ByClaire Savage, Associated Press/Report for America |
CHICAGO (AP) — Children as young as 11 are confined alone to cells the size of parking spaces up to 23 hours a day at a juvenile detention center in Southern Illinois, according to a lawsuit filed by ACLU of Illinois. Young people at the Franklin County Juvenile Detention Center in Benton must ask staff permission to flush the toilet, and they can go days or weeks without access to schoolwork. Black mold grows on the walls, according to the lawsuit filed Friday, and there are no mental health professionals employed at the facility.
Bullied at his Philadelphia high school, Earl Morris’ son started defying his teachers and his father and allegedly stole from a convenience store. Those charges against the then 15-year-old, who’d been diagnosed with disabilities including anxiety and depression, were dismissed when a witness failed to appear in court, his father said, recalling what happened five years ago.
Connecticut has turned its troubled juvenile facilities into what federal officials have cited as exemplary national models. Staffing is up dramatically, in part because directors talked to employees about their worries and took steps to solve them. The strategy helped reduce confrontations and brought the Hartford center national recognition this year from Performance-based Standards, which works to improve juvenile justice outcomes and equity.
Traumatic brain injury among juvenile offenders will be assessed as part of a three-year research project that’s slated to enroll the first of roughly 110 youth and young adult study participants in Florida as early as late January. Ultimately, the study aims to determine which TBI treatments might help keep those youth from cycling in and out of detention, complete their education and succeed at work.
It’s not uncommon for those traumatized by gun violence to project what outsiders might view as a kind of superwoman or superman persona — one that can melt away at any given moment — whose complexities may not be fully understood. Those who fund scientific research largely have not seen fit to examine the toll on families devastated by gun-violence deaths.
It had been scarcely a year since his son was discharged from the Navy following a suicide attempt, Ramon Day said, and only a few months since he’d voluntarily undergone in-patient care at Mental Health Resource Center in Jacksonville, Fla. So, when then 25-year-old Tyler Day returned from a Department of Veterans Affairs counseling appointment and offhandedly mentioned that he’d bought a gun, his father was stunned.
“You having a gun upsets me a great deal,” Ramon Day said, recalling his fright over his son’s revelation back in the summer of 2011. “If you would do me a personal favor, return the gun.”
A project aiming to grant more Black and brown youth entry to community-based programs that are an alternative to juvenile incarceration will be implemented in five upstate New York counties, the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services has announced.
JACKSONVILLE, Florida — Rosie Brooks has experienced both of a mother’s worst nightmares involving gun violence. Her son spent a decade behind bars for an accidental shooting in which a young woman was killed. Then, instead of a joyous reunion when he was released from prison in January 2018, it was a day of mourning. He went from behind bars to standing at his mother’s side at his sister’s funeral. Brooks’ daughter Sahara Barkley had been shot on New Year’s Day at a gas station.
Firearm sales have increased exponentially during COVID-19. More guns in the home increase the risk of youth access to firearms. In Michigan alone, a suicide occurs every 13 hours, and access to firearms increases the likelihood of suicide completion by 85%. Unintentional shooting deaths by children increased by 30% nationally March through May of 2020 compared to the same time period averages for 2018 and 2019.
As a psychiatric nurse practitioner this raises grave concerns for mental health and the public health crisis of gun violence. Locally in Washtenaw County, Michigan, I am a survivor fellow with Everytown for Gun Safety working with the local chapter of Moms Demand Action to get out voter information about gun sense candidates who are willing to work toward common-sense gun laws such as red flag laws, which temporarily remove firearms from individuals in crisis, and background checks for all weapons.
After losing my son Jonah to firearm suicide in 2016, I speak with groups (temporarily online) about why safe storage bills, such as Ethan’s Law in Connecticut, are crucial in the fight against teen suicide. In a world where teens are more isolated and having to manage multiple stressors that are new to all of us, in homes that are increasingly saturated with guns, we have an escalation of the public health crisis of suicide as teenage suicides rise nationally.
For about three months, Karen Kelly would drive around Enumclaw, Wash., after midnight looking for her 13-year-old daughter, Hollie. She carried Hollie’s photo with her, pulling over to show it to everyone she saw. Sometimes she got lucky. She learned that Hollie had talked a hotel manager into giving her a free room, or that she was camping out near the P.O. boxes in a post office, or that she’d settled into a tent in the bushes behind an industrial park. Hollie remained in Enumclaw, a town of less than 12,000 40 miles southeast of Seattle.
