Since we tax payers are paying to feed, clothe and house these useless morons, why not make them do a little work.  Bring back the chain gangs.  Make them clean and restore the highway areas.  Let them remove gang grafitti from public areas.  Let them clean trash out of parks and repair playground equipment.  Let them do some REAL work...that will keep them out of jail.  Oh, by the way, before anyone starts blasting me, I am referring to criminals and derelects, regardless of their color.  

Jeni,

Thanks for highlighting this issue. As you are most likely aware, I've been trying to get coverage on this for over a year, and I also have a plan to deal with it on my blog. It's called a sentencing matrix.

Currently, when a person is arrested for the 100th time on a prostitution charge, the penalty is the same as the first offense. We need to increase the penalty every time a person is convicted. The first offense might be an automatic probation, second conviction - 1 day in jail, and maybe we would double the penalty for each subsequent misdemeanor conviction.

Using lighter sentencing on the front end, and heavier for those who don't learn, would keep the jails from being maxed.

I am also in favor of creating a tent compound for the "first offenders" at the SCCC and not spending millions to house them in comfortable settings. If they can do it in Phoenix, we can do it here. We just need some leaders who "get it".

What happened to 3 strikes......?

Love the tent city idea.

We are too soft on crime.  

Robc, do you agree?

AMEN@CONCERNED MEMPHIAN AND BARTLETT MAN,

I agree that we need to make the penalties alot stiffer for those that continue to do the same crime over and over again. Why should all of us that work for a living continue to pay for those that really dont give a damn. Make the penalties harder for them to be released. I agree with putting them on a chain gang so they can experience hard labor. Maybe they will think twice on committing another crime.

this city sucks, the people here will never change especially the blacks! they run around this city robbing, carjacking and committing black on black crime. u lock them up then they get right back out and do the same crime, it is crazy, acutally the whole us justice system is horrible. but once again memphis is the next detroit and it will never change even if they combine mpd and scsd. oh and blue crush is not working all that does is move crime to another portion of the city.

I have lived in Memphis just about all my live.  It's true that we the citizens of Memphis are paying to feed and house these people.  Why is my question.  They know when they get arrested that they will have a warm place to sleep and meals given to them.  There are children in Memphis lucky to get one hot meal a day.  That is taking from the children.  For one person arrested, Memphis could probably feed 15 to 20 children.  It's a shame!!!!!!

Concerned Memphian and John Harvey....   You said it better than I could.  Make them work.  No free rides!  Get those streets cleaned up!!!  Make them work for those free meals and beds.

can we get that sherrif from arizona in here to format things for shelby county?  seriously?  

The real problem is the criminal prosecuters have four times the case load of a prosecuter in New York City. Our problem is not in making arrests or needing police officers. The problem is the prosecuters are over worked and the criminals get out to do more crimes before they are ever prosecuted on the first charge. They need to stop bonding these hardcore criminals out.
Here's another idea. Make these criminals learn a trade while in jail to help rehabilitate themselves. They can practice their new trade building more prisons.

I just called the cops on your main character in the story, Larry, just a couple of weeks ago. I agree with the longer jail time and the work gangs. I believe once they have visited 201 Poplar 20 times it should be upped to a felony with a minimum of one year in a state prison. Then let him walk back here. That guy needs to be dried out and rehabilated. On the ad you did not see what this guy is really like, he is extremely vulgar, hateful to anyone who won't give him money and tresspasses anywhere he feels like. The cops did help alot and finally helped run him off. The problem with the cops is there are alot of people out there just like him and their hands are tied in most circumstances.

I am the sister of one of those in the story and while I was amazed at how many times my brother was arrested I also know the whole story. He is mentally ill. He is diagnosed as a schizophrenic. He lived in care homes for a while, but most of those are poorly run and many have been shut down. The family does not want him to live with us as he gets unruly if he does not take his meds. So he lived on the streets for a while. He is now doing better and he lives in a small apartment, but it is a constant battle to keep him sober and taking his meds. Most mentally ill patients are dual diagnosed. What would I like to see done? I would like the doctors at the hospital he uses to really treat him and not just push drugs to him. I would like it if he had a case worker to help him learn to do normal things we all take for granted. I would like it if people would not take pity on him and shove money at him. My older sister and I do his shopping and we do his laundry and we dispense his drugs one week at a time, but we can't be with him 24/7----we have our own families. We know better than to give him money. His sponser (yes, he goes to AA meetings) has even given him money. Please stop. And as for the comments to make the law stiffer, well that just would not help my brother. He would just go to jail and end up getting abused. I do think it is unfair of channel 24 to do a story like this and not get all the facts. So maybe I have helped enlighten one person by my response.    

sister:

ur brother would have to be the exception not the norm in this situation.  u do, however, bring an important point to the problem.  the laws should consider mental health before sending someone into the GP in corrections to suffer abuse there.  now, as someone stated, the real problem is that prosecutors r overloaded here.  im from NYC and i can tell u that when i moved here in '96, the crime rate index in midtown was 4x higher than it was in the bronx.  so, i totally see it being possible to be overloaded.  with that sd, i feel that if  officials, depts, etc abusing the budget, then we could focus on hiring people in the proper depts (such as county prosecutors) and start turning this city around.

I feel that there should be more facts to this story. A lot of the people that were shown appear to be older in age. Some also have mental problems. In my opinion, they have been arrested numerous times because their jail stay is not long enough. A lot of these people need serious help. This information was pointless if they were implying that these people are a serious threat to us.  How about you come up with a list of people arrested for multiple violent crimes or a list with people arrested for drug charges more than three times. I believe these types of stories would help our communities. Then we can get rid of the junkies prowling our neighborhoods because they want have access to drugs.

I agree with Pretty23. Facts would help this story out. I also wanted to point out a flaw in the reasoning used in this story. The reporter states that the citizens of Memphis are footing the bill for these offenders to be jailed multiple times as though the citizens would not have to pay for the offenders to be in jail for longer times. We were not told if these people were convicted or if they were released without charges. The story is short on facts and long on sensational headlines. So much junk to clutter the airwaves. Cherry picking facts to support a story is sloppy and not in the interest of the citizens of this city.
We do not need new laws. If these people had been convicted and sentenced under existing law instead of released they would not have been able to be arrested so many times. Our elected officials constantly fail in their public duty to enforce the laws of this city and want new powers to be granted to them by legislature? Perhaps we should just stop accepting mediocre job performance from city officials... and then again perhaps one day pigs will fly!

This is a great story because it highlights that we are not using our resource properly. We don't need to increase penalties - these people are not going to be detered by increased time in jail it will just delay the frequency of the arrest because they will be spending time in jail.

The woman that is a prostitute is not going to stop because the sentence is now more severe something else is going on in her life that is making her earn money in this criminal fashion. The top guy that has been arrested over 400 times, do you really think a stiffer penlty will stop him reaching for a beer?

What we need to do is identify these people and instead of sending them to jail send them to get help.  If the guy that had been arrested 400 time had been confined to a rehad & mental health facitly after arrest 50 although it would have cost us money to get him medical help in the long run it would be cheaper.

I am not saying lets be soft on these repeat offenders, I am saying by being arrest and being such a burden on the system we should have the right to force them into a care program to get help.  If the mentally ill woman had out patient day care programs that could moniter her mental health I think this would be cheaper in the long run than locking her in jail 100 times.

If the police did not have to spend time rearresting minor offenders maybe our city would be safer - plus jailors are not trained to deal with the mentally ill - they are trained to keep a crowd in order.

Change the punishment - don't increase it. Use our resources to solve the problem and we would have more resources in the long run.  

This is the point behind www.street-people.com which covers the street people, bums, panhandlers and other hustlers on our streets. Memphis (as a community not just the city, but churches and non profit programs) spends money "the homeless" but the problem is getting worse not better and maybe we need to rethink if the programs we offer are helping these people.

Whether or not these people get arrested one time or 233 times, the taxpayers will still have to foot the bill. Since we have to pay anyway, why don't we lock up the people who really should be behind bars starting with the crooks at city hall, our corrupt police officers, and anyone else whose salary comes from taxpayers in Memphis who breaks the law. Then we could start to combat crime in the city. We can't solve the problems of our city if the leaders are not abiding by the law themselves.  

Most news stories dont give even close to all of the facts. Its a gimmick to get you to watch. Dont believe everything you read or hear. Poor Jennie, guess she will always be used as the sh_ _ stirer.

We could start producing soylent green.......

Tasty....

Lets say after arrest 3 we get them inspected, see if the person is free of disease, and if so...........

Wow.  While we are so caught up in bridging the racial divide, where is the outrage to "memphis sucks"?  Interesting, but not at all surprising.

@Dan

"memphis sucks" comment was completely stupid and without merit and was therefore completely ignored as it should have been. Comments like that are intended to make people angry and if ignored are rendered ineffectual and pointless.

Bartlett,

This poor guy is hosed but if I get a chance I will contribute to his defense fund. If more people acted like him there would be any need to worry about this crime $#!T.

These moron criminal don't start off shooting people, they do it after about a dozen arrests.

Do a justice system inquiry on the shooters and shootees here in Memphis.  They all usually have been arrested about a dozen times MINIMUM.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=f3d_1195171937

john harvey said:
Jeni,

Thanks for highlighting this issue. As you are most likely aware, I've been trying to get coverage on this for over a year, and I also have a plan to deal with it on my blog. It's called a sentencing matrix.
________________________________

De facto the sentence is about the same for any offense short of capital murder.  TIME SERVED!!!  If they can't make bond almost ANY offense gets time served by the time the case ends up in criminal court!  I had a person arrested who had been sentenced to 12 years 240 days in jail in less than six years.  They had been released every time in criminal court on TIME SERVED. Aggravated assault, Robbery, promoting prostitution, weapons possession etc.  TIME SERVED!

The state doesn't take our criminals - short of capital murder - TIME SERVED.

Until the state starts taking criminals no law will help