Thank You Cyndy Etler (don’t lock them up)
shining a light on child advocacy,
If I Only Had a Brain
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.
International Rights of the Child Treaty (& why jails are full)
Over 25 years ago the rest of the world (194 nations) decided that children have basic human rights and begin signing the International Rights of the Child Treaty. Under this document, children are to have the rights to education, safety and well being including not to be made soldiers, not to be enslaved).
America is the only nation that has not signed that agreement, largely because we still demand that southern states continue to militarize youth as young as eleven, through military schools.
Expecting Different Results From Prison for Kids
Expecting Different Results From Prison for Kids
Human Services – Beyond Crisis
Human Services – Beyond Crisis: core social service issues making even a safe life impossible for more and more people
International Rights of the Child VS. Child Rights In America
It is important to note that the U.S. is the only nation in the world to not have ratified the United Nation’s RIGHTS OF THE CHILD TREATY of the 1980s.
What’s It Like For Troubled Teens Where You Live?
What’s it like to be a CASA guardian ad Litem (child protection worker) unable to find safe housing and mental health services for the 14-year-old struggling foster boy in your caseload? This child’s self-harming and violent behaviors could change if there was help to manage behaviors triggered by childhood traumas. These children can go on…
International Rights of the Child Treaty (& why jails are full)
Over 25 years ago the rest of the world (194 nations) decided that children have basic human rights and begin signing the International Rights of the Child Treaty. Under this document, children are to have the rights to education, safety and well being including not to be made soldiers, not to be enslaved).
America is the only nation that has not signed that agreement, largely because we still demand that southern states continue to militarize youth as young as eleven, through military schools.
Metrics That Matter (and NOT reported)
Costs of not knowing the reality of child abuse, trauma and child protection in Minnesota are high Children are dying at the hands of caregivers while in Child Protective Services
Metrics That Matter (and those that don’t)
Metrics are the heart of the matter. Measuring the wrong things wastes money, makes failure likely and problems fester…
Tracking, recording and making available meaningful information shines a light on what’s working and failing – The opposite is continued darkness…
AMERICA’S CHILDREN IN 100 CHARTS (read book draft)
This is a book about childhood trauma, its impact on children and the impact traumatized youth are having on our communities and society. It is a guide to seeing and dealing with the most critical issues and causes of abuse, and solutions.
What’s It Like For Troubled Teens in Minnesota?
What’s it like to be a CASA guardian ad Litem (child protection worker) unable to find safe housing and mental health services for the 14-year-old struggling foster boy in your caseload? His self-harming and violent behaviors could change if he had help to manage childhood traumas. He could go on to lead a productive life.…
Expecting Different Results From Prison for Kids
MN A.G. Keith Ellison’s response to the public outcry for punishment is normal (And that’s a shame). Our need for punishment over restorative justice is the American way. We don’t care if charging children and youth as adults brings more crime and recidivism.
Police vs Social Worker (when the wrong one shows up)
People suffering from untreated mental illness are 16 times more likely to be killed in interactions with law enforcement. Recently in Utah, a 13-year-old boy with autism was shot several times by police after his mother dialed 911 to request help as her son was experiencing a mental breakdown.
Math For Legislators (cost of youth crime) Part 1
Most lawmakers know what a big percentage of their budgets is going to social programs like child welfare and child protection.
Not as many understand how tax dollars they appropriate are working to solve the problems they are meant to solve.
49 % of America’s Black Youth Arrested Before Their 23rd Birthday (40% of White Youth)
This Annie E. Casey Foundation survey of Black youth in February 2021 demonstrates a rising trend of Black youth incarceration Post COVID.
Black youth in juvenile detention on Feb. 1, 2021, reached a pandemic high, while that of white youth was the second lowest recorded in more than a year.
Grace’s Story (Thank you ChildrensRights.org)
Grace, a Black 15-year old who was sent to a juvenile detention center for failure to submit schoolwork.
In an email to Grace’s caseworker, her teacher stated that Grace was “not out of alignment with most of my other students.”
Tens of thousands of children have struggled to adjust to the online learning environment the coronavirus created. ProPublica cites 15,000 high schoolers in Los Angeles alone failing to log in or complete schoolwork. Yet, a judge presiding for Oakland County Family Court Division, ruled in May that not completing schoolwork violated Grace’s probation.
It’s impossible to determine the frequency of cases like Grace’s, but one thing is clear. Children’s health and safety must be prioritized. We will continue urging states to stop admissions and to release kids from juvenile facilities. No child should be in juvenile detention for missing homework.
Metrics of Minnesota’s Child Protection (what does your state measure?)
Recent Star Tribune articles about juvenile justice and explosive growth of crime in our community miss the heart of the matter. We keep putting fires out that could have been prevented. The car jackings, transit crimes and other juvenile violence making life miserable for so many of us didn’t begin when these children became juveniles. It started with traumas suffered in the home mostly caused by parents that suffered the same violence and abuse as children.
Policing Abused Children & How Not To
Teachers, social workers, law enforcement and foster/adoptive parents dealing with State Ward children are often the last chance that a child has to grow up to lead a normal life.
Kids, Race & the Supreme Court
What the jury and others may not have known before the life sentence is that by the age of 14 Miller attempted suicide four times. The first time he tried to kill himself was at the age of six.
Due to experiencing abuse by his stepfather and his mother being a drug addict and alcoholic. The victim was actually his mother’s drug dealer at the time.
Juveniles In Justice
LA & New Jersey ending prison and jails for juveniles and Colorado’s super successful juvenile restorative justice
Arresting Young Black Children In Tennessee
At Rutherford County’s Hobgood elementary school,
An 8 year old, two 9 year old’s and an 11 year old walk into a principal’s office…
And are arrested and handcuffed (“out of habit” said officer Jeff Carroll).
For Profit Youth Prisons
Youth are two to three time more likely to confess to crimes they did not commit than adults.
Police interrogations using fabricated statements are most likely why. Kids are more intimidated by law enforcement than adults and they break down faster.
There’s just no upside in sending youth to jail. Incarcerating them for crimes they did not commit is a sign of a dysfunctional system. A system that creates what it was designed to stop.
Investing In Children Not Jails
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.
Carjacking From a Juvenile’s Perspective
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.
The Cost of Punishing vs Healing
Out of the blue murderous psychosis in normal people is rare.
It’s not likely that this boy led a normal life prior to this violence.
Criminalizing Elementary School Children
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.
200,000 Youth Tried As Adults Each Year; Temple University
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…
Florida’s Child Protection System Today (it can’t happen here?)
“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.
Tasered and Tried as Adults
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.
If You Knew (what would you do?)
If you knew that the vast majority of youth in Juvenile Justice came through Child Protective Services, would you;
The Cost of Tough on Crime (in tax dollars and public safety)
The majority of violent and serious crime has always been committed by juveniles. Most juvenile offenders have come through Child Protective Services (MN Supreme Court Chief Justice KATHLEEN BLATZ “the difference between that poor child and a felon is about 8 years).
American Crime Costs & Statistics
California and Arizona have used failed 3rd grade test scores to assist in forecasting prison capacity growth. (Corrections Digest, April 12, 2002)
In 2022, 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.
Child Protection, Crime & Preteen Moms
Star Tribune Nowhere To Go For Most Troubled Youth, crime, preteen moms and juvenile injustice
Child Protection Statistics and Carjackings
Child Protection Statistics and Carjackings;To solve carjackings and 83% and 90% recidivism rates, we need to track the successes and failures of children in State care if we are to improve their lives and strategies in place today.
30.2 % of America’s Youth Arrested Before Their 23rd Birthday (25% of us are state wards & special needs people)
This Annie E. Casey Foundation survey of Black youth in February 2021 demonstrates a rising trend of Black youth incarceration Post COVID.
Black youth in juvenile detention on Feb. 1, 2021, reached a pandemic high, while that of white youth was the second lowest recorded in more than a year.
If You Knew (what would you do?)
If you knew that the vast majority of youth in Juvenile Justice came through Child Protective Services, would you;
American Crime Costs & Statistics
READ TO THE END TO LEARN THE COSTS OF CRIME IN AMERICA TODAY
Carjacking Explained
Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, New Orleans and other major U.S. cities experienced over 600% more carjackings in the last two years.
These are the reported cases. Many car jackings were violent – most of them committed by juveniles.
Grace’s Story (Thank you ChildrensRights.org)
Grace, a Black 15-year old who was sent to a juvenile detention center for failure to submit schoolwork.
In an email to Grace’s caseworker, her teacher stated that Grace was “not out of alignment with most of my other students.”
Tens of thousands of children have struggled to adjust to the online learning environment the coronavirus created. ProPublica cites 15,000 high schoolers in Los Angeles alone failing to log in or complete schoolwork. Yet, a judge presiding for Oakland County Family Court Division, ruled in May that not completing schoolwork violated Grace’s probation.
It’s impossible to determine the frequency of cases like Grace’s, but one thing is clear. Children’s health and safety must be prioritized. We will continue urging states to stop admissions and to release kids from juvenile facilities. No child should be in juvenile detention for missing homework.
Arresting Sobbing Eight Year Old Children In Tennessee
At Rutherford County’s Hobgood elementary school,
An 8 year old, two 9 year old’s and an 11 year old walk into a principal’s office…
And are arrested and handcuffed (“out of habit” said officer Jeff Carroll).
THE COST OF PUNISHING DAMAGED CHILDREN
Of all the things not working in America today, our punishment model is running smoothly.
It’s creating exactly what some of us must want; crime, violence, teen and preteen moms, extraordinary social and financial costs and a reputation for punishing the most vulnerable and damaged among us.
For Profit Youth Prisons & False Imprisonment
Youth are two to three time more likely to confess to crimes they did not commit than adults.
Police interrogations using fabricated statements are most likely why. Kids are more intimidated by law enforcement than adults and they break down faster.
There’s just no upside in sending youth to jail. Incarcerating them for crimes they did not commit is a sign of a dysfunctional system. A system that creates what it was designed to stop.
Juvenile Injustice, Race & the Supreme Court
What the jury and others may not have known before the life sentence is that by the age of 14 Miller attempted suicide four times. The first time he tried to kill himself was at the age of six.
Due to experiencing abuse by his stepfather and his mother being a drug addict and alcoholic. The victim was actually his mother’s drug dealer at the time.
Post COVID Juvenile Justice Trends (Casey Foundation Surveys)
his CASEY Foundation survey shows the population of Black youth in juvenile detention on Feb. 1, 2021, reached a COVID pandemic high, while that of white youth was the second lowest recorded in more than a year.
Tasered and Tried as Adults – Police Training, Resources & Courts Meet America’s At Risk Children
Trauma doesn’t heal itself and America doesn’t provide much more than Prozac for tortured 12 year olds.
For an in depth and moving photo graphic look into incarcerated children in America’s Juveniles In Justice, check out Richard Ross
Criminalizing Elementary School Children (policing our schools & punishment)
Federal Funding, Zero Tolerance and Inadequate Alternatives mean that more states are policing schools with armed officers. Before the 1970’s police were almost absent from elementary and junior high schools.
Today, armed officers are dealing with an escalation of violence and criminal prosecutions for children as young as 6, 7 and 8. Prosecuting kids in place of using resources to help them adapt destroys the fabric of a child’s life and achieves the exact opposite of what children need and society expects from an elementary or junior high school experience.
There are a significant number of us who believe it more important to punish bad behavior in children than it is to help them develop the skills they need to live among us. When these folks hold sway in education, the institution suffers, the child suffers, and the community gains one more troubled adult a few years later. For too long, America has led the world in crime, incarceration, violence and troubled schools. While not the only reason, treating at risk children with behavioral problems as offenders instead of troubled youth has played a big role.
The articles below are obvious examples of policing and education gone wrong. No child should have to live with this kind of institutional abuse. ALL ADULTS ARE THE PROTECTORS OF ALL CHILDREN
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.
Police vs Social Worker and what happened to an autistic child when the wrong one showed up
Police encounters with mentally ill people can have deadly consequences: according to the nonprofit Treatment Advocacy Center, people suffering from untreated mental illness are 16 times more likely to be killed in interactions with law enforcement. Earlier this month in Utah, a 13-year-old boy with autism was shot several times by police after his mother dialed 911 to request help as her son was experiencing a mental breakdown.
Policing Abused Children & Why It Can’t Be Done
Teachers, social workers, law enforcement and foster/adoptive parents dealing with State Ward children are often the last chance that a child has to grow up to lead a normal life.
American Crime Costs & Statistics
READ TO THE END TO LEARN THE COSTS OF CRIME IN AMERICA TODAY