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The Commercial Appeal, Memphis, Tenn., David Waters column

Commercial Appeal - 7/26/2017

July 26--When I heard about local law enforcement's new "Fed Up" with gun crime campaign, my first thought was Howard Beale.

You remember the now (for us) ironically named Beale, the frustrated news anchor in the 1976 movie "Network."

"We sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be," Beale, played by Oscar-winner Peter Finch, tells his viewers.

The more he talks, the madder he gets.

"We know things are bad. Worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house and slowly the world we're living in is getting smaller," he says.

It's not just a commentary. It's a call to action.

"I want you to get mad. I want you to get up right now and go to the window," he says. "Open it, and stick your head out, and yell: 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take this anymore!'"

It's one of most iconic moments in film history, and it sounded vaguely familiar here this week.

"We're fed up," Mayor Jim Strickland said at a press conference announcing the latest initiative to quell gun violence in Memphis.

"The community is fed up," said County Dist. Atty. Amy Weirich. Police Director Michael Rallings, and U.S. Atty. Lawrence Laurenzi agreed.

They aren't asking us to stick our heads out windows and yell. They are arranging for billboards, radio and TV ads to do that for us.

The idea is to let potential perps know that police officers and prosecutors are going to be throwing a bigger and heavier book at all gun crimes.

The message: Gun Crime. Max Time. 8-12 Years State. 15 Years Federal.

Proponents say the strategy, known as Group Violence Intervention, has worked before, including in Memphis. Remember "Gun Crime is Jail Time" and "Gun Down"?

"The idea is to communicate consequences using a variety of approaches to change behavior," said Dr. Richard Janikowski, a retired criminologist. He helped the city develop the "Jail Time" ad campaign and other violent-crime reducing strategies in the early 2000's.

Janikowski likens "Fed Up" to Mothers Against Drunk Driving and other ad-based public service campaigns to raise awareness and change behavior.

"The ads must be accompanied by actual law-enforcement action," he added. "It is not a general get-tough-on-crime approach or message, but a targeted message."

The message is intended to be preventive, to make potential shooters think (at least once, if not twice) about pulling a trigger. But it won't be effective unless it's backed up by aggressive prosecution.

That means more convictions, fewer plea deals, longer sentences, more incarceration.

We've tried that, haven't we?

Decades of mandatory minimums, three-strikes laws, and mass incarceration haven't seemed to put much of a dent in gun violence. Mass incarceration has become a plague on all our houses.

"The simple fact is that while punishment works for the most part on those of us who are law abiding, criminal offenders are not us," Texas criminologist William R. Kelly has written.

Eight in 10 violent offenders have drug and/or alcohol issues. A third to half are mentally ill. Many suffer from brain trauma and other neurological deficits. Most come from disadvantage, disorder and poverty.

"Yes, sometimes crime is just a bad decision or the result of hanging around with the wrong crowd. But for the most part, crime is more complex and challenging," Kelly wrote. "Reducing crime and recidivism requires that we focus on mitigating those factors implicated in offending."

No one disagrees with that. Punishment isn't the only strategy being deployed by local crime fighters.

More efforts than ever are underway to help young people stay in school and graduate, find mentors and jobs, avoid arrest and detention, disavow gangs and guns, and get help.

We'll have to do much, much more.

"These ad campaigns are not the sole solution to our violent crime issues in Memphis," said Howard Robertson, CEO of Trust Marketing & Communications Inc., who designed "Gun Crime is Jail Time" and "Fed Up."

"The systemic issues of poverty, education, hopelessness and racism still intentionally and seriously need to be addressed."

We all are fed up.

Fed up with too many guns in the hands too many people who are too willing to shoot to kill.

Fed up with their irresponsible and irrational behavior and our inability to do anything to slow or stop it.

Fed up with seeing it on TV and reading about it in the paper and worrying about, needlessly or not, wherever we are.

Let's hope we're fed up enough to do more than yell.

___

(c)2017 The Commercial Appeal (Memphis, Tenn.)

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