Chief Michael Berkow revealed a shocking statistic at the Savannah City Council's budget meetings yesterday. Of the 166 burglary arrests made by SCMPD through October 21 ... 107 of those persons are back on the streets, meaning only 59 are incarcerated. It's not surprising to police that the many of the criminals are back on the streets and that many of them are juveniles. In fact, the statistics show most of Southside Precinct's burglaries are commited by juveniles.
Those stats make it easy to see why police get frustrated with the system. Officers can tell many stories of arresting someone one day and seeing them back on the streets, giving them the 'one-finger wave' the next. This is not a problem unique to Savannah. Overcrowded jails, over-taxed social systems and lack of funding all add up to a problem that ends up in the lap of the police.
Just think how you would feel if every other day you came to work, you had to fix the exact same problem that you thought you fixed the day before. For police, there are major repercussions when these folks get back on the streets - people's homes get broken in to, valuables are stolen, and the quality of life for our community goes down.
For our part, we'll continue making the arrests with the hope that soon enough, one of the repeat-offenders on the street will finally become one of the 'incarerated few' opposed to the 'walking to offend again' majority.
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2 comments:
I agree completely. It also doesn't help when criminals refer to the Chatham County Jail as the Chatham County Hilton.
It's not the police, it is the court system in general.
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