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Dec182022

Investing In Children Not Jails

Aces and Trauma, All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, CASA, GAL and Child Protection, Children's Rights, Juvenile + Criminal Justice, Reporting and News - MN Specific

We the people are serious about continued investment in our punishment model.

Expelling kids from daycare and elementary school is common. Charging youth in adult courts is too. The nation’s Supreme Court recently reinstated lifelong (no chance for release) sentencing for crimes committed by juveniles.

Instead of investing in healing broken children we invest our tax dollars into courts that punish kids from traumatizing violent and toxic homes. Are we bad at math or pro growing crime, criminals and broken communities.

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Dec172022

Pay It Forward

Adoption, Foster and Kinship Care, All Posts from Kids at Risk Action

KARA’s Last minute gifting ideas!

Is there a foster or adoptive family in your life that would appreciate a gift card or cash donation this holiday season? Be a Secret Santa if you choose.
If you have never donated to Kids At Risk Action, please consider
your donation to our 501c3 nonprofit today.

Our programs cost $. A monthly donation of any amount helps keep the wheels turning.

Thank you for your attention to the issues of abused and neglected children.

The KARA Team.

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Dec152022

Carjacking From a Juvenile’s Perspective

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, Domestic Violence, Gun Violence and Control, Juvenile + Criminal Justice

Most major U.S. cities experienced a huge increase in carjackings in the last two years. Many are violent – all are traumatizing. The majority are committed by juveniles – some of them under 14 years old. Repeat offenders are common. From the perspective of at risk youth and policing…

The violence, excitement and control for disaffected youth makes this an easy and low punishment crime. Courts have been lenient on most of the crimes committed by youth. 

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Dec132022

Criminalizing Elementary School Children

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, Juvenile + Criminal Justice

When 14-year-old Ryan Turk cut ahead of the lunch line to grab a milk, he didn’t expect to get in trouble. He certainly didn’t plan to end up in handcuffs. But Turk, a black student at Graham Park Middle School, was arrested for disorderly conduct and petty larceny for procuring the 65-cent carton. The state of Virginia is actually prosecuting the case, which went to trial in November.

Changing the rules of the game requires federal, state, and local reforms. With little evidence that police in schools make students safer and plenty that they facilitate harm to students’ liberty and well-being, the Department of Justice should end the cops program’s SRO grants to districts. Taxpayers should not be on the hook for billions that promote unjust school conditions and put kids at greater risk of future involvement with the criminal justice system. And students should feel like they can talk to school officials when they have problems without forfeiting their constitutional rights and winding up in the back of police cars.

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Dec102022

200,000 Youth Tried As Adults Each Year; Temple University

Aces and Trauma, All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, Juvenile + Criminal Justice, Reporting and News - US Based

As former Supreme Court Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz so aptly stated, “the difference between that poor child and a felon is about eight years”

Vote for mental health services and child friendly programs for at risk children and call your state legislators and tell them to do the same. 

Once these very troubled children become old enough to impact their surroundings they do so in a most troubling manner. That’s why our jails are full and our schools are troubled.

From the study; “In other words, by one mechanism or another, more than 200,000 individuals under the age of 18 are prosecuted in criminal court each year. There are three trends in the data worth noting…

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Dec92022

Florida’s Child Protection System Today (it can’t happen here?)

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, Child Abuse and Deaths, Child Protection, Juvenile + Criminal Justice, Mental Health + Over Medication, Reporting and News - US Based

“I’m not for killing kids and stuff” (officer Omar Bellow). For eight seconds officers fired 66 rounds from Glock service weapons towards the children. You can read the NY Times article details here. There is nothing easy about being in law enforcement in America today (or teaching, or social work, health services or child care). The numbers of seriously troubled youth are off the charts and so many children have serious often violent behavior problems. 

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Dec82022

Tasered and Tried as Adults

All Posts from Kids at Risk Action, Juvenile + Criminal Justice

Expelled from elementary school, pregnant in junior high and facing a criminal justice system before they are able to drive a car.

The cost to society in taxes, public health, education and safety is astronomical and the people policing, teaching and caring for these children are stuck in centuries old punishment models that guarantee failure, perpetual pain and broken communities.

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