“We All Care” Initiative

Beginning this May, the St. Paul Police Department and the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office will be launching a 6 month pilot initiative on the East Side of Saint Paul to address quality of life and public safety concerns of the residents.  In a recent survey, 70% of the East Side residents stated that they did [...]

Preventing the Unimaginable

Two-year old Emily was sexually assaulted and then killed in 2006 by her day-care provider’s 13 year-old son. To try to put ourselves in the shoes of her parents, Lynne and Travis Johnson, is unimaginable. There just aren’t words. But the two of them have taken the courageous stance of trying to do something about this so that no other parent ever has to experience the unimaginable.

For the last few years, they have worked with the Minnesota Legislature to pass what has become known as “Emily’s Law.” This year’s version received a hearing last Thursday by the public safety committee. The issue the bill attempts to address is that the 13 year-old who committed the crime was tried in juvenile court and the Johnsons felt the sentence was too lenient. Current law in Minnesota is that, in order to be tried as an adult, the juvenile must be at least 14 years of age. One aspect of the bill would allow children as young as 10 to be tried as an adult for a “violent juvenile offense.”

There has been a debate going on in this country for the last decade about whether or not juveniles should be tried as adults. It is important to look at the research developing around this issue to determine whether or not it is an effective policy. But the real dilemma seems to be – not what can we do after a horrific crime like this has been committed – but what can we do to prevent it from happening in the first place. We need to ask ourselves why a 13 year-old would sexually assault and then kill a 2 year-old. Were there no warning signs that this young man was in trouble? And if so, could something have been done to intervene with him prior to this horrific act?

In 2003, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) took up these issues in a series that looked at the prevalence and risk factors associated with what they called “child delinquency.” One report titled Prevalence and Development of Child Delinquency found that child delinquents between the ages of 7 and 12 have a two- to threefold greater risk of becoming serious, violent, and chronic offenders. Another study titled Risk and Protective Factors of Child Delinquency provides information that helps us identify and develop effective intervention strategies.

A few years ago, Ramsey County – in partnership with St. Paul Youth Services – created the All Children Excel (ACE) Program based on this information from OJJDP. The County identifies “child delinquents” who are under the age of 10. St. Paul Youth Services provides these youth and their families with long-term intervention, case management and mentoring. Based on outside research of the program, 70% of the children involved did not have a subsequent arrest prior to age 14, compared to 17% for a control group with equal risks that did not receive these intensive services.

In the case of Emily’s Law, the House public safety committee decided to not act on the bill, but members indicated a desire to do further study of the juvenile justice system for possible changes. I hope they review the kind of information on this provided by OJJDP and focus their efforts on preventing the unimaginable from ever happening to another Emily.

Dreams Deferred

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore -
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over -
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

– Langston Hughes

Much has changed since Langston Hughes wrote that poem back in 1951. But I’m not sure that we’ve addressed the deferred dreams that he talked about for many young people.

Alex Kotlowitz uses this poem as the introduction to his book There Are No Children Here. Its the story he wrote after following the lives of Lafeyette and Pharoah Rivers, two young boys living in Henry Horner Homes, a public housing complex in Chicago.

In the preface, Kotlowitz tells the story of one of his first conversations with Lafeyette.

And then I asked Lafeyette what he wanted to be. “If I grow up, I’d like to be a bus driver,” he told me. If, not when. At the age of ten, Lafeyette wasn’t sure he’d make it to adulthood.

At such a young age, Lafeyette had been surrounded by so much violence that his dreams were not only deferred, they were close to not existing at all.

This is what Dave Wilmes, Program Director for St. Paul Youth Services, calls “survival based” thinking. It is a way of seeing the world that has come to define the experience of many children growing up in our urban communities. If we don’t understand the dynamics involved, we often hurt these children more than we help them.

As we explore what leads to survival based thinking, we can begin to understand how it develops. Here is what we have identified as the precursors:

Unreliable or absent parent/care-providers
Unresolved trauma (significant loss, victim of violence, witnessing violence)
Unmet basic needs (food, shelter, clothing, etc.)
Future is uncertain…immediacy is the only time-frame considered
Environment is dangerous…physically threatening

When children experience these kinds of things in an ongoing and unrelenting pattern, they begin to develop a survival-based mode of operating in the world. This affects how they interact with others in places like schools and community locations. Those of us who haven’t lived this experience often misunderstand that behavior.

We’ve identified several characteristics/beliefs that tend to result from survival based thinking.

Individual needs trump group priorities. (Take what you can now, there is never enough to go around)
The system is corrupt, racist, and is not a source of help. (If you don’t help yourself, no one will)
Loyalty is extreme..but afforded to a very close group of friends. (Trust is not generalized or assumed)
Choices are based on immediacy. (The future is a luxury)
Organization skills (time, things and processes) are not assumed.
Respect from others is primal. (Identity is defended and proven…never assumed)
Posturing is constant. (You can be no greater than how you allow others to treat you)

Many of us who experience the behavior of children that have learned to view the world in this way find it threatening and/or problematic. As a consequence, our reactions can heighten their survival-based responses and lead to an escalation of interactions. When this behavior is criminalized, it becomes one of the factors that feeds the Cradle to Prison Pipeline for children who live at the intersection of race and poverty.

In September, Dave Wilmes and St. Paul Youth Services’ staff will provide a training on understanding and working with youth who have adopted a survival based view of the world. If you’d like to be on our mailing list to hear more about that training, please email Leila Paye at lpaye@spys.org or call her at (651)771-1301.