Exact action needed to reduce murders

Memphis is on course to beat a 23-year-old record and we should be ashamed.

The murder rate in Memphis is up 40 percent from last year and we are likely to see 2016 as the bloodiest year on record. It is totally unacceptable and getting mad about it just isn’t enough anymore.

We need meaningful solutions and we need to take action now.

First, we need to define the problem. Memphis is statistically one of the most dangerous cities in the nation. We rank in the top 10 (out of 80 cities across the United States with a population more than 250,000) for murders, robbery, property crime, aggravated assault and burglary.

While all crime is unacceptable, I believe that we need a comprehensive murder-reduction strategy. Reducing homicides should be the number-one priority of everyone. County government, city government and the law enforcement community need to make reducing murders their top goal.

The Memphis Shelby Crime Commission has Operation: Safe Community but none of their goals, in my opinion, specifically address homicides. We need to agree that reducing murder is our number one objective and then start work on achieving it.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to look at the data and discern some basic root causes. The statistics in Memphis clearly demonstrate that a small segment (less than 8 percent) of the population is responsible for a majority of the homicides.

More than half the victims and perpetrators are African-American males between the ages of 19 and 29. When faced with facts we cannot ignore the obvious: We need to find effective strategies to reach young African-American males if we are to stem the rise in murders.

The city of New Orleans has a strategy called “NOLA for Life” and I believe we need to adopt a similar strategy. New Orleans has made murder reduction a top priority and they have seen success because the goal is clear.

The number one pillar of the New Orleans strategy is “stop the shootings.”

We need a clear message, and all the resources in city and county government should be tasked to finding and implementing solutions.

The Shelby County Health Department and the Division of Community Services have had great success lowering infant mortality. I believe it is time to take a similar approach with reducing homicides.

I will propose the county take leadership and add additional resources because there is no more important goal than reducing murders. Shelby County law enforcement and Shelby County Schools should also be asked to commit resources to this endeavor.

This will require extensive cooperation and coordination. When we are successful reducing murders, we will also see progress on reducing other crimes.

I have been looking into this matter for some time and recently came across a progress report from New Orleans that shows sustainable success reducing homicides over the past four years.

New Orleans is having success because they are focusing on the at-risk population of young African-American males. One small example is the midnight basketball league that had over 10,000 participants this spring.

We need to copy and implement strategies that have demonstrated success. Other cities like Gary, Indiana, are copying New Orleans. We can and should move quickly to begin implementing the most successful ideas from “NOLA for Life” and we should identify what is working elsewhere.

Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has implemented a Homicide Review Commission to help analyze data and look for trends and root causes. I think we should implement a similar commission. We need a systematic approach with the goal of identifying the youth most at risk and the areas where additional resources need to be allocated.

If we could arrest and prosecute our