The Patterson IrriTator

So in light of the recent remarks from our beloved, newly reelected, Councilman Farinha, i want to give some examples of what happens when we resort to blaming only youth for what ills the community may have, and forget to acknowledge our roles as community members and elected officials in these factors.  Sure we all know that young people in this community love to hang out, or “loiter” as business owners, elected officials, and law enforcement refer to it as, in big open spaces, like the Savemart Parking lot. But we cannot continue to criminalize all youth for the actions of some, especially when as a community we have not provided enough for these young people to do with their time.  The Teen Center does a great job, but they can only do so much with a small space, and little funding to try and serve all or a significant number of the transitional aged youth in this community (transitional age youth are 13-21 year olds)

As i mentioned in a previous comment, there are efforts currently taking place in Patterson to make more programing available to these youth, but as council members, they need to look at the planning end and also understand what happens when youth are dealt with only by policing, as Mr. Farinha is pointing to.  Not to knock on law enforcement, but what i have seen in this and other communities is that more law enforcement only makes the problem worse.

You see with all the going on with gang activity in California and the nation, law enforcement has turned from intervention, and prevention methods to Suppression and Tracking.  Now-a-days, young people can be hanging out with the wrong person, wear the wrong color, or have tattoos and piercings, to be tabled a gang member, even if they have no affiliation.  This is very scary to think that i could have been labeled a gang member because i was hanging out with my neighbors, who were affiliated with gang activity, but it’s true.  I have witnessed law enforcement use every tactic, including intimidation to get information from young people that will be used to determine if they are affiliated or not..and once law enforcement has made that decision, you are in the system for life.

I am not saying get rid of all law enforcement, because there are people that do wrong and need to be dealt with, but we cannot approach youth as criminals first, or find ways to criminalize them.  We need programing that will foster community engagement, we need alternatives to incarcerating our youth, we need to build schools that do not look like prisons (see the Fence that surrounds all schools, where 10 years ago they were open), we need to find alternative schools to meet the learning needs of our young people.  And most of all we need to listen to what our youth are needing to succeed.  Here is a video of pics that show how youth are being criminalized and treated in these so-called institutions that are to rehabilitate our young people!

If we don’t create community wide programs to assist schools, we are only perpetuating the Schools to Jail Pipeline!!!

Here is some information on the schools to jail pipeline and what we as community can do to assure that this community does not follow suit.

The Children’s Defense Fund recently launched the Cradle to Prison Pipeline®Campaign, a national call to action to stop the funneling of tens of thousands of youth, predominantly minorities, down life paths that often lead to arrest, conviction, incarceration and, in some cases, death. Race and poverty are the major factors underpinning the Pipeline. We created the Pipeline and we have the power, knowledge and will to dismantle it. The need is urgent.

KEY FACTS
A Black boy born in 2001 has a 1 in 3 chance of going to prison in his lifetime; a Latino boy a 1 in 6 chance; and a White boy a 1 in 17 chance. A Black girl born in 2001 has a 1 in 17 chance of going to prison in her lifetime; a Latino girl a 1 in 45 chance; and a White girl a 1 in 111 chance.

Pervasive Poverty – Poverty is the largest driving force behind the Pipeline crisis, exacerbated by race. Black children are more than three times as likely as White children to be born into poverty and to be poor, and are four times as likely to live in extreme poverty. One in 3 Latino babies and 3 in 7 Black babies are born into poverty.  More than 1 in 4 Latino children and 1 in 3 Black children are poor. Between 2000 and 2007, the number of poor Latino children increased by 960,000 (to 4.5 million) and the number of poor Black children increased by 323,000 (to 3.9 million).

Inadequate Access to Health Coverage – Latino children are three times as likely and Black children are almost twice as likely to be uninsured as White children. The number of uninsured children from birth through age 18 rose from 8.7 million in 2005 to 8.9 million in 2007. This was the second year in a row that the number of uninsured children increased. The majority of these uninsured children have a parent who works full-time. Gaps in Early Childhood Development – Studies have shown that children who do not get the early intervention, permanence and stability they need are more likely to act out and fail in school because they lack the skills necessary to succeed. Researchers emphasize the importance of early childhood nurturing and stimulation to help the brain grow, especially between birth and age seven, and even beyond, and thus help children thrive and follow a path toward successful adulthood. The importance of stimulation in the first years of life is dramatically underlined in the U.S. Department of Education’s study of 22,000 kindergartners in the kindergarten class of 1998-99, which found that Black and Hispanic children were substantially behind when they entered kindergarten.

Disparate Educational Opportunities – Eighty-six percent of Black, 83 percent of Latino and 58 percent of White fourth graders cannot read at grade level; and 89 percent of Black, 85 percent of Latino and 59 percent of White 8th graders cannot do math at grade level. Black students are more likely than any other students to be in special education programs for children with mental retardation or emotional disturbance. Black and American Indian children are almost twice as likely as White children to be retained in a grade. The public school suspension rate among Black and American Indian students is almost three times that of Whites.  Black, Latino and American Indian children are more than twice as likely as White children to drop out of school. According to the U.S. Department of Education, only 59 percent of Black, 61 percent of Latino and 62 percent of American Indian students graduated from high school on time with a regular diploma in 2006. When Black children do graduate from high school, they have a greater chance of being unemployed and a lower chance of going to college full-time than White high school graduates. Only 48,000 Black males earn a bachelor’s degree each year, but an estimated 1 in 3 Black men ages 20-29 is under correctional supervision or control. Approximately 579,000 Black males were serving sentences in state or federal prison at mid-year 2006.

Intolerable Abuse and Neglect – A child is abused or neglected every 36 seconds. Four in ten of the children who are abused or neglected get no help at all. There are also twice as many Black children in foster care as we would expect. Although they comprise only 16 percent of all children, Black children represent 32 percent of the foster care population. Unmet Mental and Emotional Problems – A Congressional study found 15,000 children in juvenile detention facilities, some as young as 7 years old, solely because community mental health services were unavailable. Studies have reported that as many as three-fourths of incarcerated youth have mental health disorders and about 1 in 5 has a severe disorder. Children who age out of foster care are less likely to graduate from high school or college and experience more serious
mental health problems, including post-traumatic stress disorder, than children generally. They are less likely to receive adequate health and mental health care, and are more likely to experience homelessness, and to be involved in the criminal justice system.

Rampant Substance Abuse – Drugs, tobacco and alcohol lead our children down the wrong path. Disconnected youth, lacking a decent education or high school degree, job training skills, and social support systems or mentors, often resort to self-destructive acts. Unfortunately, alcohol and other substance abuse treatment for youth and for parents and adults is in too short supply.

Overburdened, Ineffective Juvenile Justice System – One-size-fits-all zero tolerance school discipline policies are transforming schools into a major point of entry into the juvenile justice system as children are increasingly arrested on school grounds for subjectively and loosely defined behaviors. Black youth are about four times as likely as their White peers to be incarcerated. Black youth are almost five times as likely to be incarcerated as White youth for drug offenses. Of the 1.5 million children with an incarcerated parent in 1999, Black children were nearly nine times as likely and Latino children were three times as likely to have an incarcerated parent as White children. Most juvenile correctional facility programs focus on punishment rather than treatment and rehabilitation, often creating environments that further harden
youth. This makes it more difficult for them to productively reintegrate into their families and communities.

We must speak out against policies that contribute to criminalizing children at younger and younger ages, and fight for policies that help children thrive and put them on track to a productive adulthood.

Individuals

• Mentor a child.
• Volunteer at an after-school program for youth.
• Vote in every election and advocate for children.
• Educate elected officials about the Pipeline.
• Host a house party to educate others about the Pipeline and what they can do to dismantle it.
• Volunteer with children who are homeless or in foster care.
• Organize a forum on incarcerated youth and the funding disparities between prisons and education in our nation.
• Volunteer your talents or professional services to help a single-parent, kinship care or foster care family by babysitting, inviting them to events with their children, or providing transportation.
• Invite youth to events at the next educational level (i.e., taking a high school student to a college basketball game).

Families

• Spend quality time with your family (i.e., family game night, eating meals together).
• Join the PTA, a parent support group, or other school group.
• Attend school activities and/or volunteer in the  classroom.
• Consistently praise your child’s achievements in school and extracurricular activities.
• Establish and maintain a supportive home learning environment.
• Create daily homework routines and limit television viewing.
• Offer tutoring and homework help to your children or younger siblings.
• Offer to run errands or help around the house.
• Communicate with and listen to your child.
• Talk and actively listen to children within your extended family.
• Show affection, love and respect to your child every day.
• Do something fun with your child or sibling.
• Adopt a foster child or become a foster parent.

Communities

• Institute a “Cradle Roll” within your faithbased institution or community, linking every child to a permanent, caring family member or adult mentor who can keep them on track and get them back on track if and when they stray.
• Promote learning by starting an after-school program for children.
• Ensure that at least one caring community member attends every public school student suspension meeting or court hearing.
• Encourage families to spend quality time together by hosting a movie or game night at your church.
• Start a support group for single-parent or kinship care families.
• Provide job opportunities and guidance for families and youth in need.
• Create college scholarships for children from disadvantaged, foster care and kinship care families.
• Work with school officials to develop and adopt more child-appropriate discipline policies and procedures.
• Reach out to youth who are homeless or in foster care.
• Prepare care packages of new clothes, personal toiletries and/or a welcome gift for children placed
  into foster care homes.
• Hold events to celebrate the strengths of our children and provide college scholarships and
  leadership opportunities to youth.
• Start a halfway house and counseling program for youth who have run away.
• Create a summer job opportunity for a youth.
• Create and distribute a community resource manual so that parents know where to turn for help for their families.

Organizations

• Invest in prevention and early intervention.
• Host a health fair to ensure all children who are eligible for Medicaid or your State Children’s Health Insurance Program are enrolled.
• Provide free tax filing assistance to low-income working families.
• Educate families about how they can apply for Food Stamps, Head Start, federal nutrition programs and other similar benefits.
• Create and distribute a calendar of free family-friendly community events.
• Start a parent education program to familiarize parents about conflict resolution in the home and how to advocate for their children.
• Encourage alternatives to incarceration such as restitution, community service, electronic monitoring, drug rehabilitation treatment or placement in a “staff secure” (but not locked) community corrections facility.
• Work to ensure that counseling, social services, education, and health and mental health services are provided to at-risk youth.
• Fund reinvestment in urban communities, such as parks, schools and roads.
• Write annual child and gun violence reports to track the killing of children and call for effective gun control measures and nonviolent conflict resolution training.
• Host a Cradle to Prison PipelineSummit to connect and educate others about the Pipeline and ways to dismantle it.

Government Agencies

• Bring other elected officials and leaders together to gain first-hand awareness of the status of your local children; demonstrate what is working and what is not.
• Ensure children in foster care and detention receive quality treatment to address their mental, behavioral and emotional needs.
• Promote high quality children’s television programming and access to other quality electronic media.
• Provide high quality early childhood development programs for all.
• Ensure all children and pregnant women access to affordable, seamless, comprehensive health coverage and services.
• Establish policies that emphasize prevention and rehabilitation to keep children out of or rescue them from the Pipeline.
• Expand “second chance” programs for high school dropouts, ex-offenders and at-risk youth to secure GEDs, job training and employment.
• Reduce repeat offender rates by focusing on treatment- and family-oriented approaches.
• Make sure every child can read at grade level by 4th grade and graduate from high school able to succeed in post-secondary education and/or work.
• Organize state and local leadership councils or committees to create strategic plans to address the learning and developmental needs of children.
• Invest money in community-based rehabilitation centers and treatment programs to serve as an alternative to juvenile detention and prison.
• Stop the criminalization of children at increasingly younger ages.
• Create partnerships with local businesses, schools and/or churches to create quality exit programs for those leaving the juvenile justice system as a way to start them on the “Pipeline to Success.”