Crime Campaign: The search for simple answers to a complex issue
The race for Shelby County Mayor won’t come directly to Worth Morgan until after the May Democratic primary is decided.
But the Memphis City Council member, running unopposed in the May Republican primary, is already knocking incumbent Democratic Mayor Lee Harris on the issue of crime.
Morgan’s campaign Twitter account includes several social media posts a day with the name of a victim of an unsolved violent crime and the story of how they were killed under a caption that says they “deserved better.”
— Morgan for Shelby County Mayor (@morgan_worth) March 9, 2022
Crime and how to deal with it has become one of the central topics locally not just for those competing in the race for county mayor, but for all elected officials.
Harris faces a challenge in the May Democratic primary from Ken Moody, an assistant to Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland. Moody is also hitting Harris hard on violent crime.
Moody’s latest jab at Harris is his March 7 endorsement by the Afro-American Police Association.
Lee Harris, Ken Moody and Worth Morgan are all running for Shelby County Mayor with finding the solution to violent crime at the center of each of their campaigns. (The Daily Memphian)
“We don’t want lip service anymore,” said the association’s business manager, retired Memphis Police Lt. Tyrone Currie.
“We want a man of action,” he said. “It’s a statement of where we are today. We are behind and our progress is not what we would like for it to be. We think our political leaders can do better.”
Harris hosted a March 4 forum at LeMoyne-Owen College specifically on youth violence. He served more as a facilitator for the discussion than calling for specific actions.
But when he has called for actions, Harris has focused on the longer term pursuit of the root causes of crime like poverty and a lack of education.
“Maybe you can’t reconcile every single idea that came out of the panelists’ mouths today,” Harris told The Daily Memphian after the hour-long discussion. “But the point is that they are all saying we need to focus on this issue. We need to focus on crime and public safety and creating more opportunity for our youth — even if everybody doesn’t agree on every detail.”
Not only is there disagreement on the details, there is disagreement on what should come first and who has responsibility for what.
Harris has steered clear of crossing into daily law enforcement duties of the elected Shelby County Sheriff, who serves outside the mayor’s county administration.
Moody says Harris could be doing more to act as a coordinator of a countywide response to crime including the Sheriff, Memphis Police Chief and leaders of the suburban police departments within the county’s borders.
He has described his differences with Harris as “stark.”
On The Daily Memphian’s On The Record podcast this month, Moody called Harris’ announcement of funding to put three more juvenile counselors in Memphis Police precincts “pandering” and “not a real genuine effort in make sure our kids have opportunities.”
Harris’ youth crime panel included Nashville-Davidson County Juvenile Court Judge Sheila Calloway along with Memphis-Shelby County Juvenile Court Judge Dan Michael.
Michael faces a challenge in his reelection bid on the August ballot from Memphis City Court Judge Tarik Sugarmon.
The nonpartisan race is a rematch from eight years ago with the same issues of criminal justice reform, specifically the relatively high number of juveniles transferred for trial as adults at the request of the District Attorney’s office and with the approval of Michael’s court.
Generally, the number of juveniles in detention has been down from what is was years ago, as is the number of transfers for trial as adults.
But critics of Republican District Attorney Amy Weirich and Michael, whose re-election bids and challengers are on the August ballot, want to see less contact with the juvenile justice system in general.
Sometimes, those critics point to the lower numbers of juveniles in custody and being transferred for trial as adults in Nashville.
But Calloway said the lower numbers there also come with criticism. The criticism is about children charged with murder who are not transferred for trial as adults and are released because the crime is a reaction to violence done to them or the lack of legal choices or reactions forced by extreme poverty.
“I got some pushback when one kid went back to school,” she said of a child accused of murder. “You don’t know. But I knew what I knew in that case.”
Calloway also questioned the impact she is having on reform because while the numbers of young people in Nashville who have contact with the juvenile justice system is lower than it is in Memphis, the vast majority are still Black and Brown.
“That percentage stays the same,” she said. “I keep looking at myself in the mirror and saying ‘Am I one of them? Why can’t I make this different? Why can’t I change this?’”
Harris didn’t interpret what he heard as conflicting views. But he also didn’t necessarily hear new ideas or some attempt to prioritize what comes first and what doesn’t.
“I’m pleased that people are talking about it. I think it’s the number one issue on the minds of most folks in Memphis and Shelby County,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of folks with great ideas and a lot of folks who are willing to put some skin in the game.”
But Michael warned that not everyone with an idea or a plan has an idea or plan that works or has shown objective, verifiable data that it works.
“It has to work. If it doesn’t work, we can’t use it,” he said.
He cited the “Scared Straight” programs used across the country during the 1970s and 1980s.
“Scared Straight was used for years where we took young children into prisons and let the prisoners scare them to death. It doesn’t work,” Michael said. “Neither do camps where we put them in camps and they are militarized and having to follow orders. They don’t work. The data shows they don’t work.”
The proof that an approach works or doesn’t work takes time. And in the middle ground between trying it and getting the data, more people become crime victims.
That anxiety and the political pressure that candidates and elected officials feel can be allayed by giving a solution a try. But as solutions are proposed and picked, the clock is still ticking on whether it will allay the concerns if not stop the rise in crime.
It may reduce crime on a small scope but to someone who becomes a victim of crime, the fact that they were a victim of one of a reduced number of crimes isn’t going to be comforting. And it won’t be seen as progress.
Crime as a campaign issue can be treacherous political terrain where in the political off season cooperation is touted with any and every announcement of arrests or warrants issued or new crime plan.
But the first suggestion of anything amiss – even a question – reveals hard jurisdictional boundaries that come to the surface.
Law enforcement and the criminal justice system come with a rigid chain of command. There is rarely any collective blame expressed when things go wrong. Conflicting views aren’t easily reconciled and often hidden.
That’s what happened when Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee and Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton came to Memphis on the same day — March 3 — to talk about crime.
They held separate events at different locations within hours of each other.
Each pushed a different priority in fighting crime.
Lee agreed with Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland, who has pushed for more police officers as the tip of the spear in getting a handle on violent crime.
Lee’s presence marked a significant shift in state government’s role in local law enforcement.
“I am here today because we have a real challenge in our state and we need to address it today,” Lee said. “We need to address it in the budget. We need to address it immediately and we do that by adding law enforcement officers on the road.”
The day before, Lee announced an increase in the ranks of the Tennessee Highway Patrol with 20 new state troopers to be assigned to Shelby County.
He acknowledged a departure from the state’s role of giving local law enforcement what it needs and a longer view of law enforcement.
“Currently, I believe efforts to curb violent crime should focus entirely on crime prevention,” Lee wrote in a letter to Strickland. “Historically, state efforts have focused on sentencing, which tacitly accepts that violent crime will occur while doing little to actually prevent that crime from happening.”
What drew the most attention in the city the next day was what wasn’t said. There was no mention of the “truth in sentencing” legislation that Sexton was in town pushing along with Weirich.
“I don’t look at the details of legislation until it’s a lot closer to my desk,” Lee said of the bill that doesn’t get its first hearing in state Senate committees until Monday, March 14.
“It’s got a long way to go. So I can’t say anything until the bill becomes final. Until that happens, there is an opportunity for changes.”
At Sexton’s appearance at the Airways Memphis Police precinct, Strickland acknowledged the desire for quick solutions to ease frustration while hoping it makes a difference and the limits of dealing with frustration instead of crime.
“Fighting violent crime is a complex problem with many pieces to the puzzle and there is not a quick fix,” he said.
Strickland pushed Lee and his administration for more state troopers to patrol the city’s interstate system and state highways through the city.
Strickland has also differentiated between violent and nonviolent offenders, saying repeat violent criminals should get stiffer sentences and nonviolent criminals should get chances to avoid prison and turn their lives around.
At times, that can seem as if there are two different types of criminals.
Sexton didn’t make a distinction.
He touted that the “truth in sentencing” bill, of which he is the lead sponsor, would make Tennessee the first state to require felons to serve all of their sentences.
“The scales of justice are meant to be balanced, not unbalanced,” he said. “And sometimes, you can be too soft. You can have too much rehabilitation and not enough sentencing.”
After the LeMoyne-Owen College forum on youth violence, Harris, a former state Senator, said it’s not that simple for Lee or for legislators.
He said Lee will probably look first at the fiscal note of the bill.
That’s the estimate of what it will cost the state to keep those sentenced to state prisons behind bars for all — or at least more — of their sentences.
The fiscal note’s latest calculation is $27.7 million more by the 2032 fiscal year — a drop from the first fiscal note’s estimate of $40 million more.
“Those bills are extremely costly,” Harris said. “The only way you can get those kinds of bills over the finish line is with the governor’s support. If the governor doesn’t support a bill like that, it’s nearly impossible.”
Reporters Ian Round and Yolanda Jones contributed to this story.
Topics
2022 elections crime Lee Harris Worth Morgan Ken Moody Bill LeeBill Dries on demand
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Bill Dries
Bill Dries covers city and county government and politics. He is a native Memphian and has been a reporter for almost 50 years covering a wide variety of stories from the 1977 death of Elvis Presley and the 1978 police and fire strikes to numerous political campaigns, every county mayor and every Memphis Mayor starting with Wyeth Chandler.
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