If the medical community, Children’s Defense Fund and former MN Supreme Court Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz are right, the vast majority of crime in America is the result of what happened to that person as a child. If the Star Tribune reporters (Jessie Van Berkel/Liz Sawyer) are right (Troubled Kids Have Nowhere To Go), we are manufacturing juvenile felons.
The 12 year old boy in the article above is one of hundreds of children struggling with childhood trauma needing and not getting mental health care. Not only is the care not there, but we we have no place to put him but detention and jail where things just get worse. This is also my CASA Guardian ad Litem experience within CPS.
It’s painful to watch boys and girls within CPS (Child Protective Services) through no fault of their own because of childhood traumas, passed from group home to group home. Hundreds of them have serious mental health issues. Some of them run away, Many of them do dumb and bad things as unparented/unsupervised seriously troubled children are wont to do – resulting in thousands of teen and preteen pregnancies and thousands of crimes, many of them felonies.
MN sends troubled youth out of state for care and has closed over a dozen group homes for violations over the past ten years. The article points out how children with mental health needs are in jail because we have nothing else to do with them. Some of these children are suicidal. One of my Child Protection case boys attempted multiple suicides and threatened to suicide by cop in my presence. He experienced 29 care placements because of the terrible things that happened to him as a child.
Juvenile arrests: In 2023, juveniles (under 18 years old) constituted 9.6% (10,948) of all arrests in Minnesota. Of them: 10.2% of Murder arrests, 12.4% of Rape arrests, 28.2% of Robbery arrests,10.2% of Aggravated Assault arrests, 12.5% of Burglary arrests. Of the 5,309 aggravated assaults cleared by arrest or exceptional means, 465 were by the arrest of a juvenile only. In Hennepin County, there’s been a dramatic rise in felonies involving juveniles since the pandemic.
The number of juveniles charged with homicide has more than doubled since 2021 compared to the three years prior.
WHEN YOU Share KARA’s reporting with FRIENDS, INSTAGRAM & FACEBOOK and most of all, your State Representative (find them here) change will come a little bit faster. When enough of us become informed and speak up for abused and neglected children, we will improve their lives and our communities!
All Adults Are the Protectors of All Children (Don Shelby)
The U.S. has the highest rate of incarceration of any nation on earth with: 4% of the world population & 20% of it’s prisoners. 2.3 million prisoners, 4.5 million Americans on parole & about 8 million Americans with prior histories of incarceration & parole & between 8 and 10 million Americans arrested every year or,
about 27 million Americans involved in the criminal justice system. Mass Incarceration #’s 2023
Several states including California and Arizona have used early grade test scores to assist in forecasting required prison capacity growth. (Corrections Digest, April 12, 2002) 23% of Black and American Indian third graders in Minneapolis MN read at grade level.
6.11.21 NY votes to raise the minimum age of arrest from 7 to 12 and considers prohibiting the shackling of children and youth in family court.
Louisiana (the World’s Prison Capitol), Georgia, Mississippi, Oklahoma & several other states have incarceration rates 20 times that of incarceration rates in most other industrialized nations. The best prisons in the world release good neighbors back into the community American prisons release hardened criminals with mental health problems and an 80% chance of recidivism within five years and 90% within nine years. Chicago Sheriff Thomas Dart at Aspen (100 million Americans have a criminal record)
Consider this; Japan has 120 million citizens and 77,000 incarcerated citizens.
The U.S. has 327 million citizens and 2,400,000 incarcerated citizens –
many of them children tried as adults.
Prison life sentences have quadrupled while the minimum age
for imprisonment has dropped since the 1980’s
Below are the statistics and research used to calculate the cost of crime in America today
The societal costs of incarceration—lost earnings, adverse health effects, and the damage to the families of the incarcerated—are estimated at up to three times the direct costs, bringing the total burden of our criminal justice system to $1.2 trillion.
The Economic Costs of the U.S. Criminal Justice System – AAF
According to a report by the Justice Policy Institute, the average state cost for the secure confinement of a young person is $588 per day or $214,620 per year2. or $214,620 per year, a 44 percent increase from 2014. These cost figures over a six-year period represent the growing economic impact of incarcerating youth.Jul 30, 2020
48,000 * $214,620 = 10,301,760,000 (ten billion dollars annually)
No other nation in the world competes with us in this space.
A report by the Prison Policy Initiative states that as of 2022, roughly 1.9 million people are incarcerated in the United States2.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that local jails nationwide held 663,100 persons in custody at midyear 2022, which is 4% more than at this time the year before3
100 million Americans have a criminal record, 77% of inmates are arrested for a new crime within five years of their release from prison,
30.2% of Americans are arrested by their 23rd birthday, African Americans are incarcerated at 5 times the rate of whites & Black children 42% of children who are detained & 52% of children whose cases go to criminal court.
37% of American children are reported to Child Protective Services by their 23rd birthday,
Abused children are 9 times more likely to be involved in criminal activity. ACE study from 2006 criminality* in families. Richard Ross Children in prison
Annually, 200,000 juveniles charged as adults.
- A criminal record can reduce the likelihood of a callback or job offer by nearly 50 percent. The negative impact of a criminal record is twice as large for African American applicants.
- Infectious diseases are highly concentrated in corrections facilities: 15% of jail inmates and 22% of prisoners – compared to 5% of the general population – reported ever having tuberculosis, Hepatitis B and C, HIV/AIDS, or other STDs.
- Spending on prisons and jails has increased at triple the rate of spending on Pre‐K‐12 public education in the last thirty years.
Each burglary costs $41,288.00, (1,410,000 crimes * $41,288.00= $59,216,080,000.00) Washington University St Louis Study Iowa State University Cost of Crime Study
Each armed robbery costs $335,733.00, 41% of 332,198 robberies were committed with a gun * 136,201.00 = $45,727,170,333.00
Each aggravated assault costs $145,379.00 (744,000 crimes * $145,379.00 = $108,161,976,000.00
Each rape costs $448,000.00 (99,856 crimes * $448.000.00 = $44,735,488,000.00)
Each murder costs $17,252,656.00 * 17,250 murders = 297,608,316,000.00
Cases without the death penalty cost $740,000, where the death penalty is sought cost $1.26 million. Maintaining each death row prisoner costs taxpayers $90,000 more per year than a prisoner in general population.
There are 2708 Americans on death row;
2708 at $131,000,000 yr avg cost to maintain * 15 yr avg on Death Row =1,965,000,000.00 (2708 prisoners cost 2 Billion dollars)
Shootings Cost $174 billion Annually in the U.S.
America has 5% of the world’s population and 25% its prison population. 2,220,300 Americans in jails and prisons & 4,751,400 on parole.
Recidivism is near 80%
66% of incarcerated juveniles have mental health problems & half that number have multiple, serious and chronic mental illness.
Annual actual cost of crime in America is more than 1 trillion dollars Iowa Cost of Crime Study;
| THE COST OF; | COST PER CRIME | NUMBER OF CRIMES | ANNUAL COST |
| Burglary | 41,288.00 | 1410000 | 58,216,080,000.00 |
| Armed Robbery | 335,733.00 | 136201 | 45,727,170,333.00 |
| Aggravated AssaulT | 145,379.00 | 744000 | 108,161,976,000.00 |
| Rape | 448,000.00 | 99856 | 44,735,488,000.00 |
| Murder | 17,252,656.00 | 17250 | 297,608,316,000.00 |
| 554,449,030,333.00 | |||
The Price of Prisons – Prison spending in 2015 …
*Several states including California and Arizona have used early grade test scores to assist in forecasting required prison capacity growth. Corrections Digest, April 12, 2002
KARA reports on the issues of invisible children
This article submitted by Former CASA Guardian Ad Litem Mike Tikkanen
“What we do to our children, they will do to our society”
(Pliny the Elder, 2000 years ago)
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