85 percent of all juveniles who come into contact with the juvenile court system are functionally illiterate. So are 60 percent of all prison inmates. Inmates have a 16 percent chance of returning to prison if they receive literacy help, as opposed to 70 percent for those who receive no help
Child and youth interactions with police and courts differ dramatically between the United States and most advanced European nations, with major impacts on measurable outcomes for young people and their communities.
I grew up white in the 1960s—reckless. I drove drunk, grew marijuana two doors down from a cop and always went without punishment. On several occasions police brought me home and to let my mom know that I had misbehaved.
My resilience was rarely tested, because I never needed it.
For Black youth living lives parallel to mine, every day demanded extraordinary resilience
This is a snapshot of changes being made to the safety net for child protection, public health and education. Please take a few minutes and show your support for those programs and policies you know to be of value to the weakest and most vulnerable among us.
Kids at Risk Action, Michael and John examine the staggering costs and human impact of child protective services (CPS) and the interconnected child welfare and juvenile justice systems. They highlight troubling statistics, such as the high number of children reported to CPS each year, the underreporting of abuse, and the alarming link between CPS involvement and later incarceration.
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.
Expecting Different Results From Prison for Kids
Human Services – Beyond Crisis: core social service issues making even a safe life impossible for more and more people
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.
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.
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, 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.
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.
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.
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.
LA & New Jersey ending prison and jails for juveniles and Colorado’s super successful juvenile restorative justice
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.
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.
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 that the vast majority of youth in Juvenile Justice came through Child Protective Services, would you;
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).
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 that the vast majority of youth in Juvenile Justice came through Child Protective Services, would you;
READ TO THE END TO LEARN THE COSTS OF CRIME IN AMERICA TODAY
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Woo Hoo – MN passed a restorative justice act for veterans – diverting at-risk veterans toward probation and social service programs instead of jail time when they commit certain crimes.
Why wouldn’t we?
The World Health Organization defines torture as extended exposure to violence and deprivation. Living in a war zone, bombs going off nearby or a buddy shot dead in front of you changes the brain.
Most of us want soldiers that have experienced traumas in the service of this nation to be treated for their mental health issues and have a path to rebuild their lives as productive citizens.
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 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.
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.
READ TO THE END TO LEARN THE COSTS OF CRIME IN AMERICA TODAY
DJ Tice Star Tribune article recently made crime very real by describing his wife’s rape, his own assault and home burglary along with the awful Barry Latzer assumption that 80% of Americans could become victims of a violent crime in their lifetime.
No obfuscation here.
Crime hurts when it happens to you or someone you love.
What best should be done about crime and punishment is our national conundrum.
Damn the data, “hanging’s too good for em’ and “lock em up” our national chant for fifty years bringing us such data as;
It is upsetting that the only significant authoritative voice speaking to the horrific practice of criminalizing mental illness is Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek.
Stanek’s Star Tribune article today paints the ugly picture of mentally ill patients not charged with any crime, locked up in a tiny, isolated, empty cell for 23 hours a day for months at a time because there is no other place for them.
HCMC downtown is seeing 800 to 1000 emergency psych visits/month, MN hospitals are turning away mental health patients and a very large percentage of people in the juvenile and criminal justice system suffer from diagnosable mental health problems.
My experience with children receiving adequate therapy for the severe trauma and resulting behavior problems that were so indelibly a part of these very young children’s lives was almost non existent.
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.
Minnesota’s former Supreme Court Chief Justice has stated that 90% of the youth in the Juvenile Justice system have passed through Child Protective Services and that “The difference between that poor child and a felon is about eight years”.
Marion Wright Edelman calls this the pipeline to prison & from this volunteer CASA guardian ad Litems perspective it is absolutely true. No other industrialized nation treats its children and juveniles so harshly.
The simple truths below now define our communities and our nation – share them with your legislators (really – if you don’t share this with them they may never know).
Charging juveniles as adults
Privatized Detention Centers (why judges sometimes go to jail)
Ten Cents An Hour
Never Vote Again (stay away)
King Pin Laws
Women In Prison (shackled while giving birth?)
The Face of 12 Year Olds In Jail
Prozac, Children, Juveniles & the Criminal Justice System
Mass Incarceration: Where it Starts, With Our Youth
Following up from last weeks show on Mass Incarceration, which focused on adults, this week the focus is on mass incarceration of our youth. In contrast to adult incarceration, where there has been bipartisan attention from U.S. Politicians, the youth problem is all but ignored during the campaigns. The issue is a big one so it is hard to understand why it is avoided like the plague by our politicians. In fact, I could not find a single quote on the internet about youth incarceration from politicians.
Perhaps people just do not want to hear about something so depressing. Newspaper and magazine publishers claim that they will lose their readership if they cover these issues. Television believes people will turn the channel or tune out. Maybe people will not read this blog either, but it’s an important subject, so I made the decision to do the right thing and cover the issue. If awareness can increase, the likelihood of positive change can increase too.
Here are some facts:
The U.S. has the worlds highest youth incarceration rate at 225 per 100,000 (as of 2015). The next highest rate amongst developed nations is South Africa at 69 per 100,000. The U.S. is 6 to 10 times that of the other developed nations.
People smarter than me have clearly explained the underlying institutional dysfunctions that ensure the next police shootings.
Dallas Police Chief David Brown accurately stated that law enforcement has become the safety system in schools, a primary community mental health service provider, and of course the armed responder to a growing number of society’s violent problems.
Recently, Minnesota sheriffs from Hennepin, Ramsey and Washington Counties wrote a half page Star Tribunearticle threatening to sue the State for failing to provide timely mental health services to people locked up in their jail cells. This failure has turned law enforcement into a provider of mental health services to a large and growing population of often dangerous people.
MN Law enforcement officers killed 12 people in 2015 and each year are dealing with more unstable people and potentially dangerous encounters with the wrong training needed to slow this racially unbalanced social dysfunction.
This morning’s Safe Passage For Children about how police have put battered children back in the home because they like to keep families together reminds me of a man who kicked a 7 year old girl so hard she went into convulsions and went into the hospital Emergency Room with her injury. The police in that case sought safety for her and her siblings and involved Child Protection right away.
That girl had been sexually abused for four years (from 4 to 7), my first visit to her younger year sister was at the suicide ward of the hospital & the 2 other children had problems so severe that they could not be together in foster care because of the things that happened when they were together.
The man who did these things to the children remained in the home for many years, and was never charged or made to answer for any of his crimes. More than ten years later he was still sexually abusing children in the same home and he had never been mentioned in the justice system.
Children have no rights in the homes they live in, no access to safety other than our community efforts to keep children safe and no way to influence policy makers to improve the existing system. The Safe Passage Article above includes a snapshot of how the rest of the industrialized world keeps children safe and is well worth reading.
All Adults Are The Protectors of All Children
This Pennsylvania sad story of six police officers beating and robbing suspects, planting evidence and doctoring paperwork to obtain over 560 false convictions (that are now being vacated) follows on the heels of the State’s recent incarceration of two Pennsylvania judges for over 4000 false convictions that sent thousands of innocent juveniles to jail because…
Occasionally KARA publishes works from other authors. This is a strong argument for reforming the Foster Care System before fixing the Criminal Justice System (author & contact info below). Before we reform the Criminal Justice System, we need to take a closer look at the Foster Care System
A friend sent me this today and I think it would solve many of our nations troubles and is worth sharing (widely). San Antonio Texas and Bexar County have saved 50 Million dollars and made life safer, more just, and much kinder for their citizens. The jails aren’t full today because the officers are dealing with the mental health issues that are getting people shot and beat up by other police departments.
Instead of facing more awful stories about how police departments are causing their communities to fear them, this department has recognized that jail is ineffective in treating mentally unhealthy people involved in low level crime and they came up with a better way. Read the whole story below (with audio).
Watch & Share these 2 minute trailers from KARA’s TV documentary project (help us BUILD KARA & spread the word)
My conversation with a Minnesota police chief today was eye opening.
He spoke of how city leaders don’t take his repeated warning about the growing body of experience his community is having with troubled children & families. These leaders debate his stated daily reality for his police officers as if it were a small thing.
Like the growing bloc of dysfunctional families with serious mental health and coping problems and how this population is stressing the police force, courts and public welfare systems and how that added stress flows into the daily lives of the city/county workers themselves leading to serious problems of failure in school and failure of child protection systems and the high rate of worker turnover in education and social work. And then there’s the costs to the County and diminished quality of life to the citizens.
We both see that there is far too much training that goes into the difficult work of teaching and social work to see turnover rates growing as fast as they are. No one likes poor graduation rates or high crime rates. Unsafe neighborhoods are no good for anyone.
His view is that the elasticity of our systems is not limitless – it will break at a point and become a major social ill impacting our entire civil society making life painful for all of us.
It is precisely the functionality of our institutions that have made life in this nation as attractive as it has been.
For a growing number of people conditions are getting worse and this includes working people forced to deal with a more problematic and behaviorally challenged population.
KIds For Cash the movie is a documentary about two Pennsylvania Judges who were imprisoned for 40 years because they sentenced thousands of innocent juveniles to prison for 2.5 million dollars in kickbacks. This movie captures the devastating impact imprisonment has on youth and the dangers of privatized facilities. Watch the trailer here.
Coming from years as a CASA guardian ad-Litem, child friendly perspective, I see similarities and a correlation between what in business would be labelled “Worst Practices” or, what is happening to the citizens of Ferguson at the hands of an aggressive judicial/policing approach to justice for the citizens of Missouri, and the way America treats children and juveniles.
25% of American juveniles are tried as adults (often 10 and 12 years old), recidivism rates are now at 70% in our prisons -Black men born in 2001 have a 33% chance of incarceration. Almost half of America’s incarcerated youth serve their terms in privatized prisons. Many laboring for as little as one dollar a day.
Almost 20,000 children have been killed by gunfire since 2010,
Thousands of children in child protection systems are medicated by psychotropic pharmaceuticals like Prozac, Ritalin, and Zoloft instead of being treated through mental health programs that could help them gain the coping skills necessary for leading productive lives.
Six million children are reported abused in this nation each year. About ten percent of them receive services in an overwhelmed child protection system. In most states, only the very worst child abuse cases receive any attention.
I had the good fortune of meeting Tom Daly who wrote a history of Shakopee women’s prison and he told me how women benefited from the educational offerings and the ability to visit with their children while in prison (his book featured below). It was Tom’s opinion that the the recidivism rate stayed well below thirty…