Crime and Economic Disparity in Pre-Katrina New Orleans
Note: I originally wrote this article with the idea of imploring others to think beyond mundane definitions. By looking at the whole picture without unjust preconceptions, one might discover a story more intricate than just plain deviance when it comes to the perpetration of illegal acts. Certainly, my goal was not to justify unlawfulness, as no one can, or should, approve criminal activities of any type. While this remains the case, rehabilitation can, and does, occur. More importantly, a whole group of people should never be subject to discrimination on the basis of a few bad eggs.
In a new New Orleans, strategies that have worked elsewhere to reduce crime should be implemented. It takes more than a competent police force to rid a city of crime. Included in the comments section, below the article, are two of the many replies I received about this article. Please read these, along with my accompanying responses.
If you read blogs and forums on the internet, you will certainly find countless disparaging words about Katrina evacuees. Even New Orleans locals are posting crude messages regarding their devious desires for many of the poorest victims displaced by the storm. Many writers make a plea for condemning the least fortunate to a permanent existence outside of the city and state.
News articles are posted and reposted, telling of dramatic rises in crime within areas where evacuees have been sheltered. Many of the stories are true, but we could have surmised as much, ourselves, without any outside media interference. New Orleans’ crime rate has been high and rising for many years. We have done nothing to address the root causes of our crime problem, but seem awfully happy to get rid of it the easiest way possible, by sending it to burden someone else.
Prior to Katrina, employment opportunities in New Orleans were rapidly dwindling, as employers were either leaving the city or looking outside the area to fill positions. This decline led to high unemployment rates throughout the parish. One reason for the grand exodus was that we couldn’t offer a large, well-educated workforce. Many of the people in the poorest communities were African Americans who never had a real chance for a quality education. After segregation ended and public schools were integrated, many Caucasians removed their children from these schools in favor of a private education. Before long, the area’s public schools were forgotten and the school board leadership’s interests turned from being educators to becoming greedy swindlers. The system’s surreptitiously depleted finances made it difficult to retain quality, certified teachers. For quite a while, most teachers in the Orleans Parish School System were not qualified to baby sit, let alone educate. Adding to the educational woes for African Americans was the historic lack of a first-rate education for them in the city. Many parents and grandparents found it difficult to reinforce, or even correct, their children’s classroom assignments. Over 70% of the people in Louisiana’s correctional system are African American. The majority can not read or write and most did not even graduate from elementary school. Can you imagine the difficulty of finding employment when you can’t even complete a job application? For many of these unfortunate people, criminal activity was the city’s only economic engine.
Pre-Katrina, drug use and illegal narcotics sales ran rampant throughout New Orleans and the surrounding parishes. Many children grew up in households where marijuana leaves outnumbered tea leaves ninety-nine to one. Apparent hopelessness leads to many negative behaviors. Some drowned their sorrows in alcohol; others tried to visit an induced paradise by snorting, smoking, or injecting illicit substances. For many, this might have been the only way to fathom an escape from roach and rat-infested surroundings. Those living in the worst areas of the city may have found drug dealing as the only way to rise from incessant poverty. One does not have to read instructions to sell drugs. Profits were high, but so were the risks. With luck, one might have wound up in jail, where he or she could have earned a General Equivalency Diploma; without luck, one might have become just another murder statistic for the city’s Uniform Crime Report. Regardless, both provided the potential for escape.
Isn’t it shameful that the Orleans Parish Prison graduated more people with a General Equivalency Diploma than any other provider in the city? In reality, very few places offered the coursework for the G.E.D. prior to Katrina. Not only that, hardly any services were available for poor and uneducated people to improve their lives. Substance abuse clinics were under funded and could not accommodate the numbers that requested treatment. People returning home from prison could find no counseling to help them remain on the straight and narrow and few employment opportunities to assist with their goal. We talk about how awful these people are and how we don’t want them back, but, perhaps, we are the abominations, not them.
Other states have impressive programs geared at helping people who are returning home from jail and more programs for people who never want to see the inside of a prison. Louisiana is thirty years behind the times when it comes to restorative justice. Programs like the Safer Foundation, in Chicago, and Project Rio, in Texas, have shown great promise in reducing the numbers of people returning to jail in those states. Other states have similar and equally successful programs. The only difference between those areas and here is that they have a sincere interest in improving the community. Yes, programs such as these cost money, but the savings at all levels (financial, life, etc.) have been far greater than the expenditures.
http://www.corrections.state.la.us/Statistics/PDF_QSPR/A.pdf
http://saferfoundation.org/
http://www.workforcelink.com/html/rio/servicesrio.html
In a new New Orleans, strategies that have worked elsewhere to reduce crime should be implemented. It takes more than a competent police force to rid a city of crime. Included in the comments section, below the article, are two of the many replies I received about this article. Please read these, along with my accompanying responses.
If you read blogs and forums on the internet, you will certainly find countless disparaging words about Katrina evacuees. Even New Orleans locals are posting crude messages regarding their devious desires for many of the poorest victims displaced by the storm. Many writers make a plea for condemning the least fortunate to a permanent existence outside of the city and state.
News articles are posted and reposted, telling of dramatic rises in crime within areas where evacuees have been sheltered. Many of the stories are true, but we could have surmised as much, ourselves, without any outside media interference. New Orleans’ crime rate has been high and rising for many years. We have done nothing to address the root causes of our crime problem, but seem awfully happy to get rid of it the easiest way possible, by sending it to burden someone else.
Prior to Katrina, employment opportunities in New Orleans were rapidly dwindling, as employers were either leaving the city or looking outside the area to fill positions. This decline led to high unemployment rates throughout the parish. One reason for the grand exodus was that we couldn’t offer a large, well-educated workforce. Many of the people in the poorest communities were African Americans who never had a real chance for a quality education. After segregation ended and public schools were integrated, many Caucasians removed their children from these schools in favor of a private education. Before long, the area’s public schools were forgotten and the school board leadership’s interests turned from being educators to becoming greedy swindlers. The system’s surreptitiously depleted finances made it difficult to retain quality, certified teachers. For quite a while, most teachers in the Orleans Parish School System were not qualified to baby sit, let alone educate. Adding to the educational woes for African Americans was the historic lack of a first-rate education for them in the city. Many parents and grandparents found it difficult to reinforce, or even correct, their children’s classroom assignments. Over 70% of the people in Louisiana’s correctional system are African American. The majority can not read or write and most did not even graduate from elementary school. Can you imagine the difficulty of finding employment when you can’t even complete a job application? For many of these unfortunate people, criminal activity was the city’s only economic engine.
Pre-Katrina, drug use and illegal narcotics sales ran rampant throughout New Orleans and the surrounding parishes. Many children grew up in households where marijuana leaves outnumbered tea leaves ninety-nine to one. Apparent hopelessness leads to many negative behaviors. Some drowned their sorrows in alcohol; others tried to visit an induced paradise by snorting, smoking, or injecting illicit substances. For many, this might have been the only way to fathom an escape from roach and rat-infested surroundings. Those living in the worst areas of the city may have found drug dealing as the only way to rise from incessant poverty. One does not have to read instructions to sell drugs. Profits were high, but so were the risks. With luck, one might have wound up in jail, where he or she could have earned a General Equivalency Diploma; without luck, one might have become just another murder statistic for the city’s Uniform Crime Report. Regardless, both provided the potential for escape.
Isn’t it shameful that the Orleans Parish Prison graduated more people with a General Equivalency Diploma than any other provider in the city? In reality, very few places offered the coursework for the G.E.D. prior to Katrina. Not only that, hardly any services were available for poor and uneducated people to improve their lives. Substance abuse clinics were under funded and could not accommodate the numbers that requested treatment. People returning home from prison could find no counseling to help them remain on the straight and narrow and few employment opportunities to assist with their goal. We talk about how awful these people are and how we don’t want them back, but, perhaps, we are the abominations, not them.
Other states have impressive programs geared at helping people who are returning home from jail and more programs for people who never want to see the inside of a prison. Louisiana is thirty years behind the times when it comes to restorative justice. Programs like the Safer Foundation, in Chicago, and Project Rio, in Texas, have shown great promise in reducing the numbers of people returning to jail in those states. Other states have similar and equally successful programs. The only difference between those areas and here is that they have a sincere interest in improving the community. Yes, programs such as these cost money, but the savings at all levels (financial, life, etc.) have been far greater than the expenditures.
http://www.corrections.state.la.us/Statistics/PDF_QSPR/A.pdf
http://saferfoundation.org/
http://www.workforcelink.com/html/rio/servicesrio.html
posted by Carson W. Maxwell at 9:19 AM
2 Comments:
J. R. wrote:
"I agree with your article I read at Nola.com concerning the plight of the poor in New Orleans who are unable to get a quality education. I was born and raised in NO and am aware of the situation but have a different explanation.
In my opinion, the true cause of this problem is the generational welfare system that is so prevalent in the NO area. If you are a victim of generational welfare then you do not need an education because you never plan on working. You do not need morality because you are paid to have more children but not a spouse. If you are female, you have to work to pay for the kids so you are not around to teach and watch out for your children. You do not have money to buy transportation. If you are a male, you are bored stiff and therefore turn to drugs or alcohol. Since the worse the habit becomes the more money you need, you must turn to crime which of course is the reason that so many end up in prison. This behavior is passed down to children and the circle goes round and round.
I am happy for the children of Katrina who have been relocated to other cities where they may get a chance at a better education and therefore be able to break the cycle and get off the debilitating generational welfare cycle. It is parents who must provide the nucleus of a sober, happy, structured environment, if the children are to prosper through education.
The people of New Orleans must make the hard decisions and elect officials who are competent rather than by party or skin color. The leaders of New Orleans have been pitiful by most standards and should be replaced by those with vision and leadership. I would ask all of the poor, uneducated, imprisoned, citizens the same question that Dr. Phil asks his followers; So how has that been working for you???? The answer is it has not been working!!! The people have the power to change the system in the voting booth. Forget the empty promises of politicians who want only to get on the gravy train without regard for the education, safety, and welfare or their constituents and elect those who will make the hard choices to change our beloved city. The time to forget racial lines is now, and to become what we should be most proud of: Being a New Orleanian and helping our city to become what we all know it should be.
Thank you for your time!"
Thank you for your response.
I agree, not all is fixed with a better educational system... there would still be much to work on. The welfare system in the state is severely broken, but reforms, in the past (in other areas of the country), have been utter failures. The results of Welfare to Work were dismal, leading to more hardships for those the program was trying to assist. There must be a solution somewhere, but it has yet to surface.
While it is nice to say that everyone on welfare should hold a job to continue receiving benefits, the expenses of childcare, transportation, and other necessities seem to cost us more in the long run, especially when only minimum wage pay is available for many of the recipients who work. I would be interested in a pilot program where, rather than being sent out for employment, welfare recipients would be mandated to learn to read, get a G.E.D., and then, possibly, go to a college or trade school. Proof of educational attainment, or employment, would be sufficient to continue receiving government subsidies, until the person is deemed self-sufficient. Of course, childcare and transportation issues must be addressed by any such program.
You are right; there is no excuse for a home environment where there are no rules, structure, or organization. Unfortunately, many find these elements in jail, when it is too late. Upon release from prison, employment is many times more difficult to find, even if literacy levels are improved upon during incarceration. When people are released, they try to do the right thing for a while, but find themselves back in the same routine after returning to the old neighborhoods from which they came. It’s hard to break old habits when your friends and family do nothing to help, or even entice you into unlawful behavior. In familiar surroundings, it is too easy to relapse into old habits and addictions, and nearly impossible to find help.
If you have time, check out a program called Delancey Street, in San Francisco, California. This self-supported facility helps people exiting prison with educational programs and employment, all from a live-in environment. People with criminal histories graduate this program with a college degree, money in the bank, and a prosperous, crime-free future. This program has been around for over thirty years, like another program listed in my article. Many in our local and state governments know about these programs, but no one has taken the initiative to start them here. That’s a real shame.
CWM
S.H.P. writes:
“I thought your article was well written, informative and, above all, accurate. However, mostly it covered excuses for the actions of the many involved in crime, excuses for their level and quality of education and, in general, an attempt at justification for a "free pass". Nowhere did you place blame for this situation on specific individuals or specific bodies, i.e., the mayor of New Orleans from 19.. to 20..., or the School Board that governs the 9th Ward from 19.. to 20...., or the so-called incompetent teachers by name, and the people, by name, who hired them. When people started taking their children out of public schools in sufficient numbers to cause alarm, and placing them in private schools, someone or a group of someone's in specific leadership positions, should have acted to correct the cause. Who were they, by name, and who kept reelecting or appointing them to positions where they could further erode the system and "misappropriate the funds" intended to better the system.
Names and dates please if you desire to continue making excuses for the lack of literacy, motivation, rampart drug use (where do they get the money to buy drugs in the beginning of their dependency), theft (for money after they are dependent on drugs), drive-by shootings, murder......I could go on and on but there is no need.....you get the point.
Yes, I too feel for the communities that received many of these poorly educated thieves and despondent drug addicts and of course the drug dealers who were displaced also. But, somewhere the public has to absorb them into their society whether it be Houston, Baton Rouge, or elsewhere until they are cured of the drug habit, locked up for their crimes, or "given" jobs they can't perform in an efficient manner due to the poor education given them by the "leaders" of their community.
Name the people, sir, that are at the root of this situation in New Orleans! The teachers, district leaders, mayors and their advisors, state lawmakers, state oversight agencies, governors and their staff, etc., etc.
The only thing I ask is stop making excuses and do not include the Federal Government in this blame game. This is a New Orleans' problem and a Louisiana problem.....not a National problem. I too have difficulty "helping" my 17 year old high school senior with his homework but I try, and he is a senior.”
Thank you for your response.
First, I do not condone crime, nor do I wish to give a “free pass” to criminals who commit crimes. Criminal activity, no matter what the cause, deserves punishment—but the punishment rarely works. There are viable alternatives to the “punishments” that Louisiana’s criminal justice system places on people that do seem to show promise; we are simply not utilizing them.
As for blame, everyone deserves it—from mayors, council members, school board members, and other elected officials, both past and present, to each citizen of New Orleans and the entire State of Louisiana. For a complete list, you can check the White Pages throughout Louisiana’s various phone books. We all have had our hands in this great mess. We consistently vote for crooked politicians and corrupt civil servants who promise to improve conditions, when, in reality, they make the environment that much worse.
Actually, our crime problem is a national problem, replicated in many inner-city environs. It would be nice for us to be on the cutting edge of solutions, rather than constantly grabbing at the age-worn coattails of yesterday’s innovations. We have been traveling the old dusty road of stagnancy too long. I hope, with this rebirth, we construct our own ground-breaking highways to success.
Best Regards.
CWM
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