Hire 600 Young Men Before the Streets Do

By JR Robinson

Mayor Paul Young and Members of the Memphis City Council,

Memphis does not need another meeting where we describe the crisis, shake our heads, and wait for somebody else to solve it.

We need to make a decision: Are we going to keep spending money responding to the consequences of poverty, crime, hopelessness, and understaffed public safety—or are we finally going to invest in the young men our city has too often left standing on the sidelines?

Here is my question:

What if Memphis hired 600 young men from our own neighborhoods and gave them a real path to serve, earn, learn, lead, and eventually protect the city they call home?

Not a temporary photo opportunity.
Not another program that lasts six weeks and disappears.
Not a speech about “engaging young people” with no paycheck, no mentor, no credential, and no future attached.

I am talking about a bold, citywide workforce-and-public-safety pipeline: a paid corps of young Memphis men trained for non-enforcement public-safety work, community service, traffic assistance, crash-response support, neighborhood visibility, city operations, emergency preparedness, and future careers in law enforcement and public service.

Call them Memphis Community Safety Corps.

Call them Neighborhood Service Officers.

Call them Save Our Sons Fellows.

The name matters less than the mission: hire our young men before the streets recruit them.

Memphis Police Department has faced a major staffing challenge, with public reports placing the department hundreds of officers below its desired staffing level. At the same time, MPD already has a non-sworn path—Police Service Technicians—who receive focused training and can support public-safety operations without immediately becoming sworn police officers. That tells us the basic idea is not impossible. The question is whether Memphis has the courage to scale a version of it around opportunity, mentorship, and neighborhood ownership.wreg+1

The Problem Is Bigger Than Policing

Memphis has a crime problem. We all know it.

Families know it when they hear gunshots at night. Small-business owners know it when they pay more for security or close earlier than they want to. Parents know it when they worry about their children driving across town. Young people know it when they grow up seeing violence, instability, incarceration, addiction, unemployment, and grief treated as normal parts of life.

But crime is not only a policing problem.

It is also an opportunity problem.

It is a fatherhood problem.
It is a housing problem.
It is a wage problem.
It is a mentorship problem.
It is a transportation problem.
It is a hope problem.

Too many young men in Memphis are caught between two futures they did not choose:

• A life of poverty, low-wage work, unstable housing, and limited opportunity.

• A life on the street, where quick money, attention, belonging, and survival can look more available than a legitimate career.

When a young man cannot see a path to become a provider, a homeowner, a husband, a father, a taxpayer, a business owner, or a respected leader, the city has left a dangerous vacuum. Somebody will fill it. The streets will fill it. Crime will fill it. Despair will fill it.

Memphis cannot arrest its way out of every problem created by disconnection and economic abandonment. We need effective law enforcement, accountability, investigation, and consequences for people who commit violent crimes. But we also need a much larger front-end strategy: give people a real reason, a real structure, and a real income to choose a different life before harm happens.

A 600-Man Community Safety Corps

Imagine Memphis selecting 600 young men—especially those who live in high-need neighborhoods, are unemployed or underemployed, are justice-involved but eligible for employment, or simply need a serious career pathway.

They would not be handed a badge or placed into dangerous assignments without proper preparation. They would be trained, supervised, screened, mentored, and deployed into roles that reduce pressure on sworn officers while increasing visible, constructive presence in the community.

Their responsibilities could include:

• Supporting traffic control near schools, special events, construction zones, and congested corridors.

• Assisting with non-emergency crash scenes, traffic-direction duties, report intake, and administrative follow-up where authorized and properly supervised.

• Serving as neighborhood visibility teams alongside trained supervisors and community organizations.

• Helping residents navigate city services, victim-support resources, youth opportunities, and public-safety information.

• Supporting abandoned-property reporting, lighting concerns, blight documentation, and quality-of-life issues that often contribute to disorder.

• Working with schools, parks, libraries, community centers, and faith organizations to create safer public spaces.

• Receiving training in de-escalation, first aid, CPR, conflict mediation, communications, professional conduct, digital skills, financial literacy, and civic leadership.

• Building an actual pathway into MPD, Shelby County public-safety roles, fire services, emergency communications, code enforcement, public works, logistics, skilled trades, and private-sector employment.

This would not replace trained, sworn police officers. It would make better use of them.

MPD’s own career structure shows that the department already distinguishes between sworn Police Recruit positions and Police Service Technician positions. PST recruits complete a six-week paid training program, while police recruits complete a 23-week paid academy program and then enter field training and probationary service. A larger, carefully designed local pipeline could help more Memphians become prepared for those careers over time.joinmpd

A person directing traffic, supporting a crash-response operation, conducting non-enforcement community outreach, or helping residents connect to services is not doing the same job as a sworn officer investigating violent crime. That distinction matters. It protects the public, respects professional law enforcement, and places trained officers where they are most needed.

The Win for Memphis

This is a win for public safety because it creates more eyes, more structure, more community relationships, and more capacity around the daily work that currently pulls sworn officers away from their core responsibilities.

It is a win for policing because it becomes a recruitment pipeline. Instead of asking young men to wake up one morning and decide they are ready to become police officers, Memphis could spend one to two years helping them build the discipline, fitness, work record, communication skills, confidence, and trust required to apply.

It is a win for families because a paycheck changes a household.

A young man with steady work begins to think differently. He can contribute to rent. He can buy a vehicle. He can repair his credit. He can afford insurance. He can save for a home. He can support a child. He can see marriage, fatherhood, and community leadership as reachable goals—not distant ideas reserved for somebody else.

It is a win for neighborhoods because the people serving those communities would come from them. They would know the streets, families, businesses, churches, schools, and challenges. They would not be strangers sent in only after tragedy strikes. They would be visible examples of what a different path looks like.

And it is a win for the city budget in the long run.

We spend enormous amounts reacting after lives have already gone off course: emergency response, investigations, incarceration, court costs, hospital costs, property damage, victim services, lost business activity, and the long-term cost of families disrupted by violence. Why not invest earlier in people who can become stabilizers in their own homes and neighborhoods?

Mayor Young has already emphasized expanding paid work experiences, internships, apprenticeships, and on-the-job learning for young adults by 2030. Memphis should apply that vision with urgency to the young men who are closest to the crossroads between economic exclusion and street life.memphistn

A Serious Plan, Not a Symbolic One

For this to work, it must be built with seriousness and safeguards.

The city should begin with a pilot cohort, perhaps 100 to 150 young men, then expand toward 600 based on performance, funding, retention, safety outcomes, community feedback, and employment results.

Every participant should receive:

• A living wage and reliable work schedule.

• A uniform that conveys service and professionalism without impersonating police.

• Intensive onboarding, background screening appropriate to the role, and clear standards of conduct.

• A dedicated mentor—retired officer, firefighter, veteran, tradesperson, business leader, educator, pastor, coach, or community elder.

• Weekly case management for transportation, identification, housing, childcare, mental health, legal barriers, and financial needs.

• Career plans with milestones toward MPD, city employment, higher education, technical certification, entrepreneurship, or the skilled trades.

• Physical-fitness preparation for those pursuing public-safety careers.

• Financial coaching focused on banking, credit, taxes, savings, vehicle ownership, and homeownership.

• Support for participants who qualify for expungement, licensing restoration, GED completion, or workforce credentials.

And just as important: we must measure results publicly.

How many participants remain employed after six months? After one year? How many earn credentials? How many enter MPD, city government, skilled trades, college, military service, or private-sector jobs? How many avoid re-arrest? How many increase their income? How many become fathers who can support their children? How many move into stable housing? How many become mentors to the next group?

That is how Memphis proves this is not just a feel-good idea. That is how we turn hope into data, data into policy, and policy into lasting change.

Save Our Sons

Mayor Young and City Council members, our young men are not Memphis’ greatest threat.

They are one of Memphis’ greatest untapped assets.

There are young men in our city who need somebody to look them in the eyes and say: We see more in you than your worst decision, your ZIP code, your record, your lack of connections, or the neighborhood you came from.

We need to tell them:

“You can serve.”
“You can protect.”
“You can provide.”
“You can lead.”
“You can own a home.”
“You can raise a family.”
“You can build something.”
“You can become the man your community needs.”

The city should not wait until a young man is in handcuffs to decide he needs intervention. We should reach him while he is still reachable, employ him while he is still willing, train him while he is still growing, and surround him with people who expect greatness from him.

This is not softness on crime.

This is strength against crime.

This is prevention with a paycheck.
This is mentorship with standards.
This is public safety with purpose.
This is workforce development with a uniform.
This is community investment with measurable outcomes.

Memphis has the ability to create the solutions we keep saying we need. We can create the change we want to see. We can stop acting as if our young men are a problem to manage and start treating them as a generation to develop.

Let us build a Memphis Community Safety Corps. Let us hire 600 young men. Let us prepare them for service. Let us give them a bridge from the block to a career, from survival to stability, from isolation to brotherhood, and from uncertainty to a future.

This is how we save our sons.
This is how we strengthen our neighborhoods.
This is how we build safer streets.
This is how we save our community.

Respectfully,

JR Robinson

CEO/Co-Founder of JustMy