Reducing Disproportionate Minority Contact is the Work of Us All

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I was looking for a pithy way to start my column about disproportionate minority contact and detention in the juvenile justice system. The obviousness of how unbalanced this aspect of our society’s approach to justice is rises, in my mind at least, to ludicrous heights. I thought I’d start with the history of the phrase, “Driving While Black”, and use that as an example most people would understand. The origins were a little elusive. It appears to have come into existence in the 1990s, although the practice of racial discrimination by law enforcement is of course much older.

Progress in Georgia, and the People Agree

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A study released March 5 by the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Public Safety Performance Project focuses on the attitudes of Georgia voters about the juvenile justice system. In light of the projected passage of a major rewrite of the juvenilecode the report’s release is a timely confirmation that legislators are moving in a direction supported by most people of the state. “[V}oters want a juvenile justice system that keeps communities safe and holds youth offenders accountable while helping them become productive citizens,” the report said. “Georgians strongly support proposals to reduce the size and cost of the juvenile corrections system and to reinvest savings into effective alternatives to secure facilities.” These attitudes carried across party lines with small margins of difference. Statements such as, “Send fewer lower-risk juvenile offenders to a secure facility and use some of the savings to create a stronger probation system that holds juvenile offenders accountable for their crimes.” and “It does not matter whether a juvenile offender is in secure custody for 18 or 24 or 30 months.

Looking for Answers to Falling Juvenile Crime Rates

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What really works? This is a question that might be asked in a lot of settings, both personal and professional. In my own life, I wonder about things like how to get the ants out of my kitchen without too many toxic chemicals. In my professional life, I wonder about what kinds of interventions can keep kids out of the juvenile justice system. Sometimes the answers aren’t as obvious as might be hoped for.

Restorative Justice and the Quickening Pace of Change

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ATHENS, Ga. -- A lot of my work at Georgia Conflict Center has lately been focused on restorative practices. In courthouses, schools, and at our office I have attended meetings, been on conference calls, submitted funding requests, and explained to various stakeholders what we hope to accomplish. We have achieved a lot in the last year or so, including funding for some of our operations and support from the court, schools and state juvenile officials. Everywhere we go there are principals, teachers, judges, probation officers, attorneys and private citizens who say our work is important and needs to be done.

A Smart Kid Derailed by the System

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The first job I landed after my release from prison was for a company that specialized in solar panels and high-efficiency heating and air equipment. It was a relatively small start up, lead by a husband and wife team who were interested not only in entrepreneurship but also in providing work to people who needed a little help. Several of us had criminal records. Some of the guys didn’t have stable housing or transportation. All of us were in one way or another outside of the mainstream of job applicants, and this in a time when the economy was headed downward.

Searching in Darkness for Answers to Juvenile Detention

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I was at the diversion center in Athens a few weeks ago talking with some of the residents about communication skills. We usually start with a general discussion, talking about our lives and struggles since the last time we met. In many ways their experience is similar to being in prison, and about half of them have been imprisoned sometime during their lives. One of the guys asked me what I thought needed to happen in prisons. This is a subject close to my heart, and I talked about it for a bit, but then I stopped and said to them, “You can’t fix prisons.”

I have been thinking about my statement since then, and about how it applies to larger systems. There are, in fact, a lot of things that can’t be fixed, not because efforts at reform are ineffective, but because the basic concept is flawed.

Let’s Use a Little Logic

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There are three ways people respond to challenges in life. Okay, I realize I am making a big generalization, but this has been my observation of three broad categories we all seem to fall into when things get tough. This way of looking at people grew out of my time in prison, which is hugely stressful, making it a good laboratory for studying people. The first group will respond positively to challenge. They will assess the situation, see what changes they need to make, or what strategies they should adopt, and start working.

Putting a Face on Reform

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In his 1961 farewell address President Dwight Eisenhower warned the American people of the dangers inherent in an alliance of the military, arms makers and politicians. “We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex” The term has since become common parlance, and his warning, while not unheeded, has done little to stop the continuing accumulation of power into a few hands. It’s such an effective description that it has been adopted by people interested in a range of issues. We can see medical, nonprofit, educational and even wedding industrial complexes referred by those opposed to the way things are done in the respective sectors. The comparison I am most familiar with is the prison industrial complex.

Living the Dream

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I was sitting at a table with a fellow prisoner more than 20 years ago. We were taking a break from our work in the staff kitchen, smoking cigarettes and talking about some forgotten subject. The room we were in was one of the few places where I could relax, since it was a restricted area and usually quiet. One of his friends walked into the room, paused, and stared at us for a few seconds. He made a comment about talking to a white guy, a “cracker.” My coworker, who was black, just laughed and said, “We’re living the dream of Dr. King.”

I had of course heard of Dr. King, but in that world his influence and ideas seemed pretty far away most of the time.

Georgia’s First After School and Youth Development Conference

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The first Georgia After School and Youth Development Conference is taking place in Athens, Ga. January 9 – 11. The event was organized by GUIDE, Gwinnet United in Drug Education, Inc., and supported by the state’s Department of Human Services, the Governor’s Office for Children and Families, and the Department of Education. I was fortunate to be able to attend part of the conference on Thursday, and to sit down with a few of the presenters. The focus of the conference, embodied in the theme “Together towards Tomorrow,” is a set of unified standards for after school and summer programs that will enable the government, providers, and grant makers to make decisions based on the latest evidence about what really works.