24. July 2009 by Rev Young.

Holding Children To The Same Standard As An Adult 

How America Has Turned Its Back On Its Minority Children 

By: Mario Fernando Bueno

If you are a minority child in Michigan, you are eleven times more likely to be tried, convicted, and sentenced as an adult, as apposed to a white youth of the same age and for the same crime. Throughout the nation this statistic is prevalent in most states that sentence children to life. The significance of this statistic should not be overlooked or taken lightly. We live in an America that is lead by “change”, yet in an America that is –to some degree- still rooted in institutional racism. The laws enabling children to be sentenced to life imprisonment are, in and of themselves, not racist; it’s the manner that they are being applied that results in the racial disparity. If for no other reason, the racial disparity in sentencing minority children to life should be cause for concern in our legislative halls.

As I sit at the epicenter of the debate as to whether children should be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole (my mother is the founder and current President of Second Chance For Youth, a non-profit organization aimed at ending the laws that allow children to be sentenced to life), I am saddened at the realization that America has turned its back on its children. The fact that there exists such a debate… such a heated controversy… as to whether CHILDREN – say it again… CHILDREN- should be allowed to be sentenced to LIFE IN PRISON bewilders me.

In Michigan, District Attorneys Kim Worthy (Wayne County) and Jessica Cooper (Oakland County) vehemently oppose ending the law that allows children to be sentenced to life. In addition, Michigan Republicans lead by Senators Alan Cropsey and Michael Bishop are opposed to ending this barbaric law; and, together they have been successful. Senator Cropsey has recently stated in an interview that he is looking for any reason to support the juvenile reform bills introduced by the Democrats, but that has not found any. Here are three reasons: (1) logic,  (2) common sense,  (3) a sense of humanity.

The Republicans, District Attorneys, and Victim’s Organizations who support the laws that allow children to be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole argue that children thirteen to seventeen “knew right from wrong”. While this premise ignores the marked difference between the analytical abilities, impulsiveness, life experience, and rational thinking tools between adults and children, for arguments sake, lets accept the rationale that children should be held to the same standard as an adult… because “they knew right from wrong”. Then, it is only logical that the “playing field” should be leveled; that children should then be held to the same standard in all facets of our society and not simply when it comes to crime and punishment. Immediately, legislation should be introduces- by the supporters of sentencing children to life in prison- that would allow children thirteen to seventeen the power to sign a contract, purchase cigarettes, vote, enroll in the armed services, purchase firearms, obtain a driver’s license, purchase adult films, work forty plus hours per week, have consensual sex, marry, and the list can go on and on.

Is this proposition illogical? Of course, because children are fundamentally and markedly different than adults. To hold a child to the same standard as that of an adult only in terms of crime and punishment is hypocritical, unconstitutional, and evil. The reality is children make mistakes… even tragic ones. Yes, children are salvageable. Children are more amenable to treatment and habilitation because of the plasticity of their brains and their lack of physiological and social maturation. It is this lack of maturity that prevents us from holding children to the same standard as an adult… It is this lack of maturity that should compel America to never turn its back on its children.

To read another story by Mario please go to http://s246427087.onlinehome.us/freejonny/a-story-of-mario/

Posted in Juvenile Offenders, From Families of Juvenile Offenders | Print | 2 Comments »

24. July 2009 by Rev Young.

I recently attended a conference for those who advocate on behalf of juvenile justice reform.  The part that impacted me, of the conference,  was the opportunity to meet and come to know three very wonderful people.  All three of these people had been through the system.  Two of them had been in and out of juvenile detention and juvenile prison, foster homes, group homes and finally found their way out.  Both of them have gone on to advocate for juvenile reform.  One is graduating from law school the other finished school and now heads a very strong group of young people fighting for the toughest neighborhood in America.  The third was on the right path, did very well in school and seemed to be heading for success, except that he got pulled in the wrong direction.  Parents, there is a time in every teenagers life when they are walking the line between success and failure.  When they are walking the line of success and trouble.  It is up to us, as adults, to see the signs and intervene.  That cannot always happen as parents.  Teenagers have limited freedoms that take them out of our vision, oversight and council.  We have to depend on the encouragement and watchful eye of other adults.  This young man went the wrong direction, spent eight years in prison and then went on to work on a masters and doctorate and write a book.  These are examples of what can happen. 

Now for reality.  In almost every state the juvenile intervention, reform and detention programs have taken drastic cuts.  This seems insane to me.  Why would we prevent prevention and intervention programs?  If we don’t take the opportunity to assist these young people now, we will have a bigger problem later.  We need to put our money where our heart is.  Read On……..

Budget Cuts Eroding Progress in Juvenile Justice

By PETER S. GOODMAN

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Her first night inside the razor wire at the state juvenile prison came as a 14-year-old in the mid-1970s, when she was locked up for running away from home. Her next experience came the following decade, when she began work as a correctional officer.

As Velvet McGowan tells it, care was a word not then in the lexicon of the South Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice. Teenagers were warehoused like problematic inventory, with as many as 80 crammed into spaces built for 40. Social services were meager. Violent outbreaks occurred daily.

Two decades later, Ms. McGowan oversees the girls’ prison, where she focuses on turning around troubled lives. New programs have expanded counseling and education, cutting the repeat offender rate. New facilities have extricated the state from a federal lawsuit brought in response to once appalling conditions.

But what South Carolina built over many years in eradicating its shameful past is being undermined by the deep economic recession. In the last year, the state has cut the financing for its juvenile justice system by one-fifth, forcing 285 layoffs and the closure of several facilities, including five group homes that focused on counseling.

The department has scrapped a program that helped paroled youngsters find jobs, unleashing them into a state with 11.6 percent unemployment. It has canceled state financing for 40 after-school centers for teenagers, where they get help with their homework, receive mentoring and take part in activities during hours when children are most likely to stray into trouble. It has trimmed the ranks of social workers to 20, from 36.

“I’m scared,” said Ms. McGowan, dabbing tears with a tissue. “I don’t want to relive the ’80s through a budget cut.”

Across the country, depleted coffers have prompted state and local officials to pare programs intended as alternatives to the mere incarceration of juvenile lawbreakers.

In Tennessee, state legislators voted last month to close a wilderness activity camp. In Louisiana, a boot camp aimed at deterring young people from crime has been shut down. In California, alternative facilities focused on counseling are threatened from San Jose to Sacramento.

For South Carolina, cuts are particularly unsettling given its history. For a dozen years ending in 2003, a federal judge supervised the department under the settlement of a class-action lawsuit arising from overcrowded prison conditions.

Since then, the system has stopped treating youthful offenders as hardened convicts, instead confronting them as social problems through new programs that attack the underlying causes of juvenile crime — like dysfunctional homes, drug abuse and difficulties in school.

The department’s director, William R. Byars Jr., a former family court justice, has overseen many of the changes. In his days on the bench, he fretted over the condition of the juvenile justice system, regretfully sending children to the prison then known as “Little Vietnam.”

“It was a dangerous place,” Judge Byars said. “Kids were in here with mental deficiencies. You had kids in here for status offenses, for cutting school or running away. They were all mixed together, because our system was not designed to ask, ‘What is the best situation for this child?’ ”

Under Judge Byars’s direction, the department has focused on drastically decreasing the numbers of young people held inside the razor wire at the prison, shipping hundreds out to wilderness camps and group homes. The number held at the prison has dropped to fewer than 400, from more than 1,000 in the mid-1990s, while the number held in alternative settings has increased by a similar magnitude.

The department has set up a network of so-called intensive supervision officers who get to know the youngsters and their families before they are released, and then visit frequently to stay on top of problems.

A recent department review found that only 12 percent of youths monitored by these officers wound up back in the system a year after their release, compared with 21 percent among those lacking intensive guidance.

The success of the reforms has been “truly remarkable,” wrote Karen L. Chinn, a consultant selected by the court to monitor conditions.

But the cuts of the last year “have already begun to unravel the progress,” Ms. Chinn said.

Judge Byars insists his department will not return to warehousing juveniles. If more cuts threaten to return the prison to overcrowded levels, he will release those on misdemeanor offenses to keep numbers down, he said.

For Ms. McGowan, talk of sliding backward is deeply personal. Like many of the 27 girls that fill the prison she now oversees, she slipped into trouble after a family crisis.

She was 14, and her mother had just died — or so she thought. In truth, the dead woman had been her grandmother, her family told her. Her real mother was someone she knew as her sister, a taciturn woman she did not much like.

“The most precious person of my life has been taken away from me,” Ms. McGowan said. “Nobody sat me down and talked to me about that. Nobody thought to ask me what was going on in my heart.”

She repeatedly ran away from home, was caught and sentenced to weekends at the prison. She occupied a hard mattress inside a low, dimly lighted concrete block building. Most of the other girls were, like her, African-American and the product of some sort of unaddressed trauma.

When Ms. McGowan was 22 and working as a restaurant cashier, she heard the juvenile prison was hiring. The children overflowed the facilities, some sleeping on pairs of bunk beds stuffed into rooms no bigger than 8 feet by 12 feet and some on mattresses covering the floors.

At night, she was sometimes alone, hoping no fight would break out, often finding the inmates tattooing one another with smuggled paper clips or lighting cigarettes by pressing them into bare electrical wiring.

“It was horrible,” she said. “It was like just trying to survive. The only thing we were supposed to provide was security, custody and control. Sometimes we’d sneak a talk. You know, ‘How are you doing? What are you feeling?’ It made me angry, like we were all animals.”

Today, all of the officers on Ms. McGowan’s staff are trained in counseling. The girls gather every morning in small groups to discuss their worries or whatever might be on the mind of a teenager waking up in prison.

A special transitional house for girls nearing release is meant to model life outside. In place of the stall showers and toilets found in the dorms, the house has two private bathrooms complete with bathtubs, the tiles painted with colorful fish and butterflies. One girl does the cooking for the day using a menu the girls create together.

Each girl receives $2,000 in virtual money a month and must write checks simulating payments for rent, electricity and food. If she is late, she pays a fine. She can earn money by doing extra chores. If she runs out of money, she loses privileges, like time watching television.

Britney, an 18-year-old in the house, was paying an extra $500 a month to cover the costs of diapers and food for her 7-month-old daughter, who was delivered in prison. Her mother was looking after the baby until Britney’s release.

That moment was less than 24 hours away, and Britney was both exhilarated and apprehensive. In and out of the juvenile justice system since she was 12 — mostly for running away after battles with her mother — she was about to become responsible for her own child.

“I stayed up on my bed last night thinking you all made me feel like you all cared,” Britney told the group one morning.

An intensive supervision officer had already held counseling sessions between Britney and her mother using a videoconference system. She planned to monitor closely how they were getting along. The officer was to take Britney on a tour of community colleges (she had earned a G.E.D. inside the prison), where she hoped to begin a career as a nurse practitioner. Britney was to be enrolled in parenting classes.

“They got everything planned out,” Britney said.

Still, the adults were anxious, cognizant that the end of Britney’s prison life was the beginning of her next incarnation as another jobless teenage single mother.

“Are you nervous about going home?” Ms. McGowan asked her.

“Yeah,” Britney said. “I’m a little nervous about being free, because I’ve been here so long.”

The girls lined up to go to school, a complex of classrooms inside the wire, as a guard administered pat-downs. Ms. McGowan watched Britney submit for a final day.

“This is a child we’ve really got to check in with,” she said. “It’s really crucial that we stay connected.” Yet the finances needed to maintain that connection were slipping. Inside the prison, the attention given to each child was being diluted by staff cuts.

“We don’t want to go back to how it was,” Ms. McGowan said. “We were just so heartless.”

Posted in Prison Reform Advocates, Juvenile Reform Advocates, From Families of Juvenile Offenders | Print | No Comments »

24. July 2009 by Rev Young.

I thought today I would post an article from a very dear and wonderful woman who heads the local chapter of CURE.  She has taken on organizing the volunteer’s to bring celebrations into prison.  That’s right a celebration.  This is also thanks to Kevin Estep who is the warden at Cheyenne Mountain Re-Entry Center.  Warden Estep believes and knows from experience that there are more productive answers to warehousing inmates.  He looks for and encourages innovative ideas that will be the “carrot” in front of these offenders.  He shows them step by step and day by day that there are better ways of going through life than down the wrong road.  He shows them that it is possible to succeed.  Read On…….

An Ice Cream Social in Prison?

The Cheyenne Mountain Reentry Center in Colorado Springs, CO broke some records on Saturday, June 20th, when it brought men and their families together for a Father’s Day Ice Cream Social. Hosted by Southern ColoradoCURE, some forty-odd people, CMRC residents, parents, spouses, children, enjoyed homemade cake and store bought ice cream served up generously by Mary Logan, Brook Henderson, and Sharrie Williams.

Using the chow hall cleaned and prepared by them, residents who have demonstrated good behavior, progress in the reentry programs offered by CMRC, and trustworthiness were allowed to invite their loved ones to join them in a party to celebrate Father’s Day for themselves, their children and their own fathers. While regular visitation went on in the visitor’s room upstairs with lots of restrictions about where to sit, whether touching is allowed and how much noise can be made, downstairs the chow hall was filled with kids laughing, people smiling and talking, hugs and affection shown freely yet appropriately. Instead of correctional officers “guarding” everyone, a few counselors, case managers and the Director and Deputy Director of CMRC joined in the cake and ice cream with the residents. The CMRC staff involved were Deputy Director Emily Bond, Unit Manager King (who took a huge role in organizing the day’s event), Unit Manager Yeaton (wasn’t there on the day of the social but did a lot of leg work beforehand), Mr. LeQuiu, Mr. Giles, OC Mills, who coordinated the music, Mr. Sanders, Ms. Derosier, and the correctional officers and supervisors on duty that morning; they all pulled together to help make the day a success.　 Later, a resident band came in to play and entertain the group – a rare and wonderful sight in a medium-security prison.

Who came up with this brilliant idea to reward and encourage men who are doing well in the reentry program at the private facility?

Kevin Estep, Director of CMRC and former Texas prison warden, believes that fair treatment, respect and an occasional relaxation of rigid institutional rules will encourage men who are trying to reenter society after serving their prison sentences. “I’m proud to be able to bring some brightness and joy into the lives of these men who work so hard to earn back the trust of the community,” says Mr. Estep, a veteran of the therapeutic community school of thought about rehabilitation.

Southern  is a chapter of Colorado CURE, part of the international nonprofit Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of Errants. CURE advocates for those who are incarcerated and who were formerly incarcerated, their families and friends; it does not provide any services. The volunteers who served cake and ice cream did it on their own time, but wanted “the guys” to know that Southern ColoradoCURE is on their side. “We all know about you in here,” one resident said. “Everyone talks about the letters you write to help guys who are going before the Parole Board or trying to get into a [community] halfway house.”

This partnership between a private prison and a criminal justice reform advocacy organization may well be unprecedented in Colorado, and is perhaps rare throughout the country.　 It underscores the fact that at the center of the issue, both groups are essentially on the same side; desiring a safe and secure environment that is productive toward helping incarcerated citizens get the tools they need to be productive within society and to achieve and maintain their freedom at the earliest possible opportunity. 　This event also underscores that, working together cooperatively, we can ensure essential safety/security measures are met, help support families and residents and enjoy a spirit of fellowship at the same time. 　It is hoped that partnerships like this that help facilitate the goal of family reunification can be explored at other prisons, both State and private, since the family is a critical component in the recovery and re-entry process for incarcerated individuals.　 This event and others like it provide a way to build hope, strengthen ties to family and the community and allow prisoners to see that there is a society that will welcome them back once their debt is paid.

Posted in Prison Reform Advocates, Juvenile Reform Advocates, Juvenile Offenders, From Families of Juvenile Offenders | Print | No Comments »