Crackdown on Kids
(Page 2 of 2)
September/October 1998
by Leoro Broydo
And you can argue that it's the problems of children that most clearly lead to youth violence. Fuentes cites a Justice Department report that spells it out clearly: Between 1986 and 1993 the number of abused and neglected children doubled to 2.8 million. Just three years later, the total of all juvenile arrests was—you guessed it—2.8 million.
RELATED CONTENT
Guess who suffers when welfare reform merges with the Bush economy...
The Millennium Project's web site claims worldwide support, but American opinion is conspicuously a...
One of the first activists to insert race and class into the environmental debate, this too-often u...
Kim Bobo Executive Director, Interfaith Worker JusticeUtne Reader visionaryNovember December 2009by...
Spies might miss the Cold War, but they’re getting plenty of work tracking activists...
The crackdown on kids might be justified if it straightened them out, but study after study shows that the juvenile justice system fails to rehabilitate. In some of the larger youth prisons, the recidivism rate reaches 80 percent. Recidivism is also the likely result when the young are sent to adult courts. "Sending youthful offenders to jail will take them out of circulation for a while and give people the momentarily gratifying feeling of having taken a stand, but it doesn't seem to be much of a solution in the long run," writes Mary Sykes Wylie in Family Therapy Networker (May/June 1998).
What to do with the bad seeds, then? Send them to bed without milk and cookies? There's no magic bullet, but success, says Wylie, has been found in programs that "reject the widespread pessimism that writes off violent delinquents as sick, disturbed, hopelessly deviant and deficient little psychopaths." These programs, both residential and home-based, use such methods as "positive peer culture" (if peers can be a corruptive force, they also can be a positive influence) and "pragmatic family therapy" (changing behavior by rebuilding the family). The best of these approaches have been shown to reduce recidivism by about 30 percent.
This may not be a stunning victory, but it's miraculous given a society that seems unable to nurture its children. Then again, it depends on how you look at things. "If the goal of the crackdown on youth," writes Fuentes, "is to divert attention from the real crimes plaguing the nation—child poverty, failing educational systems, 15 million kids without health insurance—then it's a success."
Page:
<< Previous 1 | 2 |