During an interview with Memphis CBS affiliate WREG on Friday, Tennessee State Sen. London Lamar (D) reacted to recent crimes in Memphis by stating that we need to ensure “violent offenders are staying in jail and completing their sentences” while also calling on citizens to report crimes and pushing for stricter gun laws, better rehabilitation programs, and investments on the social factors around crime.
Lamar said, “What real action looks like is one, community accountability. I had a town hall earlier this year with the police chief telling our community members, you know who are the terrorizers in your community, say something, speak up. We have anonymous hotlines where you can report individuals in your community who are causing harm and doing crime in your community. Secondly, we have to be held accountable to the fact that this permitless carry law has exasperated the number of crimes. … We can’t just do one or the other.”
She added, “We do need to make sure violent offenders are staying in jail and completing their sentences, while also ensuring they are going to rehabilitative services, so initially, when these individuals get out, they can re-enter society, get a job, take care of their families, take care of themselves, and they won’t need to turn to a life of crime in order to feed themselves or because they’re bored, they have other opportunities that they can get in. … Finally, I hope my colleagues have listened to us from Memphis when we said, you need to invest on the front end on many of the social determinants around crime so that we won’t have incidents like [the mass shooting] and what happened to Eliza this weekend. All of these things are preventable if we do what we can on the front end while also holding those accountable who decide to break the law and cause harm to other people.”
Lamar further stated that the two criminals need to receive “harsh” sentences and charges in order to set an example.
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