Here are five specific actions Mississippi legislators could take that would cut crime in Jackson.
The Mississippi Center for Public Policy has hired Tyler B. Jones as its new Communications Director
Tyler B. Jones, a native of Vaughan, Mississippi, will serve as the Mississippi Center for Public Policy's new Communications Director. Through this position, she will aim to raise the profile of MCPP to the public, as well as manage all digital media and produce content to engage viewers.
Jones studied journalism and public relations at the University of Southern Mississippi and recently graduated from Mississippi State University with a Master of Public Policy and Administration degree. During her time at MSU, Jones worked as a bureau news reporter for The Commercial Dispatch, covering Starkville and Oktibbeha County local government.
"I am absolutely delighted that Tyler is joining our growing team,” said Douglas Carswell, President & CEO. “Tyler has a background in local journalism and has a first-class understanding of the media landscape across our state. As Mississippi’s free-market think tank, our output is read and watched by tens of thousands each month. Tyler will help expand our reach in Mississippi and beyond”.
Jones' first day was Monday. She is passionate about education reform, free speech and defending the safety and integrity of law enforcement. She has lived in Mississippi since she was five years old and has great love and pride for the Magnolia State.
"I'm so thrilled to be working at MCPP," Jones said. "With my background in communications and knowledge of policy, I intend to bring new ideas to the organization, while hopefully making a lasting impact on our state."
In the first week of May there were six homicides in Jackson, Mississippi. How many more will we see before the end of the month?
Last year Jackson had the highest homicide rate of any city in America, with 155 homicides. To put that grisly statistic in perspective, that was about the same number of homicides as happened in Atlanta, a city with almost four times the population.
What is more shocking than the murder rate, is the attitude of those that make endless excuses for it.
Some officials invoke that catch-all excuse for every failure, Covid. Homicide rates did increase at the same time that there was a pandemic, but correlation is not causation. It is doubtful that the virus somehow made people more violent.
Some of the Mississippi media seem desperate to avoid being seen to blame Jackson’s city leadership. Rather like the failure to provide the city with running water, everything but the city leadership is held responsible. Why? It does a disservice to Jackson residents.
Honest reporting should hold to account those making bad public policy choices today, and not insist on looking at everything that happens in Mississippi in 2022 through the prism of a distant past.
There is far too much wishful thinking when it comes to crime. If only, some imply, we had one more rehabilitation program or enacted another bill that purported to help ex-offenders all would be okay. Sadly, good intentions don’t cut crime. Being honest about the causes of crime might.
Responsibility for crime lies with criminals. Responsibility for failing to deal with criminals rests with those public officials mandated to run the criminal justice system.
Next time there is another killing, Jackson’s leaders will do what they always do. They will emote about it. What we need to hear instead is what they will actually do.
Here are five specific actions they could take that would cut crime in Jackson:
More police: Despite the often heroic efforts of individual law enforcement officers, there are simply not enough of them.
Prosecute: No matter how effective the police are at chasing suspects through the streets, there are serious failings when it comes to pursuing them through the courts. Who in Jackson has not heard stories of suspects being allowed to walk free?
Detention: The failure to have enough detention capacity in Hinds County is outrageous. Build it.
Clear the courts: The bureaucratic backlog in the courts is perhaps the single biggest impediment to effective justice. Clear the backlog of cases. If those that administer the court system can’t cope, bring in administrators that can.
Work with the state: Every city likes to manage its own affairs. I get that. But the state capital ought to be able to team up with state-wide officials, police forces and prosecutors to tackle a problem that impacts us all.
We at the Mississippi Center for Public Policy are proud to work in Jackson. Jackson might seem caught in a downward spiral, but every city has the power to regenerate itself.
New York in the early 80s seemed caught in a spiral of decline. But the city revived once it got a grip on crime. The key to Jackson’s future is to get a grip on crime.
Douglas Murray spoke to a packed meeting at River Hills Club in Jackson, Mississippi yesterday.
Murray’s new book, War on the West, was announced as a New York Times bestseller the day he landed in Jackson. His book was already the number one selling hardback book in his native Britain the previous week.
“Douglas Murray is the man of the moment. His book is a best seller and I believe is proving to be extremely influential in shaping the way America thinks” said Douglas Carswell, President & CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, which hosted the event.
“In recent years, Americans have been told that they must feel bad about their country. Progressive professors have taught young Americans that America is always wrong.”
“Heroic figures from America’s past have been denigrated. Statues have been pulled down by the mob. In the name of equity, millions of ordinary Americans get treated unequally.”
“Douglas Murray’s new book uses clear, well-researched insights to show how absurd these ‘woke’ ideas actually are. And he shows how Americans can stand proud”.
Tax cuts are attracting voters in the US. But big government conservatives alienate the anxious electorate elsewhere
It all seemed so different a year ago. Arriving in the United States in early 2021, I assumed that there was much for US conservatives to learn from their British cousins. Boris Johnson had just gained an almighty majority – the largest since Margaret Thatcher’s days – winning in places that had not voted Conservative since before the Second World War.
American conservatism, by contrast, appeared in poor health. Donald Trump had lost the White House in November 2020. States that only a decade earlier had leaned solidly towards the Republicans had suddenly become competitive – and the Republicans seemed determined to lose those competitions. On January 5, 2021, they compounded their defeat in the presidential race with a disastrous special election campaign in Georgia. What should have been a shoo-in ended with them losing control of the United States Senate. Things got even worse the next day. A mob, stirred up by conservative commentators who should have known better, stormed the Capitol. In those grim moments, it looked as if the party of Ronald Reagan was in terminal decline.
Fast-forward to today, and there is still a striking difference between these movements – but with the roles dramatically reversed. As President Biden continues to underwhelm, the Republicans anticipate big gains in the midterms next year. They are ahead in key states such as Virginia – and, indeed, won a hat-trick of statewide contests there only a few months ago, in a state that many assumed had shifted irretrievably leftwards. They are polling remarkably well among middle-class Asian and Hispanic Americans.
In Britain, by contrast, a recent YouGov survey suggests that Boris Johnson’s winning formula is failing, with support plummeting in almost every demographic group. The decline is especially ominous in blue-collar Britain, whose support allowed the Conservatives to win a swathe of formerly Labour seats. After 12 years in office, the Tories have raised taxes to their highest point since the 1950s. Since the last election, median household incomes have fallen, and a cost-of-living crisis is on its way.
Boris may have delivered Brexit and the vaccine rollout, and supported Ukraine brilliantly, but I doubt mentioning that will do the Tories much good. In electoral terms, the vaccine is ancient history. Brexit might have been a wedge issue at the last election; today it conjures up a vague feeling that more might have been done to capitalize on the opportunities.
“Surely,” you might say, “it’s all a question of incumbency.” Aren’t British conservatives simply tanking because, like Biden, they happen to coincide with a cost-of-living crisis while in office? Yet if the Tories are floundering for the same reasons as Biden’s Democrats, it does rather raise the question of why they should be governing as leftists in the first place.
In both countries, inflation is rising rapidly because governments have hosed money and achieved very little growth to show for it. Biden has thrown an additional $2 trillion into public spending since coming to office. Yet while Rishi Sunak has spent such eye-watering sums you might be forgiven for thinking that Corbyn had won the last election, in America, Republican-run states have responded to the cost-of-living crisis by cutting taxes. My own state of Mississippi just passed the largest tax cut in the state’s history. If only British ministers were as receptive to free-market thinking.
US energy costs are soaring in part because the federal government canceled pipelines and discouraged investment in oil and gas. Yet Britain’s Conservatives have somehow gone even further: outlawing fracking and regulating the energy market as you might expect to see in a socialist state. Though leadership feels ever-more dysfunctional in both countries, US conservatives are brilliantly tapping into public anger by devolving power away from the state. Meanwhile, in the UK, the Johnson administration has become a byword for big government.
Thank goodness the federal mask mandate on airplanes in America has been overturned.
Requiring everyone to wear face diapers / nappies at all times in the belief that it would reduce the spread of Covid always seemed pretty ridiculous. The idea that face masks would significantly impact the trajectory of the virus was seldom supported by substantive evidence.
Watching people at airports forced to wear face masks often made me think of the irrational way in which people responded to plagues in the distant past. Wearing face masks to try to stave off a disease ranks alongside wearing charms to try to ward off the evil eye. I always thought of it as a form of federally mandated voodoo.
Forcing folk to wear masks was never benign. It gave airliners and airport authorities additional reasons to boss passengers about, making flying an even more unpleasant experience.
What is interesting about the ending of the mask mandate is that it was a federal judge that took the decisive step. Despite all the evidence that mask mandates are both futile and now unnecessary, it was not the federal bureaucracy that acted.
A couple of weeks ago, we all saw some horrific scenes from China, where a total lock down is in place. People in Shanghai have been confined to their own homes. The police have attacked desperate people.
Why are the authorities acting so differently over there? Is it a different virus? Are masks more effective in China? Do the Chinese authorities know something we don’t?
No. The difference is that here in the United States we have the United States Constitution. This republic has a Bill of Rights and a judiciary prepared to interpret what the law actually says, not what the powerful want it to say.
From Australia to Britain to Peru, officials responded to Covid by imposing asinine – and at times outrageous – restrictions on society in the mistaken belief that they knew what was best for them. They didn’t. Closing schools or banning people from meeting members of their own families was idiotic, and some of us said so at the time.
The instinct of officials in America might have been to impose all sorts of idiocy on people too. And occasionally, especially on the East and West Coasts, they were able to. But thank goodness the American founders drafted a constitution that curbed the worst excesses of those with power.
When Donna Harris, a personal trainer from Madison, offered weight-loss advice, she was threatened with fines and jail. That’s because according to Mississippi state officials, she was operating without a dietician license.
Absurd? We thought so, which is why the Mississippi Justice Institute took up Donna’s case – and today won.
Weight-loss coaches are now free to offer their services in Mississippi – the most obese state in the nation according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s most recent obesity numbers – without a government-issued license. Under a newly enacted regulation adopted by the Mississippi State Department of Health, any person can provide weight-loss advice for compensation so long as they do not attempt to treat a medical condition or hold themselves out as a licensed dietician.
Donna had decided to offer a two-month weight loss program after many of the participants in her group fitness classes asked her to. She set up a website and planned to offer basic dietary advice, recipes, and encouragement to her customers. 70 participants signed up immediately, paying $99 each.
But then, Harris received a cease-and-desist letter from the Mississippi State Department of Health threatening her with up to six months in jail, a fine of up to $1,000, criminal charges, and a civil suit if she continued to discuss weight-loss strategies for money. The department said only registered dieticians could do that.
Harris, who has a bachelor’s degree in nutrition and master’s in occupational therapy, does not want to become a licensed dietitian, a profession that treats medical conditions through diet and requires 1,200 hours of supervised clinical practice, passing an exam, and paying a $300 fee. In 2024, a bachelor’s degree will no longer suffice for a Mississippi license, so Harris would have to get another graduate degree.
Instead, Harris only sought to help people who wanted to slim down but were otherwise healthy. She had already started a Facebook group with hundreds of members where she gave free weight-loss advice. Her paid program would simply provide more one-on-one coaching to those who were interested. In 34 other states, no dietitian’s license is required for similar weight-loss programs.
Harris called the department and explained that she did not plan to treat medical conditions and had disclaimers on her website that she was not a registered dietician. But she was told that, without a license, she could only point people to government-approved information such as the food pyramid.
Harris shut down her weight-loss program and refunded her customers. Then she sued the department for violating her constitutional right to free speech with the help of the Mississippi Justice Institute (MJI). The lawsuit argued that the department’s interpretation of the Mississippi Dietetics Practice Act amounted to government censorship of speech on the age-old topic of weight loss.
In response to the lawsuit, the Mississippi State Department of Health has now amended its regulations to allow unlicensed people to offer non-medical weight-loss advice as long as they do not claim to be a dietitian. The new regulation will go into effect on May 16, 2022.
“Allowing people to speak freely about general health and nutrition is a no-brainer, especially in a state like ours that struggles with obesity,” said Aaron Rice, the director of MJI. “The government should not be able to give any group a monopoly on speech about a common, everyday topic, like what food we should buy at the grocery store if we want to stay healthy or drop a few pounds. This new regulation will increase Mississippians’ access to important information about their health, while allowing more Mississippians to use their skills and knowledge to earn an honest living and provide for their families.”
“I am thrilled that this law has finally been changed, not just for me, but so that other people who are knowledgeable about nutrition can share that information” said Harris. “Being told I couldn’t do that, and made to feel like I was some sort of criminal for trying to, was terrible. I can’t wait to start my own weight-loss program again and to witness the results and joy that I can help my customers achieve.”
For more information, contact Anika Page, director of operations at the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, at (601) 969-1300 or [email protected].
The Mississippi Justice Institute is a nonprofit constitutional litigation center and the legal arm of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy.
Elon Musk just announced he is offering to buy Twitter for $43 billion.
This is wonderful news – and anyone that believes in freedom and liberty should wish him well.
I’ve been on Twitter for over a decade, yet spend less and less time on it. What was once the most interesting social media site is often dull and occasionally a dump. It is not the folk that use Twitter that made it that way, but the people that run it. The success of the platform seems to have gone to their hipster heads.
Twitter users build up the number of people that follow them. It seems to me to be basic fair play that when you tweet something, it goes to those that signed up to follow you. Yet that no longer happens. Twitter management somewhere along the line decided that they would select what your followers did and did not get to see.
Putting twenty-something year old hipsters from California in charge of editorialising Twitter content has left the platform looking absurd. They have banned a former US President, yet are only too happy to keep hosting accounts that represent the leaders of Russia and Iran. Twitter users find themselves locked out of their accounts for stating basic biological facts.
Jonathan Haidt, one of my favourite thinkers, wrote a thoughtful essay in the Atlantic recently, attributing the polarization of America over the past ten years to the rise of social media. Instead of free speech, Twitter has produced fragmentation. Rather than a competition of ideas, Twitter has allowed some third rate hipsters to curate opinion.
I am delighted that Musk is trying to do something about it. Social media can – and I believe will – be so much better than it has become.
Elon Musk just slammed ESG - the Environment, Social and Governance process used to inform businesses as they make investment decisions.
Thank goodness for Mr Musk.
ESG sounds like a good idea. What could be better than having high standards in business to help make the world a better place. Except that is not really what happens at all.
The faux moralism behind ESG is not necessarily a force for good. Take, for example, the issue of investing in oil and gas.
According to the ESG bureaucrats that infest many corporate compliance departments, investing in oil and gas is unethical. As a consequence, there has been some serious under investment in oil and gas - and over investment in renewable energy.
The only problem is that renewables are unreliable. So energy prices have increased.
Where is the morality behind having older folk struggling to keep their homes warm? What is so moral about rising gas prices that make it harder for low income Americans to cope?
Capitalism works when capital is allocated productively. What ESG does is force capital to be allocated less productively.
Musk tweeted the other day about how producing something for another human being to meet their needs is a profoundly moral good. Indeed. Whether you make electric cars, satellites or burgers, that is much more ethical than anything emanating from a corporate compliance department could ever manage.
