At a  training of Massachusetts MBTA Training Academy recruits in July, a police officer said to the group, “What I am telling you today we did not get when we were in the academy. Now you’ve got a leg up in dealing with kids by knowing this stuff.” The officer had been trained in a train-the-trainer capacity building effort by Strategies for Youth. “Knowing this stuff about kids makes working with them easier and less stressful and believe me, they can be stressful,” he told the recruits.

The newly released findings of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) survey on juvenile justice and youth training needs suggest this officer is both right and unusual. Training in best practices for working with youth is helpful, but remains the exception to the rule across the country.

The IACP’s survey, the “2011 Juvenile Justice Training Needs Assessment,” found that police chiefs want training but lack funding and agency resources to provide it to their officers.  They wanted their officers to have the skills to work with the increasing and challenging demands posed by youth. The top 5 areas in which chiefs want their officers trained are:

1. substance abuse;
2. physical, sexual and/or emotional abuse;
3. dealing with chronic juvenile offenders;
4. bullying/cyber-bullying; and
5. gangs. Other topics included internet offending, runaways, and school safety. 

The survey is notable for the unusually large size of the sample: over 672 law enforcement officers in 404 law enforcement agencies in 49 states and the District of Columbia. The agencies represented the gamut of departments, from small and rural, to suburban, to large and urban; 77% were police departments.  

Demands on  Law Enforcement:

While officers have always dealt with children and youth, arguably today they are asked to deal with them more than ever. Cuts in youth serving programs, the increased placement of officers in schools, and the common reaction of calling the police for any youth-related issue, combine to make police the first responders to incidents involving youth. 

Over the last few decades, the victims' rights movement has been effective in highlighting the needs and concerns of victims of crime. This movement –- born out of the women’s right era of the early 1970s -– continues to pick up steam as states amend laws and policies to give victims more defined rights and services. However, as the victims' right movement has evolved, so must its recognition of and treatment of victims.

When you hear the word “victim,” seldom do you associate that with young African American men. Society, through sensationalist media reporting, scapegoating and rhetoric-laden politicking, has done a thorough job of painting what a “perpetrator” and a “victim” look like. One of those paintings uses more color than the other.

The irony of such mischaracterization is that young black males are victimized at a higher rate than any other demographic. According to the U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics Criminal Victimization in the United States, 2008, blacks are victimized at a personal crime rate of 26.6 percent in comparison to whites, who are victimized at a personal crime rate of 18.6 percent –- yet when victims are talked about, this population doesn’t enter the discussion.

Going into my senior year in high school, I worked an entire summer from sun-up to sundown to save enough money to help my mother buy me a car. When I finally got that car, it was broken into not long afterward. I felt angry, stranded, violated, sad and a whole host of other emotions, but for whatever reason, I never felt like a victim.

Why not? I had obviously just been victimized.

Two million juveniles are arrested each year, and the collateral consequences they could face begin at this first point of contact with the system, regardless of whether charges are subsequently applied and the individual is convicted. People involved in the justice system encounter substantial challenges in gaining employment, civic participation, finding housing, applying to college, and accessing medical and mental health care. Placement on public registries such as sex offender registries are an increasingly common policy tools,, despite lack of evidence of effectiveness and mounting evidence of harm.  

A popular area of focus among advocates, practitioners, law enforcement and right-minded policymakers over the past decade has been to strengthen reentry support so that the odds of recidivism and return to the system are minimized. Less attention has been paid to the consequences that accompany a juvenile conviction but young people as well as adults face system-imposed obstacles to success based on a delinquent or criminal record. 

The philosophical beginnings of the juvenile justice system rested on the notion that young people who became delinquent were amenable to reform and the system should respond by providing ample rehabilitation services. It was also emphasized that youth should be spared from the stigma of involvement with the adult criminal justice system and not be branded as “criminals.” Matters that were dealt with in the juvenile justice system were to be done so in an informal, non-adversarial, and highly confidential manner. 

I just watched the first episode of this season of A&E’s “Beyond Scared Straight.” This was my first exposure to the show. JJIE.org has covered the details of this program and experts have weighed in about it in this space, from knowledgeable, yet slightly removed positions. [Scroll down for related posts on the Reclaiming Futures blog. -- Ed.]

For me, however, it was a strange and personal experience. Watching the show I was flooded by memories of my own time in prison, both as a young man and as an older prisoner in contact with “at-risk youth.” I felt waves of emotion, mostly negative, as I watched fear and intimidation used, along with a smattering of humane connection, to bring about change in these young people.

When I first arrived at the youth prison in Alto (a notorious prison at the time in north Georgia) in 1985, I was placed in a dorm. The officer told us that if we were fighting and refused to stop when he called “break,” he would “bust our ‘tater” with his billy club.

This same officer, after catching me in an infraction, had me squat and walk around the dorm, quacking like a duck. I did this because I feared refusing and facing more severe punishment. This memory came back to me as I watched a similar scene on the show. The use of mindless exercise as punishment seemed similarly sadistic to me. I do not recall that this experience had any positive effect on me. Conversely, I instead became more skilled at not getting caught.