The ridiculous violence in N.O. (1 Viewer)

[Geldo]

Personal success, freedom, fulfilment is a bad thing? Call me crazy

Sorry to break it to you bit it works while socialism has completely failed.

There is nothing wrong with personal success, freedom and fulfilment - it is the glorification of the individual and the accompanying dimunition of the importance of the collective in our lives which fuels a selfish, violent and chaotic culture.

As for Socialism, well it was the system adopted by the UK government during its darkest hour when Britain was alone and without allies and the world's most powerful army and air force was camped 22 miles away waiting to invade. It helped organise industry so tanks, guns, food, resources, civil defence could be optimised for the benefit of the nation.

It was such a complete failure that after the war Clement Attlee managed to build 400,000 new council homes; created a universal free health service; created enough work for hundreds of thousands of demobbed troops, rebuilt British schools, and kick-started bankrupt British industry by nationalising it and pumping in millions in investment.

It's such a failure that Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark are among the most prosperous, socially cohesive, and happiest countries in the world.

Such a complete failure that it took billions and billions of dollars and a succession of brutal, repressive torturers to stamp it out in Latin America (and such a failure that the electorate saw fit to elect the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and left wing parties across South and Central America once the Contras had taken up new posts as drug smugglers, and the torturers were politely shuffled off into retirement).

Such a complete failure that both China and Russia used it to drag their war-devastated countries out of the stone age to Industrial superpower status in decades - despite both being invaded and occupied by the US.

Such a complete failure that the impoverished and war-ravaged Eastern European soviet satelites managed to provide full employment, cheap housing, subsidised fuel and transport, thriving arts and culture, sporting excellence, free healthcare and education for their citizens.

Now of course that's a pitiful substitute for such vital necessities such as the right to vote for candidates who both represent the business elite, or for the right to buy a pair of Nik e trainers with 'Capitalism wins' on the side I'll grant you....but in the end the good people of Eastern Europe did get to taste the joy of capitalism.

It 'worked' by destroying their jobs, their savings (whch became worthless overnight as the economy collapsed), putting tens of millions on welfare, and handing over national assets once owned by the collective to the Russian Mafia and the Oligarchs.

Still, it did create an exciting new job for the thousands of East German and Czech women who used to work in the now-closed textile factories. They were given the amazing opportunity to travel to the west, working in the world's biggest drive-in brothel - a whole town along the German/Czech border.

In the failed old days of Socialism they only got Fork*ed on shopping and polling days, now they get it everyday.

Hooray for good old Market forces capitalism - the system which was such a great success across the world that once again the banks collapsed and had to be bailed out by the good old tax payer.

How ironic that if Capitalist bankers had followed Friedman's strict policy of non-intervention and 'letting the markets decide', his cherished banks would have collapsed in ruins along with his tired old robber-baron ideology. It took a Socialist style nationalisation (politely called a bail-out to save embarrassment) to save the banks and the western economy.

 

[Dibert]

I grew up on N Hennessey St in Mid City, my grandparents lived on St. Claude between Franklin and Elysian Fields, these were both my neighborhoods growing up. My grandfather got mugged once and my dad had is tools stolen out of his car on St. Claude. There was once a murder/suicide on the neutral ground of Orleans Ave. I saw the blood on the sidewalk when I walked to school the next day to John Dibert. My bike was stolen a few times from our back shed. I remember one time coming home from school and our house was broken into and the TV was gone.

I got that six sense of looking over your shoulder at a very young age. But even after all that, best childhood ever; wouldn't change it for anything or anyone elses. Loved both neighborhoods. So many stories, I could go all night.

 

[drob8785]

We had a murder outside of Mondo in broad daylight in the heart of Lakeview. No that didnt used to happen here. A father and husband was murdered in the Quarter five or six months ago. He happened to be white. He counts. He was a good family guy. Shootouts outside of Chris Owens Club on Bourbon street in a packed crowd on Halloween night with multiple people endangered and shot that had nothing to do with the drug trade.. Shootings on the Uptown route of Mardi Gras Parades. Hispanic man shot sitting on his porch. Shootings near the Bayou Boogaloo event at Bayou St. John.
I live here and have been directly affected by some of this BS. You can call BS all you want, but it is different. The shootings are happening in areas that put people with no connection to the drug trade in danger.

Go back and reread my post.

I never once made the claim that ONLY young black men get murdered or that it ONLY occurs in the bad neighborhoods.

Shootings near Bourbon, especially Canal and Bourbon are nothing new. Because the Quarter and tourism are the city's lifeblood, anytime something bad happens there (the doctor that was murdered during the mugging a while ago, or the shooting on Bourbon), it is ALWAYS sensationalized and overhyped. The murder in front of Mondo was shocking of course -- but it's not the first murder to ever occur in Lakeview, nor will it be the last. But murders in Lakeview are rare enough that it makes a news story and sticks in peoples minds. A news story does not make a trend.

Hispanics in New Orleans are, unfortunately, easy targets for muggings. They often get paid in cash, lack english language skills to handle reporting a crime, and sometimes lack documentation. The recent murder of that Hispanic man by the 13 year old is horrible. But it wasn't some completely random event. I used to live three blocks from where it happened, and that isn't a great neighborhood. While I don't know what Rafael Quintanilla did for a living, I know the neighborhood well enough to know that he probably worked construction. So high risk neighborhood and a victim with a high risk profile. The 13 year old is obviously a big shame, but I imagine he didn't approach the man intent on murdering him -- he was 13 and I think he probably did what 13 years olds tend to do, make mistakes. Don't get me wrong -- I don't want to minimize this mistake though -- his "mistake" cost a man his life. A tragedy, not just because Rafael Quintanilla is dead, but also because two young men's lives are most likely over before they ever really began.

Your "evidence" is nothing more than one off sensationalized stories. I'm not denying that violent crime cannot occur in good neighborhoods to innocent people. I'm not denying that violent crime has increased in New Orleans post-Katrina.

But I am refuting your stance -- that it's "spreading" and "changing" as opposed to just growing in scale.

If I'm wrong and you are right, there should be evidence out there beyond a handful of sensationalist stories picked from the evening news.

I've provided my evidence -- that the murder victims in New Orleans are overwhelmingly (but not only) young black males and that murders occur overwhelmingly (but not only) in a select handful of neighborhoods.

I'm interested to see yours.

Also, while my location says "London" -- I've lived and worked in New Orleans within the past year. I worked in the schools -- directly with 14 year olds with ankle monitors on. I've known students who died in the senseless street violence.

It is a horrible, horrible thing. It pains me, more than it pains the average white middle class guy from River Ridge. I still can't help myself, but I have to click on every murder story published by the T-P, even though I'm terrified I'll recognize the name, because I need to know.

We need to approach this issue logically and not over dramatize it. Grandmas in Lagensteins aren't being gunned down and neither are little kids playing soccer in Lakeview. So let's not act like they are.

Hyperbole does nothing here.

Wards dont even matter as much as they used to because people a spread all over with the demo of the projects.

Good point.

The RSD Direct Run high school I worked in was, like most (all?) of the district open-enrollment across the district -- meaning that kids from all over the city came to my school.

I'm say that 75% of our fights were because the kids from New Orleans East were fighting the kids from Hollygrove or something like that. Many of these kids rep projects that they've never lived in or that they have only a slight connection to.

For everyone one murder due to drugs there are multiple numbers of people in those persons lives that are just as involved in the activity and will be the next victim or murderer. This cycle continues to grow for each drug and gang related murder until it eventually takes over the vast majority of the city. These criminals do not operate in a vacuum. Where there is one there are two, then four, then eight, then ....

Anyone who follows the NOLA.com crime reports can easily see the pattern.

There'll be a murder on one street followed quickly (that night or the next day) by another in a different neighborhood. Then there'll be a third murder, this time nearby (a block or two away) the first murder. And so on and so forth.

Often the murders are just retaliation. You killed A so we killed Z, you then kill B, and so we killed Y.

It's a cycle sure...but is it affecting my hipster friend who bikes down St Claude to the Hi Ho Lounge? Or my father as he goes to work every day? No.

 

[Big_L]

I here ya on that one bro.

Be careful about lumping the entire "black community" together though.

There are lots of us, I'd even go as far to say the majority of us do not glamorize voilence and have a very high view of education.

But it is a large minority of a bad element in the black population. Just a guestimate, I'd say about 35%.

But those are the ones heard and seen most often, on the news, or in the streets causing mayhem.

When the other 65% of us either do nothing, move away and shut our eyes and close our ears to what is really going on out there.

At the end of the day, white people, the government, etc cant and wont do anything to fix our problems. We as a community are the only ones with the power to do so. Instead of marching for Travon we should be focusing our energy on the countless black bodies being stacked up at the hands of our own black people.

It's a sad situation, glad you spoke up tho.

I dont mean the whole black community is out there poppin' caps and stealing stuff. However, it will take the coordinated effort of the entire black community to reclaim our youth and put them on the right track. I try to be a role model to children that know me and those that dont. As a police officer I interact with many troubled youth and try to let them know that there is a better life if you just work hard. Nothing that is worth it is easy. Stop looking for the quick fix and work toward having something that you earned.

 

[The Mongoose]

Go back and reread my post.

I never once made the claim that ONLY young black men get murdered or that it ONLY occurs in the bad neighborhoods.

Shootings near Bourbon, especially Canal and Bourbon are nothing new. Because the Quarter and tourism are the city's lifeblood, anytime something bad happens there (the doctor that was murdered during the mugging a while ago, or the shooting on Bourbon), it is ALWAYS sensationalized and overhyped. The murder in front of Mondo was shocking of course -- but it's not the first murder to ever occur in Lakeview, nor will it be the last. But murders in Lakeview are rare enough that it makes a news story and sticks in peoples minds. A news story does not make a trend.

Hispanics in New Orleans are, unfortunately, easy targets for muggings. They often get paid in cash, lack english language skills to handle reporting a crime, and sometimes lack documentation. The recent murder of that Hispanic man by the 13 year old is horrible. But it wasn't some completely random event. I used to live three blocks from where it happened, and that isn't a great neighborhood. While I don't know what Rafael Quintanilla did for a living, I know the neighborhood well enough to know that he probably worked construction. So high risk neighborhood and a victim with a high risk profile. The 13 year old is obviously a big shame, but I imagine he didn't approach the man intent on murdering him -- he was 13 and I think he probably did what 13 years olds tend to do, make mistakes. Don't get me wrong -- I don't want to minimize this mistake though -- his "mistake" cost a man his life. A tragedy, not just because Rafael Quintanilla is dead, but also because two young men's lives are most likely over before they ever really began.

Your "evidence" is nothing more than one off sensationalized stories. I'm not denying that violent crime cannot occur in good neighborhoods to innocent people. I'm not denying that violent crime has increased in New Orleans post-Katrina.

But I am refuting your stance -- that it's "spreading" and "changing" as opposed to just growing in scale.

If I'm wrong and you are right, there should be evidence out there beyond a handful of sensationalist stories picked from the evening news.

I've provided my evidence -- that the murder victims in New Orleans are overwhelmingly (but not only) young black males and that murders occur overwhelmingly (but not only) in a select handful of neighborhoods.

I'm interested to see yours.

Also, while my location says "London" -- I've lived and worked in New Orleans within the past year. I worked in the schools -- directly with 14 year olds with ankle monitors on. I've known students who died in the senseless street violence.

It is a horrible, horrible thing. It pains me, more than it pains the average white middle class guy from River Ridge. I still can't help myself, but I have to click on every murder story published by the T-P, even though I'm terrified I'll recognize the name, because I need to know.

We need to approach this issue logically and not over dramatize it. Grandmas in Lagensteins aren't being gunned down and neither are little kids playing soccer in Lakeview. So let's not act like they are.

Hyperbole does nothing here.



Good point.

The RSD Direct Run high school I worked in was, like most (all?) of the district open-enrollment across the district -- meaning that kids from all over the city came to my school.

I'm say that 75% of our fights were because the kids from New Orleans East were fighting the kids from Hollygrove or something like that. Many of these kids rep projects that they've never lived in or that they have only a slight connection to.



Anyone who follows the NOLA.com crime reports can easily see the pattern.

There'll be a murder on one street followed quickly (that night or the next day) by another in a different neighborhood. Then there'll be a third murder, this time nearby (a block or two away) the first murder. And so on and so forth.

Often the murders are just retaliation. You killed A so we killed Z, you then kill B, and so we killed Y.

It's a cycle sure...but is it affecting my hipster friend who bikes down St Claude to the Hi Ho Lounge? Or my father as he goes to work every day? No.

I disagree. It's different. For the most part, yeah, it's the same people who know each other killing each other. No doubt. But the frequency of the outlying, sensational stuff is increasing.

It's not hyperbole. You don't have to walk down the wrong street in quarter now to get mangled. It can happen in the 200 block of Bourbon at prime time. In a crowd. You say hyperbole serves nothing, but denial has even worse consequences.

I despise police brutality and aggressiveness. With the following, I'm not advocating it. Because I hate it and don't want to see it. I'm just stating what I think changed to allow crime more frequently in popular areas. I think it's possible that there used to be significant "off the books" justice meted out by the NOPD if people screwed up in the wrong area. Criminals were afraid of that. They're not afraid of the justice system, because essentially no one goes to jail for murder here. But they were afraid of the cops in certain instances.

I think that's gone, due to the recent public embarrassments and trials of NOPD officers. I'm not wishing for bully cops, or saying it was better that way. I'm just saying I think it's a factor.

We need to find a way to make a legitimate justice system more of a deterrent for criminals.

 

[BHM]

This post is for Oye...


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The above video is one of hundreds or thousands on youtube. Ghetto fights. Trailer park fights. What I want to point out is the kids around the fight. This is their daily life. There is a school in the poor part of Lafayette. I went there on a regular basis for a while. In front of the school, while school was in session, I witnessed a street fight and a prostitute yelling at me as I drove by asking me if I wanted a blowjob for $10.00. ( I was able to get her down to five bucks but that is another story)

I know you are big into education. I am curious to hear your thoughts on this. How would or how could education overcome these obstacles faced by these kids? I know that there will be a small percentage of the kids that get beyond this life but it is a small percentage.

I feel that we can spend a gazillion dollars on programs but when these kids leave the campus and are faced with the ghetto life, eduction will not help most of them.

Two years ago this same school went through a major change. After years of failing, the entire staff was let go. The School Board offered substantially higher pay for the new staff which were required to apply for every position at the campus. The thought was that by bringing in the best of best and offering huge incentives, the results would improve. Two years later, it is actually doing worse.

So my question is how can education overcome the environment? What else could be done? One thought I had was to possibly incorporate a low income housing project with schools and police substations all in one complex. If we are going to get these kids out of the vicious cycle they are stuck in, they have to be exposed to more than drug deals, prostitution and fighting when they are out of school.

We can not make people be good parents but we can perhaps substitute poor parenting with a stable and positive environment. Or even do away with the current system of low income housing where we have hundreds of people living in apartment style complexes. I do not have the answers but the direction we are heading must be changed. It will require more than just money being thrown around on pet projects.

 

[bozoka45]

You think taking guns away is going to stop people from killing each other? People have been killing each other before guns were invented. Gun control is a joke, all that would do is take guns away from innocent people and the thugs would still be able to have their guns.

Sure, people would still be killed, but it would be much harder than simply pulling a trigger. Decriminalize drugs. Rather than jail time, demand community service. Reduce our world-leading incarceration rate, and provide rehab and jobs to those currently in jail for drug offenses.

Have you been to Tulane and Broad? Go sit in magistrate court one morning and listen to how many young men are going through the prison judicial system for a roach, joint, or a few grams of crack. Those people don't need prison. Some may need rehab.

Then, tighten gun control. The thugs get guns when they rob a house or open an unlocked car door. There's go to be a better way to get guns off the street.

 

[bornnraisedwhodat]

no it is certainly not an excuse but there is a difference between giving an excuse and identifying the root of the problem. I think there is a mindset in a lot of our poverty stricken areas that you get out in one of three ways: Sports, Music or Crime. You don't make it in the first two unless you are elite. There is a another way but I don't think it is always visible to theses kids.

Bornraised, this has been eating at me too so I am glad you posted. It is very sad about your nephew but if he was surrounded by positive influence and still went bad, then he is the exception not the rule. There will always be exceptions I'm afraid.

Yeah that's my feeling too. he could have been brought up in a Watertown, South Dakota and probably would have still turned out to be a horrible person. The only thing that bugs me is a still see a lot of the "emptiness" I saw in him among the youngsters I talk too.

 

[BHM]

Sure, people would still be killed, but it would be much harder than simply pulling a trigger. Decriminalize drugs. Rather than jail time, demand community service. Reduce our world-leading incarceration rate, and provide rehab and jobs to those currently in jail for drug offenses.

Have you been to Tulane and Broad? Go sit in magistrate court one morning and listen to how many young men are going through the prison judicial system for a roach, joint, or a few grams of crack. Those people don't need prison. Some may need rehab.

Then, tighten gun control. The thugs get guns when they rob a house or open an unlocked car door. There's go to be a better way to get guns off the street.

I could be wrong but I do not think our jails are packed with first time offenders. I do not think it is filled with people that were caught with a roach for the first time.

I have sat through a few court sessions and what I saw was a lot of slap on the wrists and probations. Only the repeat repeat offenders were given jail time. This was here in Lafayette. Maybe different in other areas.


Provide them jobs? Tell me more about that. Jobs working where and doing what? Are you talking about making them cut grass along the sidewalks or picking up trash?

 

[krushing]

I could be wrong but I do not think our jails are packed with first time offenders. I do not think it is filled with people that were caught with a roach for the first time.

I have sat through a few court sessions and what I saw was a lot of slap on the wrists and probations. Only the repeat repeat offenders were given jail time. This was here in Lafayette. Maybe different in other areas.


Provide them jobs? Tell me more about that. Jobs working where and doing what? Are you talking about making them cut grass along the sidewalks or picking up trash?

Many of these folks doing this crime aren't even old enough to legally work, and the ones that are old enough would see work as an opportunity to score better crimes. It's the way these kids were raised by their crack-head parent (one parent if they were lucky). Jobs are only a small part of the answer. Do you guys really think these perps are going to go home and sleep so they can get up and go weld at a ship yard if given the chance where they have to show up every day at 5 am and not walk away with half the tools. That's not the way they were raised. They believe in taking from those who have anything not working for those who have things. Somehow you have to re-program that mind-set or take them out of society. A few years ago we had a trial program where I work. Kids spent their time trying stealing credit card numbers from the folks trying to help them. They would have led the folks who were trying to help them directly into muggings and possibly killings if given the opportunity. Don't believe it, try to help these kids sometime get a job. You might wind up in a ditch somewhere if you do.

 

[inetnawlins]

Go back and reread my post.

I never once made the claim that ONLY young black men get murdered or that it ONLY occurs in the bad neighborhoods.

Shootings near Bourbon, especially Canal and Bourbon are nothing new. Because the Quarter and tourism are the city's lifeblood, anytime something bad happens there (the doctor that was murdered during the mugging a while ago, or the shooting on Bourbon), it is ALWAYS sensationalized and overhyped. The murder in front of Mondo was shocking of course -- but it's not the first murder to ever occur in Lakeview, nor will it be the last. But murders in Lakeview are rare enough that it makes a news story and sticks in peoples minds. A news story does not make a trend.

Hispanics in New Orleans are, unfortunately, easy targets for muggings. They often get paid in cash, lack english language skills to handle reporting a crime, and sometimes lack documentation. The recent murder of that Hispanic man by the 13 year old is horrible. But it wasn't some completely random event. I used to live three blocks from where it happened, and that isn't a great neighborhood. While I don't know what Rafael Quintanilla did for a living, I know the neighborhood well enough to know that he probably worked construction. So high risk neighborhood and a victim with a high risk profile. The 13 year old is obviously a big shame, but I imagine he didn't approach the man intent on murdering him -- he was 13 and I think he probably did what 13 years olds tend to do, make mistakes. Don't get me wrong -- I don't want to minimize this mistake though -- his "mistake" cost a man his life. A tragedy, not just because Rafael Quintanilla is dead, but also because two young men's lives are most likely over before they ever really began.

Your "evidence" is nothing more than one off sensationalized stories. I'm not denying that violent crime cannot occur in good neighborhoods to innocent people. I'm not denying that violent crime has increased in New Orleans post-Katrina.

But I am refuting your stance -- that it's "spreading" and "changing" as opposed to just growing in scale.

If I'm wrong and you are right, there should be evidence out there beyond a handful of sensationalist stories picked from the evening news.

I've provided my evidence -- that the murder victims in New Orleans are overwhelmingly (but not only) young black males and that murders occur overwhelmingly (but not only) in a select handful of neighborhoods.

I'm interested to see yours.

Also, while my location says "London" -- I've lived and worked in New Orleans within the past year. I worked in the schools -- directly with 14 year olds with ankle monitors on. I've known students who died in the senseless street violence.

It is a horrible, horrible thing. It pains me, more than it pains the average white middle class guy from River Ridge. I still can't help myself, but I have to click on every murder story published by the T-P, even though I'm terrified I'll recognize the name, because I need to know.

We need to approach this issue logically and not over dramatize it. Grandmas in Lagensteins aren't being gunned down and neither are little kids playing soccer in Lakeview. So let's not act like they are.

Hyperbole does nothing here.



Good point.

The RSD Direct Run high school I worked in was, like most (all?) of the district open-enrollment across the district -- meaning that kids from all over the city came to my school.

I'm say that 75% of our fights were because the kids from New Orleans East were fighting the kids from Hollygrove or something like that. Many of these kids rep projects that they've never lived in or that they have only a slight connection to.



Anyone who follows the NOLA.com crime reports can easily see the pattern.

There'll be a murder on one street followed quickly (that night or the next day) by another in a different neighborhood. Then there'll be a third murder, this time nearby (a block or two away) the first murder. And so on and so forth.

Often the murders are just retaliation. You killed A so we killed Z, you then kill B, and so we killed Y.

It's a cycle sure...but is it affecting my hipster friend who bikes down St Claude to the Hi Ho Lounge? Or my father as he goes to work every day? No.

To you it is sensationalized news stories and hyperbole. I knew the Dr. that was murdered on Dauphine. I have connections to other crimes that are just stories to you. Changes your perspective if a rolling firefight breaks out in an intersection on Carrollton 5 to 10 minutes after you drove through with your four year old. Or if a man is shot to death outside Mondo when you were just there with your elderly parents and other family members. You are in denial. The problem isn't sensationalized news stories. If anything the media miss most of the crime happening around town.
You don't have to believe me. That's fine. But I can tell things have changed for the worst.
And as to your last statement, I hope it never affects your friend or father. But it very well could.


Interesting that you go so far as to claim the 13 year old just made a mistake in killing the man on his front porch. You don't know that. Being an apologist for murderers will not help our situation here.

 

[bozoka45]

I could be wrong but I do not think our jails are packed with first time offenders. I do not think it is filled with people that were caught with a roach for the first time.

I have sat through a few court sessions and what I saw was a lot of slap on the wrists and probations. Only the repeat repeat offenders were given jail time. This was here in Lafayette. Maybe different in other areas.


Provide them jobs? Tell me more about that. Jobs working where and doing what? Are you talking about making them cut grass along the sidewalks or picking up trash?

Sorry I don't have stats, but a significant percent of Louisiana local and state prisoners are in jail for drug offenses. Is getting caught with a roach a second or third time really that much worse? What about crack, which is addicting as hell. Does putting that person in person at a cost of $25/day to the state accomplish anything? Do repeat offenders deserve life without parole, as required by Louisiana law?

Picking up trash, cutting grass, and other manual labor, yes. Maybe not even jobs. Make it community service, but give them a strong incentive to attend, like free breakfast and lunch.

This problem with New Orleans, and the rest of Louisiana, isn't going to turn around without an outside the box solution. Our current penal system isn't working, as evidenced by the multiple posters on here who claim the crime problem is getting worse or hasn't changed. No one has claimed that it's improving. We owe it to ourselves to try something different.

 

[RazorOye]

Sorry I don't have stats, but a significant percent of Louisiana local and state prisoners are in jail for drug offenses.

This problem with New Orleans, and the rest of Louisiana, isn't going to turn around without an outside the box solution. Our current penal system isn't working, as evidenced by the multiple posters on here who claim the crime problem is getting worse or hasn't changed. No one has claimed that it's improving. We owe it to ourselves to try something different.

2/3 of prisoners in Louisiana are serving sentences for nonviolent offenses.

I cited this piece the other day in a thread on the PDB based on a T-P article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/26/opinion/blow-plantations-prisons-and-profits.html

included are the following facts:

• One in 86 Louisiana adults is in the prison system, which is nearly double the national average.
• More than 50 percent of Louisiana’s inmates are in local prisons, which is more than any other state. The next highest state is Kentucky at 33 percent. The national average is 5 percent.
• Louisiana leads the nation in the percentage of its prisoners serving life without parole.
• Louisiana spends less on local inmates than any other state.
• Nearly two-thirds of Louisiana’s prisoners are nonviolent offenders. The national average is less than half.

and the writer agrees with you '45 that the current system in Louisiana isn't working:

Louisiana is the starkest, most glaring example of how our prison policies have failed. It showcases how private prisons do not serve the public interest and how the mass incarceration as a form of job creation is an abomination of justice and civility and creates a long-term crisis by trying to create a short-term solution.

and from the T-P article Blow cites:

“Louisiana is the world’s prison capital. The state imprisons more of its people, per head, than any of its U.S. counterparts. First among Americans means first in the world. Louisiana’s incarceration rate is nearly triple Iran’s, seven times China’s and 10 times Germany’s.”

more at that link

 

[krushing]

Sorry I don't have stats, but a significant percent of Louisiana local and state prisoners are in jail for drug offenses. Is getting caught with a roach a second or third time really that much worse? What about crack, which is addicting as hell. Does putting that person in person at a cost of $25/day to the state accomplish anything? Do repeat offenders deserve life without parole, as required by Louisiana law?

Picking up trash, cutting grass, and other manual labor, yes. Maybe not even jobs. Make it community service, but give them a strong incentive to attend, like free breakfast and lunch.

This problem with New Orleans, and the rest of Louisiana, isn't going to turn around without an outside the box solution. Our current penal system isn't working, as evidenced by the multiple posters on here who claim the crime problem is getting worse or hasn't changed. No one has claimed that it's improving. We owe it to ourselves to try something different.

I see posts on here all the time about folks getting a slap on the wrist for getting caught with "a little pot". Those folks in jail usually have a long history with the law and the pot charges are the final straw. You commit 3 or 4 crimes and you give up the right for that slap on the wrist. By that time, the judge is tired of you taking up his time and locks the person away.

 

[drob8785]

To you it is sensationalized news stories and hyperbole. I knew the Dr. that was murdered on Dauphine. I have connections to other crimes that are just stories to you. Changes your perspective if a rolling firefight breaks out in an intersection on Carrollton 5 to 10 minutes after you drove through with your four year old. Or if a man is shot to death outside Mondo when you were just there with your elderly parents and other family members. You are in denial. The problem isn't sensationalized news stories. If anything the media miss most of the crime happening around town.
You don't have to believe me. That's fine. But I can tell things have changed for the worst.

I'm sorry the violence has touched you. Really, I am.

I understand what that is like, to know someone who is taken in a senseless manner.

It's awful. Terrible. Horrible.

I do not think I'm "in denial."

And as to your last statement, I hope it never affects your friend or father. But it very well could.

Of course it could. It's always a possibility, and has always been a possibility. My plane could crash next month, or a bus could come crashing through my wall right now.

But possibility does not equal likely.

I'm still waiting for your proof -- if you are right you should be able to find data within the murder record that proves you right, that the violence is "changing and spreading."

Interesting that you go so far as to claim the 13 year old just made a mistake in killing the man on his front porch. You don't know that. Being an apologist for murderers will not help our situation here.

I'm at a loss.

How could anyone read my two posts and come away with a reaction like yours? Either I'm not expressing myself clearly or you just aren't reading and understanding what I'm saying.

I mean, let's revisit what I wrote:

The 13 year old is obviously a big shame, but I imagine he didn't approach the man intent on murdering him -- he was 13 and I think he probably did what 13 years olds tend to do, make mistakes. Don't get me wrong -- I don't want to minimize this mistake though -- his "mistake" cost a man his life. A tragedy, not just because Rafael Quintanilla is dead, but also because two young men's lives are most likely over before they ever really began.

Am I really being an apologist for murderers?

Essentially every news report states that the kids pulled guns on Rafael Quintanilla and demanded "everything." Before Quintanilla could do anything, he was shot. Now, either the goal wasn't to mug him, but to kill him OR the goal was to rob him and the murder was an accident.

Which do you think is more likely?

I'll admit that I don't know for certain -- and neither do you. This is why I qualified my statement with "I think" and "probably."

I suggest you take a moment and reread my two earlier posts. I'm not trying to minimize the violence that is going on. I'm not trying to downplay its threat to our city and our future.

I am trying to correct what I think are incorrect and unnecessary statements about the violence in city.