Eliminating The Revolving Door/MPLS Mirror
From:
Michael Katch
Date:
Jul 04 15:47 UTC
Short link
Actually, Guy, there is data that Part 1 felons are not having to serve long
sentences in Hennepin County courts, and when they are sentenced, they rarely
are required to serve their entire sentence. In the police work that I chose
to write about, targeting is of primary importance, and since the animals that
prey on us law-abiding citizens tend to reoffend, this form of targeting is
where the police begin their surveillance.
As I pointed out in my article, the police believe it is important to actively
confront repeat offenders. It is important to make sure they do not repeat the
behavior that put them on the police's radar in the first place. I really do
not want to go into specific cases, but it is not enough to go after the
kingpin of street gangs, which are the basis of the sorts of crime that make
parts of Minneapolis unsafe. We must root out the entire gang. I guess the
best example I can cite is the removal of the Tre Tre Crips from North
Minneapolis on May 22, 2007. Once they were incarcerated, we had a six week
period where there were zero murders in North Minneapolis, just last year.
All 45 of them were arrested and charged at the same time. We cannot just cut
off the head and expect the organization to die. New leaders rise faster than
cockroaches invade a kitchen.
I will endeavor to obtain court statistics on actual sentencing lengths of time
for Hennepin County, but I am of the belief that the sort of crime that our
police must devote their resources to address, as you rightly stated, is being
perpetrated by a vast minority of the population, and is not being done in a
vacuum. These sorts of criminals tend to form gangs and organize. I can cite
evidence as to the fact that a great deal of this crime is not native to the
neighborhoods that these criminal have infested, but I am wary of putting
on-going police investigations at risk. It is clear to me that most of the bad
guys are not poor, not living in the neighborhood, and a charge of lurking (a
poorly written ordinance as we agree) will not get these thugs of our streets.
It seems that we as a nation go through periods of gang activity as part of our
national history. The first organized street gangs were the "Natives", who
were replaced by the Irish (have you ever seen the movie "Gangs of New York"?),
who were superceded by the Jews, who retired in favor of the Italians. Now we
are faced with Asian, African American, Hispanic, and, new to the party,
Somalian organizations.
As to your assessment of whether we would turn to a life of crime instead of a
life of improving society if we have been born poor in the 'hood, I take
exception. Eugene O'Neal wrote his best work while living in desperate
poverty. Rap music is also an art form that was born in the 'hood; I would
dare to say that many of our nation's greatest contributors to arts and
culture were born out of poverty and despair. I humbly would like to remind
you that I myself have lived through periods of homelessness, since I am the
survivor of a closed head injury and live with those limitations on a daily
basis.
You are correct, the Minneapolis Public Schools have failed. Instead of
complaining about this situation, I have spent many hours of my time
volunteering and trying to improve this sad fact. Do you think I spend myself
into debt and run for office for fun? Let's see, do a mailing or eat… my
disability makes me a little obsessive. There are serious problems we have to
face as a community in order to leave this world a better place for the next
generation.
We are teaching our children how to take a test, and not how to succeed in
life. I have been pushing for real hands-on education in order to motivate
kids to learn algebra. Without higher math skills, their futures are lost. If
we are teaching our children to succeed in college, how come none of our
curriculum is vetted by a Board of Deans of our local universities? Do we
have a shortage of higher learning institutions? Let see; Macalester,
Hamline, Augsberg, Concordia, University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus,
Metropolitan State, St. Thomas, Bethel, St. Catherine's, MCTC, Brown
Institute, The Art Institute of Minneapolis… I see no shortage of higher
learning resources. It is not enough to get kids admitted to post secondary
education. They must be prepared to pass their classes once they get to the
next level. It has been the culture of the Minneapolis Public School system
to only care about kids while they are going through the system and not the
adults they graduated, if they graduated.
We can only address the hopelessness of poverty when we actual decide to fight
poverty. The Minneapolis Employment and Training Program has a goal of
training people to earn $13.25 an hour. My attitude has been, are you
freaking kidding me?! It costs at least $20 an hour to support a family of
three in a single parent home in a 40 hour work week. Have we as a society
decided that one must be of a certain class to have full time parents? This is
our tax dollars at work, perpetuating poverty in our streets and contributing
to our problems. There are many politicians in this city who cry for more
affordable housing. I, on the other hand, scream to employ people at a wage
that will allow them to afford the housing that has already been built. What
are we running? Gulags! Is this the future, slave labor at slave wages?
When did Huxley's Brave New world become our reality? This has been a little
off the main topic of violent crime, but if you're allowed to rant, then so am
I.
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