THE MISSION of the state's Youth Services division is to house and reform Arkansas' delinquent kids. And it's not doing a good job.
Why not? Maybe because Youth Services' various programs were never really set up to succeed--which means the kids who go through them won't, either. With another 800 kids thrown into the mix every year, there's just not enough money, staff, and all the special programs needed to deal with the problems these kids present. So instead of being helped, the kids are set up to fail. So are the rest of us, who will have to live with the dangerous results.
There's a better way. It's been proposed by Russell Rigsby, director of Youth Services. He has a six-point plan. And it's impressive. So is its price: almost $10 million per year, though that figure is negotiable. We'll see how a legislative committee does next week at whittling it down without watering it down.
Here's Mr. Rigsby's proposal, which would be carried out over five years: (1) Turn the five regional youth camps into treatment centers. (2) Improve their living quarters. (3) Pay staff members more, and train them better. (4) Add a complex at Dermott in order to separate the older and more violent kids from all others. (5) Hire 14 monitors who would conduct evaluations of the kids at every center every month. And (6) put hundreds more children into treatment. Here are a couple more suggestions from a rank amateur but a concerned citizen, namely us:
Track the progress of the kids who get mental health treatment and detail that progress in monthly reports to a legislative committee. Then follow up on each kid/patient/inmate year after year. Don't let anybody slip through those mammoth cracks in the system.
Also, keep working within those five regions of the state that Youth Services has set up to reinforce ties between kids and their families. Those families should expect drop-in visits from monitors as well, so all can work together. Each of those kids needs to be watched. Each needs to be encouraged and treated and educated and disciplined, but mainly paid attention to.
Kids who don't get rehabilitated just come back more troubled and more violent. Till someday we meet them as adults--in the criminal justice system or in a dark alley. We can pay to help them now, or we can pay to imprison many of them later. And money may be the least of the price. Is there really a choice?