St. Louis Missouri Reaches All Time Crime High

I will be the first and I know most certainly the last to state that St. Louis has gotten out of hand! Yes, I know it's crime everywhere. However, St. Louis is not bigger than the other states it's compared to. So since there is a smaller amount of people, there should be small numbers of crime! NOT! St. Louis reached it's high in regards to crime in June 2008!

In August 2008 the numbers showed me:
115 Murders occurred
160 Rapes occurred
1,754 Robbery
2,961 Assault
4,784 Burglary
3,735 Auto theft
25,033 CRIME INDEX!

Now that I have gotten the facts out of the way, we can move forward.

I'm at a lost for any kind of DECENT word. Crime is constant like my heartbeat! I have attended many facilities and spoken with many youth groups and to my understanding; people are mentally damaged. Now wait! Please don't jump to the next section before you finish this one. I am not, nor will I ever state that every person who commits a crime is mentally unstable. If that be the case EVERYONE would use that excuse all the way till their sentencing day. This is what I AM saying however.

Do you believe in someone just clicking or flipping out? I don't and here's why. For every action, there is a thought! Now no matter if the thought occurred for a second or two---IT OCCURRED! So please, unless the individual has a long, poor history of mental health, don't try to use that on your big day in court!

I have talked with newspapers in and outside of Missouri. Missourians must have banged their heads against the Arch one too many times. The responses I received as to why the crimes were up in St. Louis were very far stretched. Some reasons given were, "Nothing to do, no home training, IT'S HOT (WTH?) no one cares about them, they need a mentor." Now outside of Missouri the answers were quoted differently. "Socioeconomic issues, money and lifestyle issues cause the individuals to go on crime sprees, issues with other people (gangs or family) the police do not help/care until the crime has occurred, and MENTALLY UNSTABLE PEOPLE ON THE STREETS!

A large part of crimes are committed by people with mental issues. Repeat offenders are included in the population. Most prisoner's are at high risk for attaining a mental case file number. Depression, all the way to schizophrenia are diseases are noted on current and ex prisoner's. The mental pressure to conform to a life of hell is very hard. The thought of freedom being stripped like their clothes when they were being processed is soul stripping. The thought of not being cited as a new FISH out of water, is tough. The thoughts of gang rape and most of all; living to get out is enough to change the mental status of any human. I feel this article is necessary because maybe if more intense work was done in the prison's mental health arena, these men and women could return to society with some hope. I also deem this article necessary for the simple fact that people need to be able to sense the signs in someone who is stressed beyond reasoning.

All people deal with stress differently. Some just get upset for a moment, some attack the stress-or right away and others conform to other comforts to help suppress these issues of concern. Things like drugs, sex, alcohol. Many people talk about women who stay at home and do nothing but have kids and wait on welfare. Well, have you ever thought that that woman could have been financially stable at one point or another in her life. What about the fact that she may have lost her job, her health insurance and now she is dealing with her declining lifestyle. Now, she comes depressed. What's next?

Look, all I'm saying is, if we want to figure out the reason for reckless, in-humane, God-awful crimes, can't we sit down and look at the pictures for not what it seems, but for what it is? Everything you see---is not what it seems. You have to investigate and try to understand the reasonings as well. If not---the crimes will rise to the next level and all law and order will cease to exist.