It turns out that most of the kids left to the tender mercies of this state's juvenile jails hadn't committed any violent offense nor were they likely to do so. Not at least until they learn new "skills" by being housed with more violent types. The paper said the other day that kids in juvee for truancy were "locked up alongside serious violent offenders." Kids are supposed to be getting an education in juvenile jail, but something tells us this isn't the kind of education We the People were thinking of.
It's also much more probable that the youngster came from the southeastern quadrant of the state, was a black male, and might have just got in trouble for having sassed a teacher. So his school passed on his case file to Arkansas' fouled-up juvenile justice system.
Just as a matter of cost accounting, it doesn't make much sense to throw these young miscreants in juvee. It costs the (sometimes) sovereign State of Arkansas--that's you and us, fellow citizens and taxpayers--up to $87,000 a year, or about $238 a day US, to incarcerate these little desperadoes. The streetwise comparative shoppers among us will surely note that it costs the Arkansas Department of Correction much less than that to find a bunk for an adult inmate.
Further disturbing details can be found in the report of the state's Youth Services Division for the past fiscal year, which now has been forwarded to the state's legislators. The report drew various reactions, notable among them anger and disgust at how this state treats its wayward youngsters. Most of those reactions sounded not just reasonable in light of these circumstances but overdue, considering how long this outrage has been going on from year after year. For investigations in the past had already revealed how long these highly suspect conditions had been tolerated if not encouraged.
"We've built a school-to-prison pipeline," complained Stephanie Flowers, the state senator from Pine Buff. "It's offensive to me," she declares, "and it ought to be offensive to all of us." Amen, selah and you-can-say-that-again-sister, but the odds are you just might. For there are few if any indications that these vile conditions will be corrected any time soon.
Let's just look at the shameful record that has come to light over the too many years: Truants have been jailed only because they might have run away from home. Thereupon they would be penned up with violent offenders who represented a danger to themselves or others. They would find themselves locked away in "treatment centers" that might reek of urine and worse, centers where the state's warders might use shackles, full-body restraints or pepper spray on them. While solitary confinement still continues.
NB: These young people are getting out one day. Juvee isn't permanent. Nobody is sent there for life. The worst of the worst of minors who commit crimes like murder can be sent to the big house for big crimes. Juvenile jail is supposed to be mostly education and rehabilitation. And putting kids on the right track for when they are ultimately shown the door. These kids--and please remember they're still only kids--could soon enough be your neighbors. Do you want them bent on revenge against a society that has so abused them?
Suggestions from concerned legislators are as plentiful as usual. Alan Clark, a state senator from Lonsdale, has noted that it might be a good idea to see how many of these troubled kids had a father at home or were active in a church-affiliated organization. "You put those two things together," he says, and "you'll find it will be close to none. Wouldn't it be good for the state to recommend those two things?"
Recommend a dad? How would that work? But for tracking those in single parent homes, that does sound like a good idea.
Proving that two wrong statements don't make a right one, Senator Flowers shrugs off the tracking idea. "It's [all] about poverty... . It's not because they don't have a dad." So much for the well-founded idea that an intact family makes a better department of health, education and welfare than any institution the state's all-knowing bureaucrats ever cobbled together.
There's a lot to learn from any report card such as this, so long as it doesn't gloss over the facts but instead delivers an unvarnished assessment of the student's progress or lack thereof. And this time not even the state has chosen to varnish over what's really going on with its lockups. At least it should get credit for candor. Now it's time--past time--not just to accept the facts of this whole embarrassing matter but start to make the next report card one that will show real, sustained improvement. What say you, Valued Reader?
Editorial on 09/18/2017