Crime in America

I've got Dr. Curry Myers with us, America's leading criminologist. Uh, Dr. Myers, welcome back to the Dennis Prager Show. Honor to have you on.

Always a pleasure to be on, Carl. Thanks so much.

Yes, sir. And you can find them at Dr. Curry Myers on X, not like the curry chicken, if some of you guys are getting hungry nearing lunchtime or past lunchtime if you're on the East Coast. All right, so C-U-R-R-I-E-M-Y-E-R-S. And also Substack, uh, drcurrymyers.com. Substack.com. DrCurryMeyers.substack.com. And when I'm talking about or thinking about, uh, criminals, this is the guy that I want to speak to. All right, so we don't have tons of time here, uh, Doc, but you wrote a fascinating column on your Substack. All right, A Conservative Blueprint to Restore Public Safety. Uh, just give us a quick analysis and let's go in to some of the points I think you give 20 key areas where criminal justice public policy will be beneficial for society, what needs to be done. So just give us a brief, if you would, summary, and then let's tackle as many of these points as we can.

You bet. Well, President Trump is addressing crime head on. One of the gravest threats remains illegal immigration, of course, with credible estimates suggesting that probably more than half of the border crossings have some sort of criminal intent. So that's being worked on now. Well, let us be clear, Carl, that most crime is local, right? So we have violent crime that is still sweeping the nation. A lot of it came from the illegal alien side, but we also have a lot of our own crime that is occurring, and crime is kind of changing a little bit as well. It has become a little bit more darker. I wrote about this in my book called The Advent of Feral Man, which is also available on my Substack page. And it is not only just in urban areas, but it is in rural areas. But the progressive playbook of leniency, Woke bail policies, defund law enforcement, identity politics, DEI has only poured gasoline on the fire. And the result, quite frankly, has been lawlessness, disorder, and communities left to fend for themselves. It is time really to get serious about a course correction. It needs to be rooted in faith, family, formation, and accountability. Again, those are— my criminogenic background is based if we do not have faith, family, and formation, the three important pillars of society, We're more inclined to become criminogenic in our behaviors. And so we need to make America safe again. And I incorporated 20 criminal justice public policy recommendations to back that up.

Okay. So again, now, Dr. Curry Myers, for those of you that are in the listening audience, you're probably hearing him for the first time. I've interviewed him plenty of times on, on my podcast, The Carl Jackson Show, YouTube, Rumble. Salem Podcast Network, wherever you go to get your podcast. His resume is extensive— 35 years, uh, of professional experience as a law enforcement officer, state trooper, special agent, sheriff, criminologist, consultant, professor. I'm getting tired just mentioning all of your accolades here, uh, Doc, but I just want to make sure that people know that you are legit. So let's get to some of these. All right, this is one that people ironically may not, but should come to the forefront of one's mind instantaneously. You talk about if you want to reduce crime, strengthen family structures. Take that on, Doc.

Well, it's the most important thing. I listed it number one on, on as far as public policy that needs to be adopted. We must support two-parent households. It's the bedrock of the community. It's the bedrock of health within the community and youth development. So, there's things— there's incentives that can be done to make sure that two-parent households are embraced and well thought of and become— reignite the culture of that again. Initiatives like expanding fatherhood programs. Carl, we have somewhere in the neighborhood of close to 80% of the African American community is fatherlessness. They don't have a father figure in their lives. In general, it's— we have a divorce rate that's now gotten above 50%. These are numbers that have escalated significantly in time, and it's— we need to really re-incentivize marriage, especially to help have an impact on formation. The formation of children is extremely important on their character and how they develop into humans.

Hmm. Okay. So that's good. Actually, you touched on— all right, so that was character formation. You touched on a few of those, and I'm glad you did. You said adopt focused deterrence strategies. What do you mean by that, Doc?

Well, we haven't been arresting people. I mean, we've just let people go. That'll work, that'll work. I'd like to say that my profession is rocket science, but it's not. It's evidence-based strategies. Like Boston, for instance, had Operation Ceasefire that was very effective. But I come from a philosophy of broken windows theory, which means that minor offenses matter. We should be aggressively addressing low-level crimes such as vandalism, loitering, public disorder. Carl, do you remember a time when people used to get arrested for loitering and public disorder? I do. I remember that.

I used to get in trouble for jaywalking in California, Doc. I mean, yeah, you know, simple stuff like that.

So we have criminal vagrancy that is occurring that's out of control. California has turned into a lost cause. About 52% of What they call homelessness is vagrancy that's occurring, and they have 52% of the nation's homelessness, which again, the small percentage of those people are actually under the definition of homeless, maybe 5%. Most of them are criminal vagrants, and most of them are due to drug addictions. That's why, and mental health. Mental health today is a major problem. It hasn't been addressed very well. If you take the New York City model, that was done by Rudy Giuliani in the 1990s, uh, and Bill Bratton, who was the chief at that time, was called CompStat, which is a— which is aligned with the Broken Window Theory. New York City became one of the most safest urban areas in the world as a result of their implementation of Broken Windows Theory.

You say, uh, yeah, yeah, I honestly, I remember that and followed that closely, or at least I did after words when I started studying politics a little more. Uh, provide rigorous law enforcement training. Somewhat self-explanatory, but just touch on that real quickly here, Doc.

Well, actually, American law enforcement is one of the, one of the least trained in the world, um, and, but we still have one of the finest criminal justice systems in the, in the world. Uh, so we need to have better training. We need to have more accountability in our training. About 80% of police budgets go towards for salary and benefits. It leaves very little for training. So we shouldn't be defunding police. We should actually be funding them more, and we should be training them better to deal with the issues of today. And then there's also one of, a major issue that occurred was in cashless bail. We use cashless bail throughout the country improperly. We used it, it should be reserved exclusively for nonviolent first-time offenders who pose a minimal risk. This should be based on a mandatory risk assessment or a classification system that has to be implemented to meet certain criteria for cashless bail to occur. It's been applied uniformly in this country, and especially in urban sectors in this country, and you just can't do that. We need a targeted, evidence-based approach that will restore balance by protecting the public, but it's also maintaining fairness to people who are low-risk defendants.

You talk about— how much time do we have left, Mr. McConnell? You, you talk about, uh, expand diversion programs. Uh, talk about that briefly here, Doc.

Well, nonviolent offenders with substance abuse or mental health issues should have access to treatment-oriented diversion programs. Pretrial diversion can really break a cycle of recidivism and reduce the burdens, especially on correctional facilities. I'm an advocate of drug courts, mental health courts. It's a different court system. It still holds people accountable, but it gives them the opportunity to give them treatment. At the same time, and it gives the judges the ability to issue mandated treatment. And this is an important term, mandated treatment. not just would you please take it. And if they fail or if they refuse to take it, then you can go back to the, okay, if you're not willing to do that, then there's jail time or prison time associated. But we have to have more drug courts, mental health courts, they've even used things like veterans courts to be able to handle some of the people that need the opportunity to have a little different diversion program.

Okay, uh, Doc, I'm gonna ask you to stay for one more short segment, but just about 40 seconds left in this segment. Top MS-13 leader arrested in Virginia. Just real quickly, give us your take.

Well, these, um, South American gangs have been a clear and present danger to the United States of America. I'm glad that they've been targeted as terrorist organizations, and the best way to do that is dismantle them from the inside out. And that's exactly what President Trump is doing, as well as the FBI and all the federal agencies. However, law enforcement needs to play a role in that, and there's many urban areas that they are not getting involved in this because of politics, and that's an absolute shame.

Just like Boston. The Boston mayor is absolutely nuts and insane. All right, so we'll take a break. More with Dr. Curry Myers. Find him, drcurrymyers.substack.com. We'll be back with a few more and then I'll go to your calls. I'm speaking to Dr. Curry Myers and we're talking about one of his latest Substack, I believe, A Conservative Blueprint to Restore Public Safety. I just want to go through a few more of these with you, Doc. You have 20 suggestions or 20 ways to restore public safety and obviously some good advice from a man that was a sheriff of one of the largest counties in all of the United States at one period of time too, and did some crazy undercover, undercover work. You'd have to listen to my podcast, search for him to hear about that. Uh, straight up insane. I, I, Doc, I'm a former thug and I would have been scared to go into the situation that you went into. It was a lot of fun.

Remember on your show we talked about me doing murder for hires as an undercover agent. That was always— that was always fun. One point of clarification though, I was the sheriff of the largest, um, populated area in the Midwest, so not the— not the entire United States. So places like Riverside County, California, and others are huge. So there's— so there's many sheriff's offices that are bigger, but as far as the Midwest, uh, I'm one of the bigger ones.

Okay. All right, uh, thanks for the clarification. Okay, a couple more of these. Let's go through. Uh, you say strengthen victim-centered justice and tough-on-crime prosecution. Kind of self- self-explanatory, but, uh, give us your thoughts here, Doc.

Well, prosecutors in most areas are doing a pretty good job, but not in all areas. But they really need to prioritize violent crime cases first, ensuring swift and certain punishment. And we need to go back to looking at habitual offenders and violent offenders. Crime reoffenses are about 63% will reoffend in the community again once they get out of prison. If it's within the first 3 years, if it's within the first 5 years, it raises to about 67%. This is violent offenders.

Wow.

So that's significantly high. So again, you don't have to be a rocket scientist on who you need to focus on. And as a result, we also need to pay attention to parole and probation, which is another important part where I think we've lost a little bit of, of importance on sightings. So we need to restructure probation and parole again, combine services with wraparound services, monitoring high-risk individuals once they're out, paired with workforce development, and that can help in the reduction. But we have to understand that violent offenders, there's a high probability that they're going to reoffend when they get back out. So they need to be watched much more carefully.

Uh, support reentry housing initiatives.

Well, those are one that stable housing is also very critical for reentry success. I'm a big believer and I believe it's important. Our laws are really based on Judeo-Christian philosophy, right? That's the way a lot of these laws were passed. And I think reentry should be a Christian-based opportunity as well. So faith-based halfway houses, and sober living programs can help reduce homelessness and recidivism for ex-offenders. We put too much emphasis on the government and not on emphasis on faith-based communities that can actually play a bigger role in the reentry success for people who are getting out. I'm a big believer that once you serve time for what you've done, you should get the opportunity to come out and succeed. You shouldn't be a branded person. So it's a Christian thing to do is make sure that they get out, get successful, but you just can't turn them out on the street. They got to have a place to stay, a form of income so they can be successful in the long term.

That's good. That's good. So that basically ties into point number 2, if I'm circling back, enhance faith-based initiatives, which I absolutely love. I think you're absolutely right about this stuff. I mean, you, You help— listen, obviously you've got your violent offenders, some that are extremely violent, that are going to serve time in prison for the rest of their lives. I'd argue that even they need God, Jesus, inside of prison so they don't kill anybody else, for God's sake. But you have to help these people understand if they paid their debt to society, and as well they should, once they get out, then you want to make sure that you bring them back into society, give them hope. And hopefully some opportunity where they won't become repeat offenders. And I don't think the government does that as well. I think these people do need God, and I do think these people need an opportunity. And frankly, even though I wasn't in prison or jail even for tons of time, I can tell you when I served probation, what changed my life is a man coming to me, Jim Angelakis. I say his name plenty of times on radio, and just extending the love of Christ and this hardened shell that— I mean, he just broke me down, uh, just by giving me a hug, praying with me, telling me I love you, uh, and, and then it literally just changed my world. I was like, man, after all I've done, uh, you know, you, you, you're gonna talk to me like this? You're gonna treat me like I'm normal? You know, and it was the— it just broke me. I know that won't happen to everybody, but, but, but it is important. So I appreciate you, uh, mentioning that, Doc. We just have about a minute and a half left. What are some other ones perhaps that I didn't hit on that you think are important for people to hear? Just over a minute.

Well, you hit on it pretty good just a second ago, is that when we talk about faith-based initiatives, that's not just when people are out. When I was sheriff, we had a heavy faith-based program within our facility that we gave access to prisoners. You could go to church, you could have Bible study, you could go to mass, you could have confession. If you're Catholic, there are different things that you could do. Listen, if you're incarcerated, the last thing that you don't want is the ability to be able to, to, to pray and ensure that you are committed to having some sort of faith life, because that's the one thing you need more than anything in your life— mind, spirit, and body. And if those three things aren't taken care of, and if you're incarcerated, we need to ensure that a faith life in that community is part of their formation while they're in prison. If we don't do that, then you're missing out. And that's the one thing that, that God is there for, for you always, and will always be there for you always. And serving in that role within the prison plays the most important thing that you can do to help an inmate. There's no doubt about it.

All right, all right, Doc, we'll have to leave it there. DrCurryMeyers.substack.com is where you go to find them. Again, Dr. Curry Currey Myers, C-U-R-R-I-E Myers,.substack.com is where you can go to find him and get his book as well. Appreciate you, Doc.

Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. For full shows live and on demand, it's Salem News Channel.