Bill Gibbons and Buddy Chapman discuss policing and crime on ‘Behind the Headlines’
President of Memphis Shelby Crime Commission Bill Gibbons (left), and CrimeStoppers of Memphis and Shelby County's Buddy Chapman join host Eric Barnes and The Daily Memphian reporter Julia Baker to discuss what can be done to address both juvenile and adult crime in Memphis, on “Behind the Headlines,” WKNO-TV, March 3, 2023.
The death of Tyre Nichols as a result of police brutality diminishes the confidence the community has in the police department and related agencies, CrimeStoppers Executive Director Buddy Chapman said on the WKNO-TV program “Behind the Headlines.”
The officers accused in Nichols’ beating were in the now-defunct SCORPION unit — Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods. It was a zero-tolerance unit, which Chapman, a former Memphis police director, considers a double-edged sword.
“If you do zero tolerance, you’re not just going to scoop up the criminals. You’re going to scoop up members of the community,” Chapman said. “And we have to realize that the community as a whole, while they want something bad done to the criminals, they don’t want it done to themselves.”
“Behind The Headlines,” hosted by The Daily Memphian CEO Eric Barnes, airs on WKNO-TV Fridays at 7 p.m. and Sundays at 8:30 a.m. Watch the show now via the video link in this article.
Community activists are calling on the city to deactivate other special units, such as the Multi-Agency Gang Unit and Organized Crime Unit. But Chapman said that is a bad idea in a city that struggles with crime.
“Both of those organizations serve a very valid purpose,” he said, emphasizing that the problem comes back to the zero-tolerance approach.
Buddy Chapman
Special police force units should have limited capabilities and be closely supervised, Chapman said.
Bill Gibbons, executive director of the Public Safety Institute at the University of Memphis and president of the Memphis Shelby Crime Commission, noted that the Multi-Agency Gang Unit is an investigative unit, not a street-level enforcement unit like OCU and SCORPION.
Bill Gibbons
Gibbons emphasized the need to combat crime and said he thinks focused deterrence, violence intervention and more intensive supervision services for juveniles will have an immediate impact.
He lauded Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland’s focused deterrence initiatives that target well-known bad actors who are often on probation or parole. It is a “carrot and stick approach” that involves calling these people in for a meeting and giving them two options: accept opportunities that will help them move in the right direction or be held accountable.
Gibbons credited 901 BLOC Squad, one of the city’s intervention programs, for its part in helping reduce the number of aggravated assaults, which he said can easily turn into murders.
“(Aggravated) assaults, of course, can turn into a murder within a split second,” Gibbons said. “All you have to do is be a good aim.”
According to Crime Commission data, the number of serious delinquent charges against juveniles increased 6.5% in 2022 compared to the year before.
“The career criminal is not at the top of the list,” Chapman said. “The top of the list is the juveniles because they are so unbelievably dangerous.”
Gibbons said 500 juveniles were charged with violent crimes in 2022.
The City of Memphis and the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office have applied for $6 million in state funding for intensive supervision services from Youth Villages, Gibbons said.
He also said the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services needs more secure beds and the Wilder Youth Development Center should be replaced.
“Wilder now has about 35 beds available, there’s another facility in East Tennessee that has about 25, then the Department of Children’s Services actually contracts with the private entity in Texas to house another 20 or 25,” Gibbons said. “You add all that up, and that’s less than 100 beds for the entire state.”
Gibbons supports a bill that has been proposed in the Tennessee legislature that would enact blended sentencing for juveniles aged 16 and older. If convicted of a crime that would be an A, B or C felony if committed by an adult, juveniles would face their juvenile court sentence and could be subject to adult probation until they turn 25.
Gibbons also said the juvenile detention policy needs to be changed to allow police to bring them to detention for certain nonviolent crimes, such as car thefts. Currently, most juveniles accused of nonviolent crimes are issued a summons to appear in juvenile court.
He also thinks Shelby County’s pilot Youth and Family Resource Center should be expanded to accept juveniles from the entire city on a 24-hour basis.
Topics
Behind The Headlines Bill Gibbons Buddy Chapman Youth and Family Resource Center Wilder Youth Development CenterJulia Baker
A lifelong Memphian, Julia Baker graduated from the University of Memphis in 2021. Other publications and organizations she has written for include Chalkbeat, Memphis Flyer, Memphis Parent magazine and Memphis magazine.
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