Monday’s That’s Messed Up: Darren Hardemon and Recidivism
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In the past year, there were 583 people arrested for burglary charges in the Nashville metro area. 331 of those people, which is well over half, had been arrested on previous burglary charges at some point. It is alarming that so many arrests are for second or even third time offenders.
This growing problem with repeat offenders can be explained as recidivism. Webster’s Dictionary defines recidivism as a tendency to relapse into a previous behavior, especially into criminal behavior.
Metro Police Chief Ronal Serpas says there is a growing problem of what he calls career criminals remaining loose on Metro streets.
Darren Lamont Hardemon is one of these criminals. The 39-year-old has spent the last 20 years in and out of jail, and according to the Department of Corrections, Hardemon was in a Tennessee prison from 1994-1996, then from 2000-2001, then again from 2003 -2008.
Hardemon has had 12 convictions for offences ranging from larceny to burglary to drugs and of course theft.
Darren Hardemon has been terrorizing the Nashville metropolitan area for many years, but on June 19th Hardemon was arrested once more and put back in jail.
Hardemon was arrested for aggravated burglary and is being held on $150,000 bond. The hearing for Hardemon will be help on July 9th at 9:00 a.m.
Perhaps the most disturbing fact about Mr. Hardemon is that this arrest was made while he was on a $10,000 bond for a previous burglary arrest in January. It goes to show that recidivism is a serious growing problem that needs to be fixed.
How does Nashville do that?
Metro Police Chief Ronal Serpas says of the issue:
The problem is the people who want to be fixed should be fixed, but we need to quit sticking our head in the sand thinking that everyone wants to be fixed.
Those people who don’t want to stop a life of crime ought to stay in prison.
It is just as ridiculous as it can be to think that people who choose a life of crime lifestyle are going to change suddenly. They don’t and they won’t and they haven’t.
DOC Commissioner George Little says:
Obviously I agree we should reserve our prison beds for the most serious and repeat offenders. But those who do ‘get it’ and seek to change their lives should be afforded that opportunity. The state is absolutely not trying to shift the cost of crime to the neighborhoods. What we need is a balanced approach that best utilizes scarce resources.
People in Tennessee have made it clear they don’t want higher taxes. This means we need to manage our budget so that we are intervening with less serious offenders as appropriate to reduce recidivism.
It also means adding more secure capacity. The state has just added 880 prison beds and we have a project to add 1,400 more.
But we can’t build our way out of the problem. We have to prevent criminal activity through schools and better jobs in Tennessee. And the sad fact is for every dollar spent on prisons is one less dollar for other more productive activities.
Chief Ronal Serpas serves on the state’s criminal justice coordinating council and is working to address the issue of keeping the most violent offenders behind bars, protecting the public and making the most of the available funding.
Through this committee and other efforts in the community, criminals such as Darren Lamont Hardemon will be dealt with to make for a safer Nashville.
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