Um I gave Google basically.

Okay.

You know what I'm saying?

What is J.

Okay, I think I can be able to look at it.

You're good.

All right, we should need um the roll call.

Councilmember King.

Councilmember Morrell.

Councilmember Harris.

Councilmember Green.

Councilmember Hughes.

We have four members.

We have a quorum.

All right, thank you.

Of course, we'll move our move.

I'll move to accept the minutes of last meeting.

Second by Councilmember Harris.

All in favor.

All right.

The minutes from last meeting are accepted.

All right.

So this criminal justice meeting, we are going to look at the effects of poverty and as it relates to a community, and it's a crime.

A lot of people don't realize they go hand in hand.

Poverty and crime go hand in hand.

A lot of times people make decisions based out of necessity.

So I'll turn the floor over to you all and introduce yourself.

Okay.

So specifically, we have decided to focus our presentation on how increasing living wage could potentially mitigate the crimes of necessity in New Orleans.

Looking at economic security as a strategy to uh enhance public safety.

So I'm gonna be starting.

I'm Lillian Lofton.

And of course, first introduce the everybody.

Hello.

Well, I'm Lillian Lofton.

I'm William Kesterson.

Hi, I'm Avery Burks.

Hi, I'm Bellamy Parker.

Uh and I'm Brian Brock.

I'm professor at Two Lane and director of the US Pocket Book Policy Program.

We can't just give us a more background.

What's your classification?

Give us a little bit about yourself.

Well, I am a rising senior at Tulane.

Um I'm majoring in sociology and social policy, so this is definitely right up my alley in terms of what I'm interested in doing long term.

And I am from Louisiana actually, so I'm from New Roads, False River.

I don't know if anyone knows where that is, but uh I am from uh Fort Worth, Texas, by way of Ocean Springs, Mississippi.

And I am currently a rising super senior and a political science uh major.

Okay.

Um I'm from Arizona, suburb of Phoenix.

I just got my undergraduate degree in political science in Homeland Security, and I am starting my master's in homeland security.

I'm from Knoxville, Tennessee, and I'm going into my junior year, and my major is political science and homeland security.

All right.

Uh again, I'm Brian Brox.

Uh I'm originally from Kansas City, uh spent eleven years in Central Texas going to various colleges for my uh undergraduate and doctorate.

Moved here eight weeks before Katrina, and I've been a professor at uh Tulane for 20 first 21st year now.

Okay.

We're pleased to be with you.

Thank you all for uh agreeing to present today.

Floor is yours.

Okay, so just running through the agenda briefly for us.

We're gonna be looking at some different background information about New Orleans, the systemic crisis that we have identified, some definitions, the economics of poverty here, and then living wage, moving into our case studies, our different policy options, limitations, and then our tentative conclusion as of now.

So first, um, looking at New Orleans is currently the fastest shrinking metropolitan area in the United States with a loss of 39,000 residents from 2020 to 2024.

A large part of this is definitely attributed to the fact that New Orleans is a very tourist-based city because of that, or because of the uh cultural and historical richness of it.

But along with that comes irregular income and a almost an exploitation of the residents living here because of the fact that a lot of the job industry is based on hospitality, entertainment, tourism.

So there's a disconnect here between income rates either being stagnant or fluctuating irregularly, and an increasing cost of living, primarily also due to the rising tourism industry and such.

So this results in something that we've coined as economic precarity, which is where, or what we've included, which is where residents who work full-time in New Orleans still cannot afford to live here because their income does not meet the necessary funds to rent a house or purchase a house and food and everything else that you need to survive with basic necessities.

So moving on, I'm going to define crimes and necessity.

What this means are crimes committed out of unavoidable threat to survival or a lack of economic opportunity.

Basically, meaning that there are not enough legal avenues for residents to gain enough income to survive beyond subsistence.

So they supplement this income with these crimes.

Some examples would be burglary, simple robbery, petty theft, shoplifting, carjacking, fair evasion, or solicitation.

So either trying to find means to gain these resources, uh money directly, or avoiding paying fines that they sometimes just can't even pay.

And these are not typically organized crimes or necessarily violent crimes.

They are crimes purely out of one's own interest in survival.

Moving on to the economics of poverty, a few important statistics that we found was that uh since 2018, the dollar has lost 30% of its value, and in New Orleans, the general workforce has only recovered 10% of that, which results in a 20% net loss on the ability to purchase basic necessities and survive with these necessities, which results in a 20% gap, which is seen to be a major driver in violence and theft.

Now, I connected this a little bit to economic disdeprivation theory, just because I find that also very interesting.

But this theory basically states that if there are not enough legal ways to get an income, people will find themselves isolated, they will find themselves looking to criminal activity more.

But if there is a if there is enough economic support through legal avenues, then the opportunity cost of committing crimes will be much higher and people will be deterred much more.

So New Orleans has one of the lowest absolute economic mobility scores, which basically is the inflation-adjusted income gains by generation.

The score is 0.35, and it the Z score is negative 1.93, which only just shows that it's a very significantly low score, one of the lowest in the US, in their ability to make a sufficient income.

Beyond this, the relative mobility is 0.397, which shows that this is very directly tied to one's parents' income, the generation before you.

So it's not only is New Orleans not only does New Orleans have one of the lowest average incomes, they also have the hardest time, or one of the hardest times trying to escape this cycle of poverty, basically.

Moving on to living wage versus the real wages that people are paid in New Orleans right now.

So the MIT had a living wage calculator, which as of February 2026, it stated that an individual with no children in New Orleans should be making $20.49 an hour to survive beyond poverty.

With one child, this rises to 3449.

With two children, it rises to 4330.

Now that isn't obviously feasible.

So then we look at the current city's living wage, which the current ordinance says 1601.

Some say, some sources say 1673.

But I think it's also important to note that obviously the city minimum pay is only paid to city employees or those under contracts where they're receiving up to or over a hundred thousand dollars of city financial assistance, which means that not everyone is receiving the $16 an hour.

And then obviously Louisiana is one of 20 states that does not have a state-manded minimum wage, so we do follow the federal minimum wage of 725.

And this is only this is right under the poverty wage, which is what an individual must make to survive with the bare minimum in poverty, which is 767 for one individual with no children per hour.

What all of this means, it ties right back into the economic precarity, that 32% of cities city employees cannot afford to live in New Orleans.

So how do we plan to solve this for?

Okay.

Cities that showed Can you pull the microphone closer?

Sorry, ma'am.

Thank you.

I was looking for cities that showed a decrease in what we labeled as crimes of necessity and survival over time and looking at what were their steps.

Also looking at a city that showed aggressive increase of minimum wage, and a city that has maintained what would be considered a status quo and what their city and their um progress in future would look like.

So starting off with uh Providence, Rhode Island.

Providence uh has shown to increase their minimum wage through time to keep up with inflation while also uh noted that it it could increase uh help increase businesses in the area, but to also go along with the prevention of crime, uh Providence started creating the American Rescue Plan Act, creating uh the aim was to create hundreds of youth jobs, expand mentorship, and offer nonviolence training citywide, and this was to stop kids when kids growing up are growing up to allow them to have jobs, not have to turn to a life of trying to steal to get food or just to survive in general.

And this also goes with their uh practice of nonviolence runs with street workers who engage high-risk individuals directly in the neighborhoods where this violent con violence concentrates.

And this also, they also have started a program to uh people returning from prison to increase their employability.

So once they're out of um out of jail, they have a future to work towards and to look forward to.

And additionally, the Providence Center and Roger Williams University has used a data-driven model to uh help people that have mental health pro uh people with mental health problems, or also are in the middle of a drug addiction crisis to allow them to get treatment rather than sending them straight to jail to allow them to not have a one-time fix, but an opportunity for them to get the help they need and uh once they're uh healthy again to be able to live a um life not committing these crimes.

Additionally, uh Providence has implemented a wide range of um real-time data um analysis.

So this would be volunteer um CCTV cameras all across the town, including um from private homeowners homeowners that are volunteered.

This will be real-time uh license plate um identification, so in certain areas, so that um as um when someone calls 911, this information is being directly fed to the police department, so they have real-time access of what is going on directly at that moment in that area.

And Providence has also started a um what's the uh block by block policing.

Instead of uh normal routes, they look for areas that have been known to be at a higher risk of crime.

So whenever a crime has gone on, they're more um they're closer to the scene of the crime to prevent the crime while it's in place.

And this was just a show of what could happen if while yes, increasing the wage for people to have a livable income, but also to address the roots of crime at the center of it, and Providence has seen a consistent drop in prover poverty crimes over the past three years.

Um violent crimes have also gone down, but not as much as they would prefer, but overall it has seen a steady decrease since these measures have been implemented.

Moving on to Washington, DC, and Washington DC has been noted for having one of the most aggressive and consistent increases of minimum wage and trying to keep up with the living wage and so people to combat inflation, but also to help people be able to live off their income.

Um this has shown that uh over the past two years, there has been a noted decrease in the uh in overall crimes, whether that be uh violent or property.

The one note is that over time uh Washington DC has been taking this aggressive stance for over 10 years, and it's only been in the past two years where it has been seen significant and noted change in the crime rates, whether that's uh property crime, theft, larceny, or violent uh which would be your homicide.

Um this also coincides with the uh the implementation of the National Guard in DC.

Um while it has shown to have real effect, there it hasn't shown that it'll be a significant and lasting effect.

Uh it will just be a it's it's been shown that it has you can noted change, but not enough to where it can be claimed that sending in the National Guard was a success.

Um additionally, um the trend has been going up and down since DC uh Washington EC has started um increasing their their wages.

Um so they increase the minimum wage uh um with just the wage front saw change, but once they started uh sending more data-driven police to like off of data and to send to these different areas that have significant levels of crime and trying to put a reduction on um gun violence, and uh this was when they noted that there was a drop in these crimes.

Um is noted that um if they would have done this um a while ago with investing into the street of like this using this data to make this change, it would have had more effect.

And then moving on to the final city, which is Savannah, which has shown that um not shown, but it is similar to New Orleans in that it's a historic southern city where there is significant tourism and hospitality, which the uh city depends on two Savannah, like New Orleans does not have a mandated wage.

Um, so they can't um increase it and they have not increased it.

And a what they have done and has shown that they have recently seen a decrease in these property crimes in the tourism areas uh based from their um they have a community-based policing rather than an economic policy change.

They have created a mobile app where residents can submit tips with photos directly to the uh the police officers, as well as a public top 10 list that has um that within its first two weeks uh led to um eight of the uh ten most wanted being arrested.

In the tourism area, there has been shown to have significant property crime decrease.

The most significant in the areas outside of the main tourism areas where the hospitality workers live and people that live below this wage limit.

They haven't seen much change because there hasn't been any uh economically nothing done.

Um so over time it's been a decrease in the tourism dependent areas, um, but where the workers live and the non-tourists live, there hasn't been a note, uh a noted decrease.

Um, and this while on the surface, it looks it has seen increase, it hasn't um uh it hasn't gone to the root of the problem to prevent from an economic shock to the city, whether that be natural disaster or of that similarity.

Um it has seen a little bit of a drop in the tourism areas, but not a significant uh not significant word the the residents live.

Okay, so now we're gonna move on to our policy options.

And so the first one is what we call the Savannah model, um, which just like William said, Savannah is very similar to New Orleans with the tourist style and low minimum wage, but Savannah focused mainly on high crime policy options and like community based policing while using the citizen tips and most wanted lists.

While this strategy did bring a 19% decrease, uh crimes of theft and larceny are still their highest issue, um, and it leaves underlying economic vulnerability completely untouched.

So for New Orleans, this relying solely on this model, uh we might lower the immediate stats, but like I said, we leave the economic um vulnerabilities to shock and um leaving a high port a high proportion of our municipal budget on incarceration.

And then for option two, we have the New Orleans living wage proposal, which it targets intervention aimed at municipal employees and contractors and propose raising the minimum wage to from 1667 to 1942 per hour, while also having a 2,600 annual housing allowance for employees that live in New Orleans parish.

Um, together, this raises the total allowance to the 2075 an hour, meeting the MIT standard living audit.

Um we estimate that this would cost the city roughly 9.3 million dollars, but we have to look at it as a total compensation perspective.

Um, by paying the living wage, the city can significantly reduce costs associated with high staff turnover, recruitment, and overtime due to vacancies.

It also helps reverse workforce displacement, ensuring that people who serve in our city can actually afford to live there.

The option three is modeled after the Providence, Rhode Island Ingrated Esecurin.

Uh Providence showed us that the best attorneys to crimes of necessity is a combination of raising raising wages and targeting social investments.

Under this model, New Orleans would pair a living wage policy with direct investments in high-risk populations, specifically funding economic uh employment services, youth jobs, and mentorship programs.

This core philosophy here is to break down the traditional policy silos instead of viewing minimum wage and crime prevention as separate.

Uh it would uh approach this approach with stable employment and economic support as primary infrastructure for public safety.

And then finally, option four is the Washington DC model, which pairs aggressive wage indexing with high intensity precision enforcement.

Washington DC provides a crucial reality check for our study.

Despite having one of the highest minimum wage in the country, uh Washington DC experienced a surge in property crimes and carjackings in 2023.

The turnaround in DC only occurred when they paired high wage floor with targeted data-driven enforcement, such as real-time crime centers and specialized task force.

The logic behind this model is balanced.

The living wage floor addresses the why of survival crime, while data-driven precision policing addresses the when and where of immediate public safety.

The biggest limitations was defining the relationship between crime and wages.

So crime is obviously influenced by a multitude of factors such as education, policing, enforcement, unemployment, as well as access to community resources.

The second limitation would be the lack of research, specifically found on crimes of necessity and out of financial burden.

Most studies examine crime as a whole rather than specify specifying them with financial struggles.

The third limitation is comparing states and cities that have adopted a higher minimum wage already with states that still follow the federal minimum wage.

Each city is different, so you cannot pinpoint one location with another because there's different things happening in their economy, uh, their safety, so it's hard to fully understand what's going to happen when you change the minimum wage.

The last limitation is that there is no official way to know whether crime was committed out of survival or necessity.

In conclusion, this policy brief argues that economy instability should be viewed as an economic issue as well as a public safety issue.

This is not a one-size-fits-all solution, but the most successful strategies combine multiple approaches.

Thank you.

Thank you for your presentation.

Thank you to the two lane students and Professor.

Um we've been working with you, I think, for the past four years on various issues in District B, and so it's great to see you present um in the public and in this forum, and I thank you for this study.

I do have a question about the Providence Rhode Island model.

There are some things that the City of New Orleans has done, including a youth program, youth summer program with uh high rate of pay relatively.

We have violence interrupters through Ubuntu Village.

We also have programs like Instead that reach out to people and help them if they have mental health issues and um substance abuse issues to get them treatment rather than going to jail.

Have you looked at any of those programs in assessing what New Orleans has done and what it could do better?

Background was there anything I did not actually look directly at programs that New Orleans has currently implemented.

I have worked with a private organization that had a similar youth initiative of getting students involved, not only in terms of employment but also in terms of uh advocacy and outreach.

So I do know that New Orleans is working on programs.

I think what we had kind of meant to emphasize in the Providence section as well is, and I'm sure New Orleans has also taken this into account, but looking at uh areas that are concentrated with higher crime rates specifically versus uh a citywide approach, and I I am sure New Orleans has done this.

We have uh we had Daniel Shanks um and uh Deputy Mayor Harrison have taken a uh data-driven approach on crime and enforcement, um, and so that has actually worked uh for the most part, but we are still implementing it, so that's been for the past I think two years.

Um, but it it is interesting to see that um the city rates that they pay are higher than what we do, and so we can control that, but you also have to take a look at what the private sector pays, right?

So it's not like city employees are just committing crime, but it's it's people who are who may not be employed or underemployed in the private sector as well.

So looking at maybe a state-mandated minimum wage in Louisiana, that would be difficult, but that might be a solution as well.

But thank you for your work.

It's really amazing, and we've used it in the past.

Councilmember Green.

Yes, um, good morning.

I want to thank you all for being here today.

Thank you for your presentation.

Um, some of what you said kind of gives me the impression that as Councilmember Harris listed some of the things that we've done here in the city, that there are some things that we are doing well.

We were on the brink of experiencing our lowest violent crime rate since 1969 here in New Orleans.

That has a lot to do with programs that have been implemented, but also strong law enforcement and some of the things that you mentioned.

The New Orleans data informed community engagement looks at neighborhoods and goes into those neighborhoods and addresses concerns of um those particular communities, and it's had tremendous results in our city.

Um, everything that you mentioned, I certainly understand.

I have a little bit of a fundamental disagreement with some of it, but at the end of the day, it's a study, and it's something that incorporates into it something that our city needs to consider.

But I do want to ask you all to look at in your capacity of wanting to see crime lure in our city, also look at and work with the members of the law enforcement community.

I understand the studies.

I'm a I'm a proponent of studies, but at the end of the day, there are certain districts, including in my council district, which have had tremendous decreases in crime.

And that's not necessarily just because of all of the law enforcement that's going on, it's other programs too.

But I encourage you to recognize that a lot has happened in our police department and our the work that they do with the district attorney, the work that they do with the U.S.

Marshals, but also the work that they do with victims of crime.

Um, because victims of crime play an extremely important role if they are willing to participate in the system in the midst of their suffering, they can do a lot too.

So as you continue your study and it expands, I'm gonna just um encourage you to see the enhanced role of law enforcement, um the cooperation that has existed right now that may be driving down crime, but I also want you to look at victims of crime.

We have more victims who are willing to testify, we have more victims who are willing to um share their concerns with others to help to help them to avoid issues, including domestic violence, for example, which is too high, but it would be much higher if there weren't victims who were willing to go to organizations such as voices of the victims of crime and the sheriff's office and share their concerns with others.

But um, there are a lot of things that I think that we're doing and moving in the right direction, and with your help and with your study, we'll look at other things.

The last thing I want to conclude with is that I want to encourage you to help us to work with the state.

There are limitations on what we can do relative to minimum wage that are based on the state.

We might do more.

But for example, there is a there's a state law that prohibits you from the municipalities setting its own minimum wage, not for municipal employees, but I mean across the board.

Um, so there are there are concerns, and I'm willing to work with you.

I'm the founder of an organization called Voices of the Victims of Crime.

We look at a lot of the aspects of crime and what we can do to enhance our community.

Feel free to call on me and I'd be glad to talk to you.

But thank you for this presentation, and I look forward to it working in hand in hand with some of the research that's been done in some of the realities on the ground to continue to reduce crime in our city.

Thank you.

I will tell you one last thing.

I fundamentally disagree that carjacking is an economic crime.

It's a crime of opportunity.

I've even talked to people who carjack.

They don't do it because they're selling the cars, they don't do it because they're taking the reason the um resources and putting it somewhere else.

And I want to make it clear, I don't think that there should be anything that justifies someone taking a gun, sticking it in a face of a person and taking their car and going to the other side of the city.

There may be instances where that's being done for economic reasons, but in all of the instances that I've seen and talked to people who are doing it, it's not for that reason.

I just want you to look at that.

Okay.

Thank you, Constable Green.

Council.

Yeah, generally speaking, I find your uh report very insightful.

I would caution you that if cities had infinite money, increasing the wage would always be an option.

Um we often are forced to do kind of selfie choice of how do we fund, for example, the increase of minimum wage.

I think there's some, I think there's some flexibility when it comes to a providing a housing stifle that could be difficult.

When you look at other options such as property tax relief, that might be something that's more feasible, but just be a little more flexible in your thinking as far as financial incentives because, in order to spend more money in one place, you have to take more money from another, which is why I mean not to invoke something that might trigger some of my colleagues nailing one of my right, but like that's kind of where the defund the police movement came from, which was that spend less money on police, spend more money on these other things, and I'm not saying that that's an option or that's the most desirable option, but the money has to come from somewhere.

And so when you look at most major cities, the ones that are successful in a tourism area with increased wages, increased spending, tend to be like the palm beaches where they have a very high tax base.

And when you have a very low tax base, you have a shrinking population, you have a lower income population, you really get put into a very uh negative cycle of do you raise sales tax, do you raise property tax on people who can't afford to live here anyway?

And because of the commerce clause, you can't really like overtly target the people that don't live here.

You have to have at least the veneer of equality and how you're pursuing your taxes, which makes it much more difficult.

So I think your study is very good at identifying the problem and solutions.

I think what's missing and what you could work on is the funding mechanism insofar as how do you pay for these things and where can you see savings and government to reallocate them to these solutions you have?

Because I mean, I do think if we could figuratively get to a 20 out 20 dollars an hour living wage for city workers, that would certainly tremendously improve their quality of lives.

Just that I think if you were to ask city workers if we got there by firing 10% of the of the workforce, would you prefer that?

Many would say, well, that would mean that the workload on individuals, their friends and family would potentially see unemployment.

I don't know if that would necessarily be a resounding yes.

So thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Morrell.

So thank you all for your presentation.

I do have some comments, um, some questions to follow up with.

I'll start with Councilmember Morrell says.

So if you if you increase the hypothetically the minimum wage in a private or public sector, just speaking to some um private sector people, they say that may cause them to fire more people.

So I'm gonna instead of paying 10 people ten dollars an hour, I'll pay five people twenty dollars an hour.

So what would you all say in response to that?

You you potentially would get more income for five people, but on the other hand, you have more people without a job.

That may be a professor uh uh a test question.

I I don't know.

I just I I I hear that a lot.

So, what would the response be for that?

If you if you hire if you increase the minimum wage in the private or public sector, that may be result in the firing or laying off of more people.

What would the response be?

My response uh, you know, so I'm not picking a side here, but the the academic literature would suggest, and again, I'm political scientist, I'm not an economist.

On one hand, you would say the lack of a living wage, particularly in a com uh an economy like New Orleans, would be if you don't pay these people enough, these people are not buying Pong Beach rental properties as second you know homes, they recirculate all of their money within the economy.

So you guess the pressure becomes difficult if you do a city higher minimum wage and that attracts additional marginal workers into the city application rather than the private sector application, they may be forced to raise the minimum wage even if they don't have a rule that requires it or a law that requires it, and now all of a sudden they're faced with higher labor costs.

Yes, to some degree that might be inflationary, but to if you believe in your business and you believe that what you're offering is of utility to the consumer, um paying your employees and just because everyone's doing it, it's just gonna put more money into the local economy.

Um you should want to keep them all on so that you can produce more.

You can produce more tours, you can produce more t-shirts, you can produce more rides on the riverboat or whatever it is that you're producing.

Um, if you ultimately think that you could produce the same amount of economic output with fewer employees at higher rates, I don't know why you would wait.

Why aren't you just doing that now?

Why are you waiting for the city to force your hand at it?

I I'm not exactly sure I buy those arguments.

I I often see those as rhetorical threats rather than actual, and these are nice people and they're part of our community, but some of these entrepreneurs that say, like, oh, can't raise the minimum wage, it'll put me out of business, or I'll be forced to fire people.

I'm not sure that that's actually empirically true.

Okay.

And maybe it is, but I I haven't seen it.

All right.

Fair enough.

I was always just curious to get a response from someone in education academia with uh as far as that question goes.

Another question I have, um looking at Savannah, looking at New Orleans, two southern cities, both have not the best educational systems.

Looking at Rhode Island, one of the best educational systems in the country.

So I didn't see much in the presentation about investing in and maybe I overlooked it, maybe that's the other investments uh come in.

It wasn't education specifically, but it seemed like the lack of education investments is in my opinion, the real root cause of a lot of the crimes.

And want to get your thoughts on before I do want the students to sound out because they did they did the research, but I I would just uh in general to that and also to House Mama Green's point, the uh as we understood the nature of the uh the research assignment that we got at the front end, it was much more to explore the nexus between wages and crime.

It wasn't we were not asked to provide a brief that was kind of like all encompassing everything on crime because that's not well that's not a summer, that's not a summer research project, that's an entire career.

Just give me your thoughts on the correlation um do with education.

I would love to take this question because I also plan to focus my career on education, and I've actually done a lot of research in the last semester looking at North versus South in education and like educational attainment, employment after education, and it there's just a general lack of educational investment in the South that people don't seem to want to meet.

And it's also not that people don't want to meet it, it's that it northern states are so much more able to invest more money in education than the South is able to, but the South has done like the programs that you guys were talking about with the youth initiatives and even just keeping students after class or um one that I focused a lot about was retention policy last semester with retention at third grade and then retention at sixth grade, mostly focusing on literacy rates, but uh this could also be applied to the math programs, science programs.

I think that those programs also don't require a lot of investment, more than I mean, obviously it requires money to get specialized tutors to keep the students that require retention and require extra help.

But it is more about an organized way of teaching, I think, when it comes to education as a deterrent to crime and a push towards higher educational attainment, not even saying college education, because even just getting through high school dramatically decreases the likelihood of falling into a path of criminality.

So I think that it would take less investment than seems, especially because so many, or not so many, because a large amount of southern states, namely Mississippi, is a great example, where they haven't put as much money as the northern states have to put in, and they still have dramatically increased educational attainment rates and literacy rates.

So we should be we should be more like Mississippi.

Just a joke.

I would like to note the um having lived in Mississippi, um my understanding of Mississippi is they have become more strict on passing grades, and say fifth grade or fourth grade, um, you can't just go up.

They're becoming more strict on uh actually knowing the course content before, say going to a sixth grader or seventh grade.

Um and that's my understanding, it's been one of the big driving factors of their um increase in academic success.

Well, one last question, we'll get to the public comments for me.

Last question, um the defining that's the definition of necessary crimes or crimes out of necessity.

I didn't see um distribution of narcotics on there.

Was that do you consider that a crime of necessity?

Uh we actually discussed it.

Uh we just um similar to like I would say with in the carjacking uh referen uh late as well, um it's it's hard to really determine why someone sells drugs because uh we weren't a hundred percent sure.

Um it's it's hard to really determine why someone sells drugs, because uh we weren't a hundred percent sure.

Um so we had came to the conclusion as a group that we wouldn't include it just because we weren't we weren't really sure um to the extent that every person that is in narcotics is doing it first arrival or while we acknowledge there is a significant number that do so for that reason.

Um we couldn't definitively say that was we could say that that was blanket crime of necessity.

That's a good I respect that.

Thank you.

Good answer.

Oh, I was just going to note that I think it was important to emphasize the limitation as well that Bellamy had mentioned that with all of the crimes that we had mentioned, there is no clear distinction between whether these crimes were done out of necessity or done just to commit a crime or a crime of opportunity.

So it is hard because in a sense it is all theoretical, but these are the crimes that predominantly fall in previous research and literature that fall under crimes done for survival.

I think narcotics is also a harder world to delve in to the diversity of economy in narcotics, in my opinion.

Well, uh I was gonna say, if you look up the definition of crimes of necessity, it's basically talking about how like it's not harming the other person.

So we went through like uh entire list and we tried to pick out things that weren't harming the other person like physically, like drugs, like you're getting um something mentally, physically, like something's happening to you or someone else, even if you're like dealing, like you're causing harm to that person or yourself, whether it's like lace or just like what's happening with you.

Um so we tried to like find things that weren't actually going to like burglary, you're not like usually like I'm sorry, like getting um you're doing good, okay.

Yeah, I hope you understand that.

Well no great presentation.

Uh I appreciate it.

It takes a lot of courage to do uh sit in front of uh the council and and you know defend your your presentation, your research did a great job, and uh we appreciated it.

Professor, you all should get it out there.

Anyway.

So we have some comments uh from the audience.

We have Miss Lisa Rhodes.

Good morning, council members, McCarrin, Green, Morel, King, and Harris.

Thank you so much for being here today.

My name is Lisa Maria Rhodes.

I'm the founder and executive director of ALAS.

I'm a social worker and an educator over the last 17 years here in New Orleans.

And today we have a few young people from ALS who would like to share with you how they have seen poverty impact crime.

And our young people are ages 14 to 24.

They are facing or have faced the immigration court or criminal courts, and so they have experienced firsthand some of the arms of mass incarceration in our city, and as an organization, we would like to ask that funding be diverted away from policing and incarceration and towards organizations that can better support opportunity youth as well as workforce creation.

So um I may be stepping in to help out with interpretation as needed.

Just as a heads up.

Okay.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

We have um reverse R-I-B-A-S.

Is that what I what I have here?

Okay.

Hi, good morning, money.

Good morning, council member.

I am 17 years, so I go to Water Recording High School.

For example, one day when I was leaving the dollar.

I sorry, a person approached me and asking me for money.

He asked me in a gracing.

Wait, didn't he show me a a go to told me I gave to giving him some money?

So I decided I decided to leave some money.

This is an example of the hot robbery came to contribute to crime.

Dinero, trabajo opportunidades, pueden recorrer a robar o vender drogas para conseguir dinero para comida, viviendas ou otras necesidades básicas.

For ejemplo, un día cuando salía de la tienda del dollar, una persona se me acercó y me pido dinero, me pidió una manera aggressiva.

Okay, so to interpret, she said poverty can contribute to crime because some people when they don't have enough money, jobs or opportunities may turn to stealing or selling drugs.

For example, one day when I was leaving the dollar store, a person approached me and asked me for money.

He asked in an aggressive way, and then he showed me a gun and told me again to give him money.

So I decided to give him some money.

This is an example of how poverty can contribute to crime because it was all over just a few dollars to get money for food, housing, or other basic needs.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up, Ms.

Forrest.

Valerie Forrest.

Good morning, Council members.

Thank you for your time and opportunity to listen to us.

And thank you, Councilmember King, for coming to our back to school gym on St.

Rock.

My name is Valerie, and I am a 16-year-old and I'm a sophomore at Cohen Cohen Walter L.

Coyne High School, and I'm an Alice Fellow.

My uncle's life shows how poverty can contribute to crime.

After struggling with drug drug addiction and not having enough of money to support himself, he began stealing from family members to get money, and he has been in and out of jail because of his drug drug use and related crimes.

While his choices were his own and he is responsible for them.

His story also shows how financial hardship, addiction, and a lack of support can combine to a create to create a cycle that is difficult to escape.

His experience demonstrates that poverty can does not excuse criminal behavior, but it can increase the pressures and challenges that make crime more likely for some people.

His situation has also affected his son, showing how consequences of poverty, addiction, and incarceration can impact an entire family across generations.

Something that the city budget could be spent on is youth programs like Alas.

That's providing knowledge and better experiences for the youth to be able to break these generational barriers.

Programs like these are giving us the opportunities to break these barriers.

Next we have was Legacy Carter, followed by Mr Harry Wright.

And you know once people get addicted with drugs, they find something more that's gonna affect them and you know numb whatever they feel in.

You know, helping me cope with feelings and as a 14-year-old, I don't think any person should go through that knowing the story of anybody's family members who've lost.

Um and I think something that the city budget should support is programs like Alas, you know.

Um we do we go to meetings like this to say what we um have to say um dealing with the criminal and immigration court systems.

So um programs like this does give us the opportunity to learn and focus on what we want to do in life.

And it also gives like a a relief period.

Um just from anything.

Um yeah.

And I would like to invite y'all to our graduation in our seventh birthday party, July thirty first.

Um it's at seven o'clock.

Um, you can contact Lisa Maria if you need anything.

More details about our party, but I want to invite y'all and thank y'all for y'all time.

Thank you.

Great job.

Right.

Right.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Tyree.

I am 16 years old, and I attend three five high school.

Today I want to talk about how poverty can contribute to crime.

Private does not cause someone to be a criminal, but it can create difficult circumstances that lead people to haunt to make harmful choices.

My family has experienced this challenges firsthand.

My brother sold drugs because he was trying to earn money to provide for his family.

While that decision was wrong, it came from a place of financial struggle and limited opportunities.

This experience has shown me that if we want to reduce crime, we also need to address the root causes, such as probably lack of jobs, opportunities, and limited access to education and community resources.

By investing our neighborhoods and supporting families because before they reach a crisis, we can help prevent crime instead of only responding to it after it happens.

Thank you.

Well said to all of the uh students at Alice.

I think it takes it takes courage for the two-lane students to come up here and speak.

I think it takes even more courage for uh younger students to come and speak.

And especially those who English may not be their first language.

So great job to everyone.

Very, very proud of you.

Uh Miss Rose, you're doing a great job.

Everyone in Alice doing a great job.

And um continue the great work in this seeing these young students here is makes makes you very what you say, Councilman Green, bullish?

Bullish on the uh the future of our city.

Thank you.

Any further comments or or questions?

All right, hearing none, I'm moved to adjourn.

Second.

Thank you by council by Harris.

All in favor.

All right.

Any opposed?

Meetings adjourned.

Thank you.