What is the cause of all the Crime in Jacksonville? (low income, violent crime)

[JustWanderingFla]

Originally Posted by Ryde41

The most desperate people I've come across were in the public school. If we fix the children that are failing in the schools...you know..the ones up on the roof that are yelling down at the teacher, "hey, look at me" while giving the teacher the middle finger...If we could start be giving these children our immediate attention and counsel them, maybe the student will feel encouraged not to quit school and become a criminal. It might be a good starting point. Suspending students should not be used at all, it doesn't work. Maybe we should replace the dean of students with a high priced psychiatrist. "Come on in Bobby, tell me what's bothering you and why you feel the need to carry an axe in your back pocket?...."

I think you are on to something, seriously. They do need school psychiatrists because the PARENTS aren't doing their jobs. A lot of people are being raised with the idea that having children is easy, you just have one and feed it and clothe it and provide a house and that's all you do. There's an emotional and spiritual side to the child that has to be nurtured, formed by teaching at home and that makes for a good kid. Good kids make for good citizens, good citizens for good marriage parters and parents, which then breeds more good kids. It's a cycle that is broken.

[riveree]

General apathy is probably part of the problem as well. Society expects "someone else" to fix all the problems.

We have homeowner associations to act as a middleman in dealing with our neighbors, school districts responsible for turning our youth into good citizens, self-checkout in the store aisle (who'd want to deal with a *real* person, right?! )....we've disengaged .

Why not see what you can do in your own backyard to deter crime? Streetlights out? Call JEA and report it, don't want for someone else to do it. Trash on the street? Get out there with a pair of gloves and a trash bag. Weedy lot? Seedbomb it : seedballs

We can't solve all of Jacksonville's problems, but there's always some small contribution we can make.

[apanda]

Originally Posted by Ryde41

I could be wrong but I'm not sure that shooting people, to decrease crime, will go over well.

OK, so if JSO sees someone breaking into your car, armed, and they refuse to put down their weapon when they are stopped, and proceed to hold up their weapon like they are about to open fire, what should a cop do? Stand there and reason with him? I think that is enough for the cop to shoot the thug. That officer is risking their life every day, I trust his/her judgement to know when to open fire if they are in danger.
The thugs need to be afraid to even start commenting a crime, not just worry about being caught.

[MAI1229]

Originally Posted by apanda

OK, so if JSO sees someone breaking into your car, armed, and they refuse to put down their weapon when they are stopped, and proceed to hold up their weapon like they are about to open fire, what should a cop do?.

Apanda - more than justification to shoot and I sure hope your officers are doing just that.

[MAI1229]

Originally Posted by JustWanderingFla

It's awful unless you can afford to live in an affluent area like south of Julington Creek (although then you have a lot of annoying yankee transplants driving like bats of hell on SR 13 and crowding up the local Pulix haha). Make no mistake, they WILL run into your car if you don't move out of the way. I don't know why, but they don't seem to care too much about sideswiping or causing a scene. I suppose it's the way they drove up north, I have no idea.

Is that where all my neighbors live?
Seriousely...we really don't drive like that (sideswipe or hit another car) up here, as you're not worth damaging my luxury car, points on my license and an increase in my insurance premium!

[MAI1229]

Originally Posted by JustWanderingFla

I think you are on to something, seriously. They do need school psychiatrists because the PARENTS aren't doing their jobs. A lot of people are being raised with the idea that having children is easy, you just have one and feed it and clothe it and provide a house and that's all you do. There's an emotional and spiritual side to the child that has to be nurtured, formed by teaching at home and that makes for a good kid. Good kids make for good citizens, good citizens for good marriage parters and parents, which then breeds more good kids. It's a cycle that is broken.

I totally agree and believe that a lot of parents are failing their children (not exclusive to JAX either; I see this in my own home town). School psychiatrists could help while the child is in school, however.. the family unit needs help at home. Until the parents recognize that they need help, the available resources (family therapy, state mental wellness organizations, etc.) will remain unexplored. Perhaps a huge ad campaign (billboards, commercials, seminars, etc.) offering such services could be approved and implemented?

Unfortunatley, there's no quick fix and I feel for the parents who work so hard at raising their kids ("hard" meaning, lead by example with morals and values - parents' needs and wants are secondary; the child(ren) comes first - acedemics, athletics, religion, social events take priority over EVERYTHING in the parents' life), yet Johnny up the street doesn't have a curfew and he's only 11 years old or Jaime can date and she's only 12!

Hang in there good parents of Jacksonville and please don't stop raising your children the hard way. Please don't give in 'cause so many parents have given up or never had a clue.

[Kool]

"Parents" like in mom and dad? So where's dad?

[KerryB]

Originally Posted by KerryB

Jacksonville's crime didn''t just crop up recently due to the the bad economy. It's been going on for years & from what I understand, really started getting intense 5-10 years ago.

It's easy to just blame it on drug abuse, which is probably a big part of it. At least the really hard core addictive drugs. But the root of the problem is probably a combination of bad parenting & poor upbringing due to lack of finances, bad role models, environment, broken homes & poor education. Jax seems to have a lot of that going on.

It's a vicious cycle of bad parents that probably have no business procreating raising bad kids.

I'm coming back to this because if you look at most the social problems in our society, not just in Jax, you can trace it back to these things. Sure, you can help some kids come out of it, but many don't. It seems like the absolute worst people always end up having a litter of kids that they cant raise properly & shouldnt be parents in the first place. Then what usually happens is their kids grow up, become a drain of society, commit crimes, etc & do the same thing. It never ends.

Basically the only way you can solve the problem is by preventing just anyone from being able to have a kid. But you cant really do that morally, but still. These are lives we're talking about bringing into the world. What ends up happening is that it's harder to get a library card than it is to have a baby. Hell, the government will pay for it even.

[riveree]

Originally Posted by KerryB

Basically the only way you can solve the problem is by preventing just anyone from being able to have a kid. But you cant really do that morally, but still. These are lives we're talking about bringing into the world. What ends up happening is that it's harder to get a library card than it is to have a baby. Hell, the government will pay for it even.

And it comes back to education again. If young people knew the incredible responsibility that having a child comes with, then it wouldn't seem so "cute" to pop out a bunch of kids at such a young age.

[matt8325]

Jacksonville is no different than any other large city and of course the tough economic times probably make things a little worse. I know the crime in Atlanta seems to be going up lately.