do is ramp up on the negative reinforcements. Of that I'm positive!"
That's very true, but unfortunately it has nothing to do with the police. The fact that she's been arrested 208 times tells me the police are doing thier job. It's our ridiculous court system that needs the overhaul.
That's very true, but unfortunately it has nothing to do with the police. The fact that she's been arrested 208 times tells me the police are doing thier job. It's our ridiculous court system that needs the overhaul.
Who said I was blaming the police? You hit the nail on the head. The problem is the courts, Sheriffs, the department of corrections and others who want to turn these people out on the streets. If they aren't in jail, they are plying their trade - on us.
There must be a push toward stopping this revolving door "justice system."
Wow!
In an unrelated question, do you know how to contact anti-crime groups such as Citizens Against Crime, etc. I really want to do my part but don't know where to begin.
The thing to do is contact the MPD to see where a Neighborhood Watch group is located in your area (website is http://memphispolice.org/). If you live in the county, contact the SCSO at 545-5500 or www.shelbysheriff.org
Stay tuned, we have some good things coming from the MPD that will maximize our cooperation with neighborhood watch.
I'd think prison and jail overcrowding would have a lot to do with it. We have so many nanny state laws putting away people for moral acts that we don't have room for those we should contain for criminal acts.
The problem with that synopsis is that people don't just pick one crime. Ms Johnson has been arrested for many different things such as:aggravated assault, criminal trespass, grand larceny, weapons possession, etc.
She needs to be in prison, not repeating, repeating, repeating . . .
True, they often don't commit just one crime but I'm not sure that means the fault isn't in our system. I don't disagree with you about repeat and persistent offenders but we would have more room if we dealt better with others and there are ways to deal with some of them outside of the justice system. That would leave more room for people like her. We don't have room anymore for the ones we really should contain, crowding and early release are a fact of life in increasing parts of our systems.
We're the single most imprisoned nation in the world, both per capita and in terms of raw numbers. Those nations which do come somewhat close to us tend to be ones like Russia or China depending on if we're looking at rates or totals. Nations such as Germany, Britain, and so on aren't even close.
Either we're the most compulsively criminal people on the face of the earth or our justice system is way off track. I'd guess the latter.
You're probably aware already given your background but I'll offer a few links for your readers, stats on the system. The first here is a list of all reporting nation in the word and their prison stats as collected by The International Centre of Prison Studies out of Kings College, London.
http://www.prisonstudies.org/
Select language, World Prison Brief, Highest to lowest rates, then if you want totals or rates.
This one is a publication from The Sentencing Project which examines the trends and offers some analysis on it. I can't say I agree 100% with all of it but the graph showing prison growth since the 80's and the ideas on what might drive the trends is worth a look. Just click the "view pdf" link.
http://tinyurl.com/ys48o5
And finally a report from the recent Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons, lots of information on the degrading health and safety of our system and its inmates. People are coming out more disturbed and troubled than they went in, given the conditions it's not hard to figure out why. We've got a lot of work to do, this needs fixed.
http://www.prisoncommission.org/
My objection isn't to the system as such or to prison, it's to the overuse of it as our main method of social reform. We didn't become the most imprisoned nation in the world by being too soft, but too hard. I can't even hear the term "land of the free" anymore without feeling the lie in it, which statistically it is a lie these days. Used to be true though. I'd like to see us earn it again.
True, they often don't commit just one crime but I'm not sure that means the fault isn't in our system. I don't disagree with you about repeat and persistent offenders but we would have more room if we dealt better with others and there are ways to deal with some of them outside of the justice system. That would leave more room for people like her. We don't have room anymore for the ones we really should contain, crowding and early release are a fact of life in increasing parts of our systems.
We're the single most imprisoned nation in the world, both per capita and in terms of raw numbers. Those nations which do come somewhat close to us tend to be ones like Russia or China depending on if we're looking at rates or totals. Nations such as Germany, Britain, and so on aren't even close.
Either we're the most compulsively criminal people on the face of the earth or our justice system is way off track. I'd guess the latter.
You're probably aware already given your background but I'll offer a few links for your readers, stats on the system. The first here is a list of all reporting nation in the word and their prison stats as collected by The International Centre of Prison Studies out of Kings College, London.
http://www.prisonstudies.org/
Select language, World Prison Brief, Highest to lowest rates, then if you want totals or rates.
This one is a publication from The Sentencing Project which examines the trends and offers some analysis on it. I can't say I agree 100% with all of it but the graph showing prison growth since the 80's and the ideas on what might drive the trends is worth a look. Just click the "view pdf" link.
http://tinyurl.com/ys48o5
And finally a report from the recent Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons, lots of information on the degrading health and safety of our system and its inmates. People are coming out more disturbed and troubled than they went in, given the conditions it's not hard to figure out why. We've got a lot of work to do, this needs fixed.
http://www.prisoncommission.org/
My objection isn't to the system as such or to prison, it's to the overuse of it as our main method of social reform. We didn't become the most imprisoned nation in the world by being too soft, but too hard. I can't even hear the term "land of the free" anymore without feeling the lie in it, which statistically it is a lie these days. Used to be true though. I'd like to see us earn it again.
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