Issue Position: Neighborhood Crime
Issue Position
Crimes involving home and car break-ins, drug trafficking, graffiti, and speeding on local streets are the problems you report most when we talked. Most are property and public safety offenses that represent about 85% of all crimes in Indy. To turn things around, we must:
Get More Police on Our Streets and Be Strategic
Organize and lobby for federal, state, and city funding to invest in more police and the latest training and technologies proven to combat the types of crime in our district;
Pinpoint days and times when neighborhoods require extra police patrolling to scare off criminals by analyzing when/where crimes repeatedly occur (cost-efficiency is a spin-off);
Recognize that solving the abandoned housing and foreclosure crisis will measurably lower neighborhood crime rates;
Toughen Penalties/Sentencing and Make Criminal Justice Work
Enforce strict punishments and jail sentences for drug dealers, criminals who use a gun, and repeat offenders to keep the worst criminals off our streets;
Apply my insights as a Criminal Detention Officer11 to help craft laws giving prosecutors and police better tools to lockup chronic criminals and redeem those who want to change;
PROGRESS MADE ON NEIGHBORHOOD CRIME
Justin supported new tougher penalties for crimes with guns providing prosecutors a sentence enhancement of up to 20 additional years for violent offenders who use a firearm while committing a crime. This law also makes it a felony to knowingly provide a firearm to a felon.
He also worked to implement new tougher penalties for repeat drug dealers, increasing from a Level 3 felony to a Level 2 for those caught and convicted of dealing methamphetamine, heroine, and cocaine a second time. The new law mandates a minimum 10-years served in prison.
Justin also helped enact new laws making it more difficult for people to sell stolen items like catalytic converters, air conditioning coils, and precious metals to scrap yards and cash for gold stores.
He also worked to close the age-limit loophole in the stateâs human trafficking law by adding in 16 and 17 year olds who can be the victim of this terrible crime.
Justin crafted a new law to strengthen Trespass and Vandalism Laws at abandoned homes making it easier to hold squatters and graffiti vandals accountable for their crimes when caught.
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