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What Is It We Don’t Understand about fostering conditions almost ensuring criminality

Published

on January 14, 2012

in Crime and Courts, education and Public Policy

. 2 Comments

- which guarantees a public outcry for more police & prisons, acting stupid when our streets turn dangerous, and so surprised when our schools fail because these children are now in their 4^th, 5^th, & 6^th generation of dysfunctional families with terrible behavior problems that make classroom performance almost impossible (think Prozac, Ritalin, Zoloft)?

Attorney, successful businessman, & ACLU president Vance Opperman gave a spirited and informative talk at the Stone Arch DFL meeting in Minneapolis this morning. He is a very smart and insightful fellow with a terrific grasp of so many critical issues, but not this one.

Unfortunately, like 99% of the nation, he has very little comprehension of why America has 25% of the world’s prison population, charges 25% of juvenile justice youth in adult criminal court, and is the world leader with five to ten times the murder and crime rates of any other *industrialized nation (for many years now).

On the plus side, Vance did speak to the African American Men’s Study & the importance of the institutionalized racist fact that 50% of Black Men are either in prison, on the way to prison, or on parole.

But when I asked him a question about how to solve the conundrum of preteen moms and adolescent felons, he said he was not very familiar with the issues.

I had hoped that Senator Amy Klobuchar would back me up. She was in the audience and had worked in juvenile court when I was a guardian ad-Litem and she saw what I saw when she was a public defense lawyer in the court system that is child protection in our community.

Senator Klobuchar was in the Juvenile Court system when MN Supreme Court Chief Justice stated that 90% of the youth in Juvenile justice had come through Child Protective Services & the same time Hennepin County arrested 44% of the adult Black Men (2001, with no duplicate arrests). Google “Rich Stanek Resigns” to find out more about how the appointed Police Commissioner made that happen.

Unfortunately, I did not get to ask the question about preteen mom’s (Industrialized World’s Leader) and STD’s (another World Leading category for America).

If communities were to foster conditions that lead to healthy children; our streets would be safer, more kids would graduate, we’d save money on police, prisons, and insurance. It would also make for a happier and more knowledgeable citizenry, save tax dollars, and it would be the right thing to do.

* there are 24 other industrialized nations with great wealth and advanced infrastructures that the U.S. has compared itself to for many years. Recently, due to America’s poor rankings, some journalists have begun comparing this nation to third world and emerging economies.

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30.2 % of America’s Youth Arrested Before Their 23rd Birthday

Published

Mike Tikkanen

on December 19, 2011

in Crime and Courts and Public Policy

. 0 Comments

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/19/us/nearly-a-third-of-americans-are-arrested-by-23-study-says.html?_r=1&hpw

Add this to the fact that American youth (as young as 11) are routinely charged as adults (25% nationally) and that cities around the nation arrest extremely high percentages of their minority populations (in 2001 Hennepin County – Minneapolis MN) arrested 44% of it’s adult Black Men – no duplicate arrests/58% of those men were rearrested for a second crime within two years making Minneapolis the Jail & Prison capital of the world.

Many states have funded their prison and jail systems at far greater rates of increase than their schools, daycare, or health systems, any of which could reduce the stresses driving the extreme growth in crime and courts.

A pathological lack of empathy is driving parts of our political body and ensures that generation after generation of dysfunctional families will continue to maintain the statistical truth that the U.S. has five percent of the world’s population and twenty five percent of the world’s prison population. This scorched earth capitalism is now converting jails, prisons, and juvenile detention centers to money making operations with the attendant problems of brutal and illegal conditions (that have sent some judges to prison).

Add that to the mental health issues addressed in the thirty years of study conducted by Dr. Bruce Perry & his conclusion that 25% of Americans will be special needs people by the end of this generation, & the Federal Reserve Boards study and argument for investing in children begins to look like a pretty good return on capital (not to mention it’s the right thing to do).

Not addressing these issues can only continue to make our streets dangerous, schools fail, and quality of life a shadow of what it has been.

Support day care, educators, social workers and early child initiatives. Make mental health programs a mainstay of the juvenile justice system. It is a proven improvement over the punishment model.

Please send me related stories.

Continue reading ’30.2 % of America’s Youth Arrested Before Their 23rd Birthday’

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Penn State, Child Abuse, You and Me.

Published

Mike Tikkanen

on November 13, 2011

in Crime and Courts, Health and Mental Health and Public Policy

. 2 Comments

In 2005, there were 897 cases of child sex abuse reported in the state of MN. I knew this because I was a volunteer guardian ad-Litem in MN & writing a book about it, INVISIBLE CHILDREN.

I was only one of five hundred MN guardians IN 2005, and knew this number to be just a fraction of the true number as I personally counted fifty sexually abused children in my caseload & the court system I was working in at the time.

Here’s what I’ve learned about child sex abuse in Minnesota & how it applies to child sex abuse at Penn State.

1) No One Wants To Talk About It. Even trained social workers are uncomfortable with this topic and reporting it can mean the fall-out impacting them – it’s easier to let it go. I have witnessed non-reporting & under-reporting by people working in the field of policing, education, child protection & a friend who admitted years after the fact that he lived near a five year old girl that was being prostituted. I tell the story in my book of a seven year old girl that was prostituted and not taken out of the home during 48 police calls to her home.

2) No One Understands. Very few people understand the lifelong impact the rape of a child has on that child and the adult that child becomes. Suicides and dysfunctional lifelong lifestyles are common to untreated child rape victims. I have visited 4 year old’s in suicide wards & written about a 7 year old who hung himself and left a note.

3) This May Surprise You; Our courts are almost incapable of dealing with child rape. Children make a less than useless witnesses in their own defense. Brain development of a child guarantees that a good defense attorney will “confuse the witness” which destroys the case. I have attended conferences at both William Mitchell law school & Hamline University on this topic and listened to judges & prosecuting attorneys (the child’s defender) also admit to confusing the witness in these cases. *In none of the child rape cases in my caseload (about 25) were the molesters ever brought to trial (because the child is not a useful witness – no witness, no case). If it is not seen and reported (it did not happen—see the problem?)

I predict that many of Jerry Sandusky’s sodomized victims will not come forward because of the serious stigma attached to rape and sex abuse in this nation.

A friend bought me lunch when I wrote INVISIBLE CHILDREN and told me why he had never talked about and would never report his being molested by a priest when he was a young boy. He also told me what it was like to discover at age 45 the impact of that rape and how it had wrecked two marriages and three business partnerships before he realized his need for help. He began therapy at 45 & now 70, still seeing the same therapist.

Americans don’t like to talk about sex in even a healthy manner & will further punish people that come forward to talk about it. Boys almost never do, and only a small percentage of women do. The stigma is real & we fear becoming part of a messy deal. Then there’s the history of blaming the victim (even when she’s seven years old) makes reporting so much harder than it should be – see Penn State.

Children don’t have much of a chance in America.

Molesters like Sandusky destroy the lives of hundreds of children over their lifetime. The child remains severely damaged year after year until help comes from somewhere (usually nowhere). I’ve said about several of the sex abuse children in my caseload that this child has never had a nice day in her life.

Anxiety, terror, Prozac & Ritalin are predictable parts of the life of an abused child. They feel dirty and often blame themselves for the crime. Not being able to function normally in school makes life miserable and too often criminal or sexually active & a preteen mother or father. Just how does one un-teach sexual behavior to a nine year old without professional help?

Predicting the impact in human life years for each Sandusky type abuser, using my 70 year old friend as an example, if only 33 of my friends years are considered (from age 12 to 45), multiplied by just 100 victims (not a high estimate in a case like Sandusky’s) = 3300 years of damage & pain that is rarely reported and even more rarely treated.

In my 12 active years as a guardian ad-Litem, there was almost no effective therapy for the sexually abused children I worked with.

One sad family of four very young and sexually abused children, each had to be placed in separate foster homes because when they were together, the children would sexualize their behavior & at the time, nothing could be done about that. These children were terribly abused in their birth homes & again by a court system that offered them a fig leaf. The molester was left in the home and continued his evil behaviors. The pain these children suffered was immense; the molester once kicked the seven year old so hard she went into convulsions.

How many children had been victimized by Sandusky before 1998 when he was first questioned by police for molesting a boy in a shower? How many children did he molest from 1998 to today?

Child sex abuse in our communities is a huge problem that affects many of the three million children reported to child protection services in America each year. Cases like Sandusky are rarely identified and even more rarely reported.

Millions of children are impacted for life and this will continue until you and I began to better understand its impact and find our voice for reporting and helping children recover.

*I’ve had extensive arguments with a judge & my supervisor about a singular violent and extended rape of young children in a family and the cruelty of leaving this molester in the home (8 years later he was still practicing his criminal behaviors on a four year old boy).

**National Center For Victims Of Crime www.ncvc.org

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California Police Hate Kids T Shirt Campaign; You Raise Em, We Cage Em

Published

Mike Tikkanen

on November 3, 2011

in Crime and Courts, Public Policy and The States

. 0 Comments

This California police T shirt campaign is an example of the poisonous atmosphere American children are being raised in.

http://boingboing.net/2011/11/03/twin-rivers-police-association-stops-selling-t-shirt.html

I’ve written on the police tasering ten and twelve year olds, the growing movement to try very young children as adults, and the chronic over representation of African Americans in jails & prisons everywhere.

In my experience as a guardian ad-Litem, all children want to be “normal” and lead nice lives, but too many of them are born into toxic homes and their communities are quick to punish and incarcerate instead of nurture & enhance their lives.

How can America’s youth ever hope to lead normal lives when so many of them have serious criminal records & drug problems (legal and illegal) by the time they are eighteen?

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Fix Texas For Children; Remove Judge William Adams

Published

Mike Tikkanen

on November 2, 2011

in Crime and Courts, Invisible Children and The States

. 10 Comments

U.S. states where children are worse off than if they lived in emerging nations.

http://boingboing.net/2011/11/02/video-judge-beats-disabled-daughter-for-using-the-internet.html

Pass this on & support public advocacy for at risk children (they need your help).

Support KARA’s effort to stop punishing children; sponsor a conversation in your community (invite me to speak at your conference) / Buy our book or donate

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Nebraska’s Privatized Child & Family Welfare Collapse

Published

Mike Tikkanen

on October 3, 2011

in Crime and Courts and Public Policy

. 0 Comments

This is a truly sad commentary on the condition of child care in Nebraska;http://www.northplattebulletin.com/index.asp?show=news&action=readStory&storyID=21588&pageID=3

A few years ago, one of my guardian ad-Litem cases walked about thirty miles on a ten degree night when he was sent outside wearing only jeans and a T shirt at a privatized juvenile detention center.

That he did not die or suffer permanent physical damage was a miracle.

Last year, a Pennsylvania judge was incarcerated for sending youth to prison for profit (he behaved as a commissioned salesman – selling innocent youth into jail).

The following article brings to light the commonality of for profit youth prisons and I think the abundance of meanness and poor management that combine to further damage the lives of America’s youth.

Reading the Class Action lawsuit that this report is based on is moving, and deserves to be made known to a larger public audience. That this nation supports the intensity of abuse to youth that it does explains the crime rates, prison rates (13 million prison and jail releases last year) and failing schools.

https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.bettermsreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Walnut-Grove-Complaint1.pdf

Federal Lawsuit Seeks to End Years of Physical, Sexual Abuse of Teenage Inmates

Please send me related stories.

Support KARA’s effort to stop punishing children; sponsor a conversation in your community (invite me to speak at your conference) / Buy our book or donate

Continue reading ‘Nebraska’s Privatized Child & Family Welfare Collapse’

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Save Cristian Fernanedez 12 Years Old Sign the MoveOn Petition

Published

Mike Tikkanen

on October 2, 2011

in Crime and Courts and Public Policy

. 25 Comments

Christian is a 12 year old survivor of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse and he watched his stepfather commit suicide to avoid being charged with abusing him and a very tragic story.

Christian is being charged as an adult with first degree murder & his hearing is coming up in just a few days.

He is a boy that has been living an awful life & deserves to be treated as a child not a hardened criminal.

Sign the petition;

http://www.change.org/petitions/reverse-decision-to-try-12-yo-cristian-fernandez-as-an-adult?utm_source=action_alert&utm_medium=email&alert_id=GJYIyADOMy_iDDPglQkDX

Read the story; Continue reading ‘Save Cristian Fernanedez 12 Years Old Sign the MoveOn Petition’

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200,000 Youth Tried As Adults Each Year; Temple University

Published

Mike Tikkanen

on April 25, 2011

in Crime and Courts and Public Policy

. 1 Comment

This morning I received a call from a reporter at the Star Tribune to talk about mental health issues of abused and neglected children I had worked with as a guardian ad-Litem.

I forgot to tell him that well over 50% of the youth in juvenile justice suffer from diagnosable mental health issues, and fully half of those children suffer from multiple, chronic, serious problems.

The amount of psychotropic medications provided to very young children and juveniles is not in dispute, but the results are.

My experience with children receiving adequate therapy for the severe trauma and resulting behavior problems that were so indelibly a part of these very young children’s lives was almost non existent.

Once these very troubled children become old enough to impact their surroundings they do so in a most troubling manner. That’s why our jails are full and our schools are troubled.

From the study; “In other words, by one mechanism or another, more than 200,000 individuals under the age of 18 are prosecuted in criminal court each year. There are three trends in the data worth noting.

First, the proportion of juveniles prosecuted as adults is growing, primarily because states are adding more and more offenses to the list of crimes that are excluded from the juvenile court.
Continue reading ’200,000 Youth Tried As Adults Each Year; Temple University’

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He Would Wander The Streets With His Dog Looking For His Mother When He Was A Boy; Abandoned As An Infant – Executed at 37

Published

Mike Tikkanen

on March 11, 2011

in Crime and Courts, Health and Mental Health and Public Policy

. 5 Comments

If you have not worked with children in child protection systems, the above headline might seem extreme.

There is very little sympathy for felons in our nation and very few people stop to question why there is so much crime and so many criminals.

Not me.

I know that MN Supreme Court Justice Kathleen Blatz is accurate when she says that 90% of the youth in our juvenile justice systems have come through child protection services & that Minneapolis MN arrested 44% of its adult African American men in 2001 (no duplicate arrests).

Support KARA’s effort to stop punishing children; sponsor a conversation in your community (invite me to speak at your conference) / Buy our book or donate

Continue reading ‘He Would Wander The Streets With His Dog Looking For His Mother When He Was A Boy; Abandoned As An Infant — Executed at 37′

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The Crime Of Prosecuting 10 Year Olds As Adults

Published

Mike Tikkanen

on February 11, 2011

in Crime and Courts, Politics and Funding and Public Policy

. 1 Comment

MN is attempting to become the 4th state to prosecute very young children as adults.

The children that commit these crimes have almost all come out of horribly abusive homes. As a nation, we have avoided even a basic effort to ensure that American youth have at least a small chance to lead a normal life. The rest of the industrialized world has left us behind in this measurement.

The last MN governor (Tim Pawlenty) was quoted as saying that “children that are the victims of failed personal responsibility are not my problem, nor are they the problem of the state of MN”

After many years of working with abused and neglected children, I have witnessed the grim reality of MN Supreme Court Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz statement that “90% of the youth in the justice systems have come through child protection services”.

Not many Edina or Suburban MN youth end up in County Child Protection (their families have insurance, day care, and mental health programs for troubled youth).

The children in Child Protection are there under the federal “Imminent Harm Doctrine” and have been removed from their homes because their lives have been endangered by their birth parents.

As a volunteer guardian ad-Litem, I can testify to the trauma abused and neglected children live with every day. The World Health Organization defines torture as “extended exposure to violence and deprivation”. This is exactly what I have witnessed happening to the children in my case load in Hennepin County MN.

Hating the parents solves nothing. They were almost all abused themselves as children. Many of them are preteen moms with no parenting skills and their own dysfunctional lives.

It’s horrid enough to witness the abuse these children live with all of their young lives. To think that five and ten year old children have not been punished enough by living with sex abuse, neglect, and other unspeakable act, that we must try them as adults and make sure that they never have any chance of living a normal life is just awful.

There is not a religion in the world that sanctify’s discarding ten year olds.

Once these children enter a criminal adult system they are ruined forever. The rape and insanity of youth entering the criminal justice system is well documented.

It is extremely costly to our state to try and solve these problems with more prison building (it’s also immoral).

It is common that these children will spend 30 to 60 years as returning felons, wards of the state, and dysfunctional citizens unable to hold a job or avoid drug dependency. Consider also the many years of violence and perpetual criminal behavior our prison system fosters.

MN spent 500 million on prisons last year. New York and California spend $250,000 per year on each youth in their juvenile justice systems.

It would be far less costly to our communities to provide resources to young and troubled families to insure that young children receive what they need to lead a normal life.

Just a few years ago a federal mandate forbid the the execution of youth that had committed crimes as juveniles.

Representative Westrom’s bill to try 10 year olds as adults is a step backwards and completely destroys any chance that an already abused and neglected child will ever have the opportunity to lead a normal life.

I write the following while remembering the unspeakable things that happened to the children in my caseload.

While this is harsh, I see the motivation for Jonathon Swift’s Modest Proposal;the children he speaks of lead such miserable lives, that killing them early would reduce their suffering.

Abandoning children to a criminal justice system that rapes and destroys them may be worse than death.

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For Profit Youth Prisons

Published

Mike Tikkanen

on December 28, 2010

in Crime and Courts, Public Policy and The States

. 0 Comments

A few years ago, one of my guardian ad-Litem cases walked about thirty miles on a ten degree night when he was put outside at a juvenile detention center. That he did not die or suffer permanent physical damage was a miracle.

Last year, a Pennsylvania judge was incarcerated for sending youth to prison for profit (he behaved as a commissioned salesman – selling innocent youth into jail).

https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.bettermsreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Walnut-Grove-Complaint1.pdf

Federal Lawsuit Seeks to End Years of Physical, Sexual Abuse of Teenage Inmates

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Continue reading ‘For Profit Youth Prisons’

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75% Of Inmates Are Illiterate (19% are completely illiterate) Ruben Rosario

Published

Mike Tikkanen

on November 18, 2010

in Crime and Courts and Health and Mental Health

. 0 Comments

Ruben Rosario’s article on the connection between criminal behavior and literacy is stunning in it’s simplicity.

Ruben’s statistics;

85 percent of all juveniles who come into contact with the juvenile court system are functionally illiterate. So are 60 percent of all prison inmates.

Inmates have a 16 percent chance of returning to prison if they receive literacy help, as opposed to 70 percent for those who receive no help. This equates, according to the study, to taxpayer costs of $25,000 per year per inmate and nearly double that amount for juvenile offenders (California & New York spend over $200,000 per year on juveniles in their juvenile justice systems).

Other related information;

Over 50% of the youth in the juvenile justice system suffer from diagnosable mental illness & fully half that number have serious multiple diagnosis. Today’s

Michael Swanson’s Star Tribune headlines drive home the sad and murderous points that 13 year youth with serious criminal records need intervention and therapy not jail time. The Missouri miracle (juvenile justice transformation) makes this argument well.

Over 25% of American juveniles in the justice system are tried as adults,

Almost all youth in the juvenile justice system have passed through child protection services (MN Supreme Court Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz).

Over 70% of the serious and violent crime committed by juveniles in Ramsey County in the year of the ACE study, was perpetrated by youth from less than 4% of the families in the county.

We know who these children are and we have programs that work to make their lives more successful.

Minnesota spent half a billion dollars on its prison system last year. The money would be far better spent on early childhood programs allowing at risk youth a better chance at leading a normal life.
Continue reading ’75% Of Inmates Are Illiterate (19% are completely illiterate) Ruben Rosario’

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Raised By The Courts, A Judge’s Insight Into Juvenile Justice

Published

Mike Tikkanen

on October 12, 2010

in Crime and Courts, Politics and Funding and Public Policy

. 0 Comments

Of the fifty children I worked with over twelve years as a guardian ad-Litem, several of them came to view the court as their parent. It was another trauma for the child when the County changed judges on a child after twenty or thirty courtroom visits with the same judge. The child had come to trust that this judge, who was trying to protect their best interests.

Judge Heidi Shellhas shared her genuine concern with me about the psychotropic medications proscribed to large numbers of very young children that passed through her courtroom. I was often moved by the heartfelt attempts a judge would make to see that these hearings would be personal and meaningful to an abandoned/abused child. It is not an easy task.

How impossible the job of judge must be, removing a child from her mother, or denying visitation rights to a father and knowing the system has such limited resources and is so unable to adequately serve the poor vulnerable children that come before them. Month after month, year after year, seeing these children grow up in your courtroom.

This book, RAISED BY THE COURTS: What happens when a judge has to be the parent?, brings home the feelings and heartfelt observations of a judge that has spent years working with abused and neglected children in Florida’s juvenile justice system.

This quote from the book hurts, but it needs to be circulated; “I remember bringing my Norwegian cousin to my Florida court. She runs her own child welfare agency outside of Oslo. When she saw kids ages 10, 11 and 12 in handcuffs, leg restraints and jumpsuits, she scowled and asked, “Does Amnesty International know about this?”

Judge Irene Sullivan’s observations are very painful & very accurate, and I wish everyone could know what she knows. We would treat children better, our schools would work, and our communities would be safer and happier places to live.

Continue reading ‘Raised By The Courts, A Judge’s Insight Into Juvenile Justice’

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Cancellation of a Successful Education Program

Published

Mike Tikkanen

on September 26, 2010

in Crime and Courts, Occasional Authors and Politics and Funding

. 0 Comments

Every so often KARA publishes volunteer student research. This piece from Dave Mast at Century College makes powerful points. Please add your own experiences on this topic in our comment section.

Much research exists that identifies failed education systems as a source of juvenile delinquency. More research shows that juvenile delinquency leads to criminal activity when a troubled youth reaches adulthood.

The need for strong education programs should be a primary concern for state and local governments. In addition to improving students’ chances for success in college and their subsequent careers, effective education programs can help keep juveniles from engaging in delinquent activities. This, in turn reduces costs to taxpayers for funding court proceedings and, if necessary, housing juvenile offenders.

Due to the importance of education and the widespread benefits of a successful program, one might question why some programs that have shown wonderful results are being cancelled in the interest of saving money. One such program, implemented by the New York City Council and rallied for by the Coalition for Educational Justice, was very successful in improving the test scores at some of New York City’s worst middle schools. The program, which focused $5 million of its budget on 51 middle schools in northern Manhattan, helped to improve test scores at 40 of them early in its implementation (Melago, 2008).

The extra funding at these middle schools was used to purchase new computers, increase the length of some school days, and improve social service staffs. One of the middle schools, located in Harlem, received a mere $38,000 and was able to use the funding to purchase 20 computers, extend the school day three days a week, add Saturday academies, and add arts programs for students. At this school, the Renaissance Leadership Academy, the passing rate for state English exams rose from 12% in 2007 to 54% in 2009. Meanwhile, the passing rate for state Math exams went from 14% to 80% over the same period (Kolodner, 2010).

So why would the city cancel such a wonderful program? There is just not enough money to keep such a program going. Unfortunately, city officials who handle the budgeting of educational programs are either unable to identify the potential for cash savings by educating middle school students rather than trying and housing juvenile delinquents, or they have been unable to gather enough support to make education a priority in the city’s budget. Continue reading ‘Cancellation of a Successful Education Program’

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Advanced or Stupid? It’s How You Frame It.

Published

Mike Tikkanen

on June 3, 2010

in Crime and Courts, education, Politics and Funding and Public Policy

. 0 Comments

The world’s most advanced technical and military power, greatest economic engine (California ranked fourth highest GDP among nations at one time) & we are refusing to take care of our children.

25% of U.S. high school grads are functionally illiterate upon graduation, our drop out rates are the worst in the industrialized world.

America is sending juveniles into adult prisons at alarming rates. By privatizing service providers, overwhelming government service agencies, & not providing resources we are abandoning children at an institutional level.

Many third world nations treat prenatal care more seriously than we do. There are no industrial nations that suffer the sexually transmitted disease rates or early pregnancy rates that America does.

Talking to the people at The Academy on Violence and Abuse http://www.avahealth.org/ very important things have become clear to me;

1. Child abuse impact children for life. Chronic illness and early death are significant within the population of abused and neglected children as they age.

2. Dr Bruce Perry’s research indicates that 25% of all American’s will be classified as “special needs” within a generation if the mental health aspects are not addressed in a direct and meaningful way.

As a long time guardian ad-Litem, I have seen the evidence of the Academy’s research at a very personal level. I have lost friends and now know why.

Mental health becomes all important when you work with the population of abused children and understand the concept of violence, sex abuse, and trauma as it applies to two and three year olds (and what it will mean to them for the rest of their lives).

Children become citizens. Healthy citizens lead normal productive lives and are a benefit to society.

Children born into unhealthy homes and poor resources, are abandoned, abused, or ignored, end up in juvenile justice, criminal justice, pregnant without the ability to parent (just like their parent) lead painful lives and are a problem for society.

There is NO percentage is the communal abandonment of our children (it is sinking our nation).

What you do to your children, they will do to your society (Pliny – 2500 years ago)

Let’s all agree to support child friendly programs and legislation (even if it costs money and takes effort).

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Kids For Cash, Privatizing Punishment, What Could Be More Wrong?

Published

Mike Tikkanen

on April 30, 2010

in Crime and Courts and Public Policy

. 0 Comments

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/pa/20100430_Ex-judge_pleads_guilty_in_Luzerne__kids-for-cash__scandal.html This judge should go to prison for the thousands of young lives he destroyed with his money making scheme to send kids to detention facilities while he was paid millions in commission (20 people were in on the deal, including a school superintendent).

There are strong arguments to be made for separating private enterprise and policing and punishment, not the least of which Michael T Conahan has proven beyond mere words (2.8 million dollars in commissions).

I can tolerate the stealing of money but I am not able to stand by and watch children denied their youth because those of us that vote (and run this nation) don’t see the connection between healthy institutions and healthy children.

It is up to us as citizens to have the depth of understanding and concern with our community to see how what happened in Pennsylvania is happening by degrees to youth throughout our state and our nation (just without the commissions).

We have not yet fully understood and agreed that healthy youth make healthy adults and citizens, and that ensuring that youth have a solid chance to be healthy is worth the investment.

Until that happens, we will continue to underfund programs that help struggling children and families with health and mental health and live with the results that we have been getting for so many years. I draw your attention to the ACE study in Ramsey County that points out the great majority of violence and serious crime committed by juveniles in St Paul was committed by youth from three or four percent of the families in the community http://www.tacommunities.org/getfile/view/id/1000/cid/1004/p/folder_1004%252Ffolder_5040

Helping these children helps us all. Better schools, safer streets, a more educated work force, and healthier communities (less frightening newspapers and TV news).

Let’s get behind this; Denounce the cuts in programs (it won’t save money in the long run) Vote for the people that understand the value of healthy youth and families.
Continue reading ‘Kids For Cash, Privatizing Punishment, What Could Be More Wrong?’

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Abusing Children At Home & In School – The Life Of An Abused Child

Published

Mike Tikkanen

on March 7, 2010

in Crime and Courts, Health and Mental Health, Politics and Funding and Public Policy

. 2 Comments

Most House Republicans Vote To Allow Solitary Confinement & Restraint Devices in Schools.

The vast majority of the children we will be tying up & confining come from very troubled homes. Or, as former MN Supreme court Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz has stated, about 90% of the youth in juvenile justice have come through child protection services.

Before a child can become removed from a home through child protection services, they have lived for a long time in an abusive or neglectful home and have been tortured as defined by the World Health Organization.

It’s not the happy children that we will be restraining - it’s the three million children that are reported to child protection in America each year.

In my experience, the WHO’s definition of torture fits the life experience of a child that has been removed from an abusive home; “extended exposure to violence and deprivation” has been their life. The U.S. has no other child protection policy than the IMMINENT HARM DOCTRINE.

The link between an abused child’s past tortured life and future troubled life is clear to most of us that have lived with or worked with these damaged children long enough. It causes me great pain to see my guardian ad-Litem kids handled like mad animals (tasered, confined, beat up by under-trained staff in under-resourced detention centers) Continue reading ‘Abusing Children At Home & In School — The Life Of An Abused Child’

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Crimes Against Children Study New Hampshire University:

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Mike Tikkanen

on January 24, 2010

in Crime and Courts and Invisible Children

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In a study of Crimes Against Children, the University of New Hampshire found that the majority (60.6%) of children had experienced at least 1 direct or witnessed victimization in the previous year.

Almost half (46.3%) had experienced a physical assault in the study year, 1 in 4 (24.6%) had experienced a property offense, 1 in 10 (10.2%) had experienced a form of child maltreatment, 6.1% had experienced a sexual victimization, and more than 1 in 4 (25.3%) had been a witness to violence or experienced another form of indirect victimization in the year, including 9.8% who had witnessed an intrafamily assault.

One in 10 (10.2%) had experienced a victimization-related injury. More than one third (38.7%) had been exposed to 2 or more direct victimizations, 10.9% had 5 or more, and 2.4% had 10 or more during the study year.

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/124/5/1411 Continue reading ‘Crimes Against Children Study New Hampshire University:’

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National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse

Published

Mike Tikkanen

on January 22, 2010

in Crime and Courts, Links To Helpful Orgs and Public Policy

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In my own experience as a guardian ad-Litem, it is better to heal the family when possible, but I have seen cases where adults have had license to abuse children year after year without penalty. This organization provides training for the investigation and prosecution of crimes against children; http://www.ndaa.org/

In 1985, the National District Attorneys Association established the National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse as a program of the American Prosecutors Research Institute (APRI). Aimed at responding to an increasing volume of reported child abuse, the National Center provides training, technical assistance and publications to prosecutors, investigators and allied criminal justice professionals on all aspects of criminal child abuse and exploitation. Continue reading ‘National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse’

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New York, Meet Missouri

Published

Mike Tikkanen

on December 14, 2009

in Crime and Courts, Public Policy and The States

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Todays NY Times http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/14/nyregion/14juvenile.html article on the mental illness, violence, recidivism, and dangerous conditions within New York’s juvenile justice system make me wonder if this nation cares enough about youth to read the newspaper. Missouri went from 90% recidivism in its juvenile justice system to one of the most successful programs for juvenile justice in the nation.

Today over 75% of children entering New York’s JJS have drug and alcohol issues over half have mental health problems, and one third have developmental disabilities. The state spends about $210,000 per child annually and 75% of the children are re-arrested within three years.

Other states look this bad too (California, Florida, Texas)

A few years ago Missouri had the same problem and solved it by concentrating on reducing confinement, a humane approach to youth combined with the mental health needs of children, and restorative justice.

Continue reading ‘New York, Meet Missouri’

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COURT APPOINTED SPECIAL ADVOCATES (CASA)

Published

Mike Tikkanen

on August 2, 2009

in Crime and Courts, Guardian ad-Litem, Public Policy and The States

. 2 Comments

The CASA program was created by a Seattle Washington judge who was concerned with his decisions about how to handle cases with abused and neglected children without sufficient information.

This judge began using trained community volunteers to speak for the best interests of these children in court. The program was such a great success in Seattle that very soon judges across the country decided to use citizen advocates.

Perhaps the hardest decision a judge will ever make is to remove a child from a birth family.

For people outside the legal system, it is important to recognize the adversarial nature of courts and law in America. Divorce law is a tiny example of how painful our system makes the resolution of family legal matters. Child abuse and neglect are a sad but very real part of life in America and children must be protected against dangerous home environments.

Today, federal law mandates that children in need of protection will have a CASA voice in the courtroom. After all, a five or six year old has not much more comprehension or ability to testify than a three year old in a courtroom setting.

Not all CASA members are volunteers. Some CASA are paid staff and some are attorneys.

As a long time volunteer CASA, I am partial to the volunteer programs mainly because we take fewer cases and by taking fewer cases we can spend more time and have more involvement with the child and family (read my book; http://www.invisiblechildren.org/our-book/ ) — these children really do need all the time, concern, and resources that this community can deliver.

The following are a few CASA blogs and websites I have discovered that give a snapshot of CASA programs and accomplishments: Continue reading ‘COURT APPOINTED SPECIAL ADVOCATES (CASA)’

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6 Month Old Dies After a Dozen Calls To Child Abuse Hotline

Published

Mike Tikkanen

on July 25, 2009

in Crime and Courts, Guardian ad-Litem, Invisible Children, Public Policy and The States

. 1 Comment

Two weeks ago in my City of Minneapolis, an 18 month old baby drowned in a bathtub after 14 calls to child protection services.

The local newspaper (Star Tribune) interviewed me because I have written about a case (as a guardian ad-Litem) where the police had been to a home 49 times before removing the child from a terrible environment (I believe the 7 year old was prostituted). I told the editor about several of my cases where three year olds were sexually abused and cocaine positive, and one experience where the four year tried hard to kill herself.

Its important for each and every one of us to react as compassionate beings for children. It is all that separates us from animals.

Not having empathy for the screams of your neighbors six year old child as he is being murdered, or as she is being sexually abused is the very last sign that we have entered the dark ages. Not having resources or systems to insure that children will be removed from toxic environments is the community’s way of not having empathy for the screams of your neighbors six year old.

From the Los Angelas Times By Hector Becerra and Garrett Therolf
July 25, 2009 South L.A. boy died after previous reports of abuse Continue reading ’6 Month Old Dies After a Dozen Calls To Child Abuse Hotline’

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Abandoned, Abandoned Again Then Tasered – What’s Next For At Risk Youth?

Published

Mike Tikkanen

on July 23, 2009

in Crime and Courts, Invisible Children, Public Policy and The States

. 1 Comment

As a long time guardian ad-Litem, I’m familiar with abused and neglected children responding badly to authority figures. And I understand why.

The stun gunning, choking, obscene language, and over the top violence by police to kids at the Illinois emergency youth center shows just how deplorable America’s policies for At Risk Children are.

Well meaning, often under trained and under resourced youth center staff call on police to help with uncontrollable youth. Under trained police respond with a level of violence appropriate during a prison riot. Note (below) Sheriff Mulch’s attitude towards dealing with children at the youth center. Perhaps he shouldn’t.

It is absurd to expect at risk children to live peacefully among us when they are mistreated by their families & communities, and then brutalized by law enforcement. Their graduation rates remain extremely low and their criminal records extremely high. The only way this will change is by supporting children while they are young. Missouri seems to have one of the best programs in place in our nation today.

http://www.invisiblechildren.org/2005/12/17/missouri-model/.

The following is an example of what not to do;

From the Huffington Post Blog 7.20.09 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/20/sheriffs-deputy-used-stun_n_241332.html

EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. — A sheriff’s deputy zapped three children with a stun gun at an Illinois emergency youth shelter, threatening to sodomize one of them before choking a fourth child and throwing her in a closet, according to a federal civil-rights lawsuit.

The suit against Jefferson County sheriff’s deputy David Bowers and another deputy claims they were unprovoked in the incident at the adolescent center in southern Illinois that houses youths ages 11 to 18, often with behavioral issues.

No charges have been filed in the case. Sheriff Roger Mulch, who also is named in the lawsuit, said Monday the deputies followed protocol and did “nothing out of the ordinary.”

The suit, filed July 1, called the deputies’ actions “extreme, outrageous and unjustified,” and it does not release the names or ages of the three boys shot with the stun gun. The fourth kid was a foster child who did not live at the center, according to the lawsuit.

The suit claims that Bowers and sheriff’s deputy Lonnie Lawler went to the center near Marion on July 4, 2008 in response to a report that three teenagers were acting unruly. But the young people suing the deputies were not those disruptive children, the lawsuit said.

Bowers allegedly pushed one boy toward his bed, and repeatedly shocked him with a stun gun. Bowers then held down a second boy, stunned him several times and threatened to sodomize him, ultimately causing the child to soil himself, the lawsuit claimed.

A third child complied with the deputies’ demands that he sit on a couch, but Lawler handcuffed him before Bowers zapped him repeatedly, the lawsuit said.

The fourth child, a girl, pleaded with the deputies to stop but Lawler handcuffed her. Bowers lifted her off the ground, pressed her against a wall and choked her, the lawsuit alleges.

“Do you want to live or die (expletive)?” the lawsuit, filed July 1, claims Bowers asked the girl before she was thrown into a closet, vomiting.

Bowers did not immediately return messages left at his home, and Lawler does not have a listed home telephone number. It was not known whether either had an attorney.

Gene Svebakken, president and chief executive of Lutheran Child and Family Services of Illinois, which runs the center, said Monday after reviewing the lawsuit that he was “really alarmed and distressed by the allegations.”

“These are young people often traumatized in their circumstances, and that they, like all children, needed to be treated with dignity and respect,” he said, noting that the shelter serves a myriad of children, ranging from runaways from placement elsewhere to youths between foster homes.

Mulch portrayed the center as a chronic hassle, this year accounting for more than 100 requests for his department’s help.

He defended his deputies, saying separate investigations by his department and Illinois State Police determined Bowers and Lawler did nothing wrong.

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14 police calls to foster home led up to near-death

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Mike Tikkanen

on July 4, 2009

in Crime and Courts, Guardian ad-Litem, Invisible Children and Public Policy
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The following article parallels my child protection experience in Brooklyn Center a few years ago.

On the 49th call to the home, police removed the children into protective custody (only because the 7 year old was observed trying to kill the 5 year old). As I became involved in the case, the sex abuse of the older girl became apparent. The police were aware of the prostitution taking place on the premises, and it was very likely that the older child had been prostituted.

To say that societies interests were served by not intervening in this child’s life earlier is an obscenity almost worse than the crime of child rape. The impact is forever. There is no excuse to leave at risk children in dangerous conditions.

Star Tribune Article

14 police calls to foster home led up to near-death

The near-drowning was the latest in five years worth of calls to the St. Paul house, including one last year from the frantic provider herself.

By ANTHONY LONETREE, Star Tribune
Last update: July 3, 2009 – 11:47 PMFourteen times in five years, police have been called to a St. Paul foster home where an 18-month-old girl nearly drowned this week after being left unattended in a bathtub.

Once last year, the caller was the foster-care provider herself, seemingly frantic about her husband leaving the house after an argument and warning she was “emotionally unable to care for the children” when alone, police said.

Police and state human services records have identified the foster-care providers as Barbara L. Wright, 46, and her husband, Daniel L. Wright, 50.

Since that afternoon, five more calls have been made to police about the house across the street from an East Side playground, the most recent involving the near-drowning Wednesday. The girl remains hospitalized in critical condition.

Initial reports indicated the 18-month-old and her 3-year-old sibling were left alone for a brief period before the toddler was found submerged, said police spokesman Sgt. Paul Schnell. The 3-year-old since has been moved elsewhere. Nobody appeared to be home Thursday or Friday.

Investigators now are working to determine how long the children were left unattended, Schnell said. It wasn’t clear how many children had been living in the house.

Paul Gustafson, a spokesman for the Ramsey County attorney’s office, said that as of Thursday, police had not forwarded to prosecutors any request to consider charges. Since 2007, however, authorities have prosecuted at least two cases in the Twin Cities area in which mothers left toddlers alone in bathtubs and returned to find them drowned.

Last year, a Lakeville woman was sentenced to six months in jail and 10 years’ probation after an August 2007 incident in which she left her 11-month-old daughter and 2-year-old son in the tub while she shopped for shoes on the Internet. The girl died.

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Nevada Pays for Lost 2 Year Old Foster Child

Published
by
Mike Tikkanen

on June 27, 2009

in Crime and Courts, Guardian ad-Litem, Invisible Children, Kids At Risk Action (KARA), Politics and Funding, Public Policy and The States
. 3 Comments

With shrinking resources, each state and all counties need to remember the burden placed on county workers & what happens when that burden is excessive. As a long time Hennepin County volunteer guardian ad-Litem, I appreciate the work social workers do to help at risk children and understand the value cared for youth bring to our communities. I also know what happens to children that are not taken care of. This article from the Las Vegas News points out a small part of the cost of failure:

I-Team: Settlement Reached in Missing Girl Case

A settlement has been reached in the civil lawsuit surrounding the disappearance of a 2-year-old foster child. The natural parents of Everlyse Cabrera sued Clark County when their daughter went missing from her North Las Vegas foster home three years ago.

Not long ago, Everlyse’s mom said she wasn’t sure she’d ever settle. Marlena Olivas wanted a trial, she claimed, to expose Clark County’s failure to protect her little girl. But after intense negotiations, the parties reached a $500,000 deal with $250,000 earmarked for Everlyse, should she be found alive on or before her 25th birthday. If she is not, the money is returned to the county.

Some remaining funds will be distributed to her little brother Benjamin, who shared the foster home with Everlyse, and to her biological mom and dad. Benjamin stands to receive $35,000. Her parents get $22,000 each.

The settlement also provides for a scholarship fund in Everlyse’s name, a reward for information about her disappearance, and monies to continue the private investigative effort to find her.

The agreement releases Clark County from any future claims and its employees do not have to admit any wrongdoing. “The most important thing for my perspective is not necessarily a punishment for the county, but to take care of Everlyse. So my concern was not seeing that the county had to turn over the money and had to risk losing that money, but realistically that if Everlyse is found there’s going to be money to provide for her,” said Everlyse’s guardian ad litem Dara Goldsmith.

Before a judge can formally approve the settlement, it must be accepted by the Clark County Commission.

A second battle is brewing over a $200,000 payout from Clark County’s foster parent insurance carrier. Those funds are not part of the negotiated agreement.

Anyone with information about the case, no matter how small, is encouraged to share it with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1-800-THE-LOST or James Conklin with ExFed Investigations at (702) 204-7654.

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Tip Of The Iceberg

Published
by
Mike Tikkanen

on June 4, 2009

in Crime and Courts, Guardian ad-Litem, Health and Mental Health, Invisible Children and Public Policy
. 0 Comments

\

Star Tribune June 3, 2009

Justice is unequal in sex abuse

Those who molest family members get lighter sentences than outsiders, data show.

By PAM LOUWAGIE and GLENN HOWATT, Star Tribune staff writers

Last update: June 3, 2009 – 10:35 AM

A young woman in Hennepin County accuses her father of sexually abusing her since she was 12 and impregnating her at age 18.

A 13-year-old Ramsey County girl tells a school counselor that her father had been touching her while her mother was in the hospital.

A 15-year-old Anoka County boy reports to police that his stepfather, convicted of a sex offense years earlier, committed sex acts with him, once in exchange for help with a video game.

In each case, Minnesota sentencing guidelines called for a seven-year or 12-year prison sentence. Instead, each defendant pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a year or less in jail and a long probation.

Such lighter sentences are given more often to defendants abusing children in their own families or households than to those who abuse outside their families, a Star Tribune analysis of nearly 1,500 child sex abuse cases shows.

From 2001 to 2007, 33 percent of family or household child sex abuse defendants facing prison time ended up with probation, compared with 26 percent of those abusing outside their families. In the most serious cases where victims were between 13 and 15 years old, the difference was even greater: 37 percent versus 24 percent.

That sentencing disparity troubles some legislators and advocates for victims.

“It’s really unfortunate because … girls and boys who have experienced incest are somehow valued less than girls and boys who have experienced abuse at the hands of neighbors and coaches and teachers and other people,” said Elizabeth Saewyc, a nursing professor in Canada who studies abuse victims in research with Children’s Hospital of St. Paul.

Even family members who initially agreed to lighter sentences for abusers — to protect children from having to testify or to keep a family wage earner working — sometimes come to feel probation sentences aren’t enough as they watch the effect of abuse on the child victim play out for years.

Addendum,

Below are articles from other authors and some that I have written on this topic over the past few years.

http://www.invisiblechildren.org/2006/02/19/another-day-in-family-court/

http://www.invisiblechildren.org/2006/04/02/the-longest-day/

http://www.invisiblechildren.org/2006/06/04/wellness-and-child-abuse/

http://www.invisiblechildren.org/2008/09/28/ptsd-study-of-abused-children/

http://www.invisiblechildren.org/2005/06/15/sigrid-bachmann/

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Not My Role Model

Published
by
Mike Tikkanen

on May 19, 2009

in Crime and Courts, Health and Mental Health, Invisible Children, Kids At Risk Action (KARA), Politics and Funding and Public Policy
. 0 Comments

Missouri went from 90% recidivism in its juvenile justice system to about 10% over just a few years as it transitioned into a restorative justice model that treated youth as children in need of counseling instead of adult criminals (about 30% of American youth are tried in adult courts).

California locks up young people longer than any other state — on average young people spend about 3 years in the Division of Juvenile Justice (DJJ). More than a year of this time is tacked on by DJJ guards, who extend parole hearing dates for disciplinary and other reasons.

This flies in the face of research that shows that positive incentives are much more effective at helping kids improve than are negative, disciplinary actions. And, because DJJ spends $234,000 a year to lock up each youth, it’s not only unfair and ineffective, it’s incredibly expensive.
AB 999 would eliminate the “time adds” system, and institute a model that provides incentives for youth to prove they’re ready to return home. (Learn more here.) But the DJJ won’t change without clear direction from lawmakers — and from you! Even if you’ve already taken action to support AB 999, your elected officials still need to hear from you now that the bill is headed for a full Assembly vote. Click here to send an email now:

http://www.ellabakercenter.org/?p=bnb_ab999_support

Postscript;

It was MN Supreme Court Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz who commented that 90% of the youth in juvenile justice had passed through child protection. As a long time guardian ad-Litem working with children in child protection, it hurts me greatly to see children born into almost certain lives of crime and incarceration.

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A Rough Day in the News

Published
by
Mike Tikkanen

on November 9, 2008

in Crime and Courts, Invisible Children and Kids At Risk Action (KARA)
. 0 Comments

Three items jumped out at me from yesterday’s New York Times (11.09.08).

In St Johns Arizona, an eight year old boy shot and killed his father and another man. Child abuse was mentioned in the first reports, but is being denied by neighbors and friends. The police have asked that the boy be tried as an adult.

I am recommending that anyone who reads this contact the St Johns Arizona Police office and ask them to increase their training budget for their department because no sane person wants eight year old children to become part of this nations criminal justice system.

Next, Public defenders in seven states are rejecting new cases and suing to stop the increase in caseloads, claiming that they are unable to provide any real service to anyone under current circumstances. Some lawyers now have 500 cases. One attorney had 13 cases set for trial on the same day. The state of MN recently quit providing public defenders for parents having their children removed through child protection services (it was reversed due to public pressure, but it shows that even a fairly wealthy, and historically liberal state can make onerous decisions).

The state of Arkansas, in what is called “antipathy” to the election of Obama, have voted to forbid unmarried couples from adopting children. This is mainly to thwart gay people from adopting. Anyone working in child protection knows the terrific lack of homes, love, and resources facing adoptive children. It is hard for me to fathom the mean spirited emotions that would so negatively impact already distressed children.

As a long time guardian ad-Litem, I’ve had the experience of gay couples adopting, and it has all been extremely positive. For one, gays have empathy for the abuse and fear carried by abandoned children. They have suffered themselves the social and family pain of ostracism and personal doubt (all abandoned children blame themselves and don’t often completely overcome the mental anguish of being removed from their birth family).

Consider calling Jerry Cox, the president of Family Council Action Committee, (501) 375-7000) the man who obtained the 95,000 signatures that made this bill into law and asking him if he has spent one day in child protection, or knows one child that needs an adoptive home. Maybe ask him if he has any gay friends.

Tell him what I have said about how hard it is for adoptive children to find homes, and how cruel it is to make it even harder. You might mention to him that there isn’t a religion in the world that deliberately makes life more difficult for the weakest and most vulnerable among us & if his religion is behind this meanness, he should abandon his church and find a kinder gentler religion.

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California Dreaming

Published
by
Mike Tikkanen

on April 6, 2008

in Crime and Courts, Guardian ad-Litem, Invisible Children, Kids At Risk Action (KARA), Mike Tikkanen, Politics and Funding and Public Policy
. 0 Comments

Last week the State of California achieved perfect synchronicity in its public policy making when it announced that criminals would be released early because the state could no longer afford to keep them incarcerated.

This news reminded me that when I began my work as a guardian ad Litem there were states predicting the need for prison expansion based on the number of failed third grade reading scores within its schools.

Instead of investing in reading for third graders (and early childhood education), California began investing in a third strike punishment model and building tens of thousands of prison beds.

Today, crime, courts, and incarceration are the largest piece of California’s state budget. The prison lobby is the largest lobby in the state, and California recidivism is above 70% (the highest in the world?)

The state now has the dubious distinction of spending more on prisons than on education and one of the highest violent crime rates in the nation

Former MN Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz and Marion Writght Edleman (Children’s Defense Fund Founder) have pointed out that almost all the youth in our juvenile justice system have come through chiild protection services and the vast majority of adults in the criminal justice system are graduates of our juvenile justice system.

California now has a perfect prison feeder system.

Nationwide, about 25% of America’s youth are being tried in adult courts today. Once these youth are treated as adults in our court systems, they rarely leave the system. Juveniles are more likely to be raped and brutalized, and suicidal, than adults within the system (they are just more vulnerable).

California’s great investment in its criminal justice system has ruined tens of thousands of lives and paid very poor dividends to its citizens. It is horribly expensive, almost all the inmates recommit crimes within three years, and now they are letting the inmates out quickly because they are out of money to feed and house felons (let them rob and steal for their dinner).

The math is pretty straightforward:

X years and Y dollars of early childhood education/programs = children that can go to school and learn to read* graduate and build a meaningful life within our community. They go on to have jobs, raise normal families, and lead meaningful lives, versus

Spending those same dollars on prisons and punishment that has bought us recidivism, astronomical crime costs (1.5 to 2 trillion dollars annually) failed schools, and a persistent fear of walking home in our neighborhoods at night. What does forty years of social services and incarceration cost a community? What is the value of a healthy productive citizen?

This cycle will not be broken overnight. We will have to invest in programs that make children ready for school (it is a proven solid investment) and ready for life.

Our thirty year spree of “the floggings will continue until the Morale improves” policy making model has created more felons and mentally unhealthy people than any other nation in the world.

Are we able to change the direction of our public policies so that thirty years from now, all children will be valued as potential citizens and given access to health and education that are critical to participating in their community?

Minnesota has just experienced three consecutive years of double digit prison (investment) growth. Hennepin county arrested 44% of its black adult male population in 2001. Nationally, 13% of Black men can’t vote because they are felons. The racial disparity is clear to some of us.

After 12 active years in the County Child Protection system, I can testify that early childhood programs work as a deterent to crime and as a fiscally responsible means of running a county (or a state).

All children want to be happy creative beings. It is human nature. We can either facilitate this, and save tons of lives and money, or continue to build more crime and prisons and let our prisoners out early when we run out of money.

Support our effort to positively redefine the lives of at risk children, join our grassroots efforts and join one of the action / discussion groups you see on this website. Make a difference in your community.        Tell us your story, comment, or perspective. Think of someone you would like to send this to? Press the “share this” button below.

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Economics 101

Published
by
Mike Tikkanen

on February 20, 2008

in Crime and Courts, Guardian ad-Litem, Health and Mental Health, Invisible Children, Kids At Risk Action (KARA), Mike Tikkanen and Public Policy
. 0 Comments

My passion for the topic and love for public speaking often places me in front of business groups making a basic economic argument for mending abused and neglected children.

It pains me that this simple lesson in finance is so hard to comprehend for so many people.

One untreated, *traumatized” child can spend thirty or forty years in and out of institutions (child protection/juvenile justice/criminal justice), hurting themselves and others along the way.

Former MN Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz says that “the difference between that poor child and a felon, is about eight years”.

Most of these poor children becomes unhealthy adults and have their own poor children (now that’s exponential). Many preteen mothers have adolescent felon falthers with little hope of raising a happy or functional family. Recent studies show that almost 80% of children aging out of foster care are leading dysfunctional lives.

A recent ACE study proved that almost 70% of the serious and violent crime committed by juveniles in Ramsey County was committed by children living in 2 to 4% of Ramsey County families.

The economics of treating at risk children early is proven to be exponentially less costly than paying for the many years of institutionalization and the added encumbrance on our communities when they are not institutionalized.

Consider the burden these children place on our school systems. Few people outside of education have any idea about the serious behavior problems abused and neglected children bring to school. No record is kept of 9 year olds on psychotropic medications or the treatment they do not receive.

It can reasonably be argued that the approximately three million U.S. children reported to child protection services each year are passing through our public schools. Educators are required to manage a significant number of seriously troubled children while trying to bring meaningful instruction to large classrooms with less and less resources and public support each year.

For the last several years 25% of America’s graduating seniors have been functionally illiterate and our inner city high school dropout rate is approaching 50%.

On the world stage, we have fallen from our many years at the very top rank of all educational and qualitiy of life indices (among the 24 other **industrialized nations) to the very bottom in almost all of these measurements.

It is not educators or schools that have failed us. It is the unpreparedness, and serious problems brought to school by the millions and millions of troubled children that have overwhelmed our institutions.

In 2006 MN schools had 900 students per counsellor in its high schools. New Jersey removed all of its counsellors and mental health workers (all students needing help were sent to jail).

Under the NCLB almost all non “critical” programs have been forced out of our schools. Troubled youth find little help to deal with their serious problems (in 2005 MN had a total of 15 child psychiatrists).

The number of students unable to read by the third grade relates directly to and is a accurate predictor of high school dropout rates. Not graduating from high school is an accurate predictor of future criminal behavior.

Some states have predicted the need for future prison space by extrapolating from failed third grade reading scores. Minneapolis MN (Hennepin County) arrested 44% of its Black adult male population in 2001 (with no duplicate arrests).

America’s cost of prisons and jails has grown exponentially since the drug king pin laws and mandatory minimum sentencing guidlines were passed into law twenty years ago. The price tag for crime in the U.S. is estimated at between 1.1 and 1.6 Trillion dollars each year (insurance and incarceration cost figures).

It is pretty clear that helping each child cope with a troubled family life, learn to read, make friends, and become a functioning juvenile will add contributing members to our communities and save us millions of dollars (that is without calculating the very real costs of violence to our friends and families and our growing number of tortured inner city neighborhoods)

Can you help me to bring this message to a few more people so our policy makers can begin to understand the importance of supporting programs, people, and policies that help at risk children?

*In the U.S., the Imminent Harm Doctrine requires that a child’s life be endangered by his parents before being removed from the home. This is one definition of trauma.
Many abused and neglected children live for years in violent abusive homes. The World Health Organization’s definition of torture is “extended exposure to violence and deprivation”.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is twice as common among children in child protection systems as it is among war veterans returning from Iraq.

**Those 24 nations with 200 year old democracies. Today we rank ourselves about in the middle of the 48 “emerging nations” instead of the much more accurate and meaningful “last” among the industrialized nations.

Consider joining or starting a KARA (Kids At Risk Action) group on this website to start a dialogue in your community.

Best wishes,

the KARA team

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By Definition

Published
by
Mike Tikkanen

on July 4, 2007

in Crime and Courts, Guardian ad-Litem, Health and Mental Health, Invisible Children, Kids At Risk Action (KARA), Politics and Funding and Public Policy
. 0 Comments

Definitions

If institutions are to be defined by what they create instead of what they were designed to create, Kathleen Long Angels and Demons what would an objective analysis tell us today?

How are our schools functioning, what are the results from foster care, is juvenile justice serving its purpose, do the courts work, and how successful is our prison system?

Internationally, our high school performance has fallen from world leader to trailing in almost every category. We now compare ourselves to “emerging nations” so that we are 43rd out of 121 emerging countries instead of 21st out of the 24 industrialized nations in language, math, history, physics, and most other subjects.

25% of America’s high school graduates are functionally illiterate upon graduation; one out of three of them could not find Florida on a recent map test. In Minneapolis, the sister school (Roosevelt) to the one I attended (Edison) has graduated under 30% of its students over the last three years, the city average graduation rate is just over 55%.

Former MN Supreme Court Justice Kathleen Blatz stated that 90% of the youth in the juvenile justice system had come through the state’s child protection system (almost all criminal justice inmates come out of the juvenile justice system). Nationally, almost 25% of juveniles are tried as adults in the U.S. and a growing number of states allow children 13 and 14 years old to be tried in adult courts.

A recent study indicates that up to 80% of children aging out of foster care are leading dysfunctional lives. A Minnesota judge has provided me the Prozac, Ritalin, and other psychotropic medication prescriptions taken by children in her courtroom (most of them under ten years old) and it points at one of the key issues thay might explain why so many youth leaving the foster care program find it hard to cope with life.

In my experience in the child protection system as a guardian ad-Litem, it is a rare state ward that has found adequate mental health services (many of them are proscribed psychotropic medications with minimal professional help). Traumas experienced in the birth home and the following court process of removal leave permanent and painful scars. To treat these traumas with psychotropic medications and no long term / consistent therapy leaves children with problem behaviors and poor coping skills for the rest of their lives.

America has more people in prison per capita than any other nation. We also have more criminals and violent crime than any other industrialized nation. Nationally, 13% of Black men can’t vote because they are felons. In Minneapolis, 44% of African American men were arrested in 2001 (no duplicate arrests) African American Men’s Study

If we are to define our criminal justice system by what it creates, it is successful in building more prisons than any other nation, maintaining terrifically high recidivism rates, keeping inmates in longer, and capturing huge percentages of African American men in the process.

Similarly, if we define the our child protection and juvenile justice systems by what they create, most of the inmates in criminal justice come from juvenile justice, and almost all of the youth in juvenile justice (in Minnesota) come from child protection services. It follows that children in child protection have a terrific potential for entering the criminal justice system.

It is painful for me as a citizen/guardian ad-Litem to watch the impact of mistreated (in their birth homes and as state wards) children passing through the system, failing in school, and aging out of foster care going onto lead dysfunctional lives.

What will it take for our communities to recognize that by abandoning the weakest and most vulnerable among us we not only destroy children’s lives but perpetuate chaos and dysfunction in our communities?

Would we care more if we knew the cost to society for thirty to fifty years of institutionalization plus the cost of youth crimes and 14 year old girls having babies?

It is not the people working in these fields that are to be blamed*.

There are millions of educators, foster & adoptive parents, social workers, court and justice personnel and others putting great effort into making life better for struggling children and families. I am one of them.

Our schools, courts/justice, child protection systems, and our health systems will not sustain our nation without a commitment to support from our communities and policy makers to do the right thing.

Investing in children is the best investment this nation can make today. It’s what we are not doing that is expensive. The longer we wait, the more lives will be damaged, and the more it will cost us as a society. Pass it on. Consider starting a conversation on this topic in your community. Join or start a discussion group on this website to begin.

*Blaming teachers (as many politicians do around election time) is not fair or productive. Teachers don’t teach for fame or wealth, they chose this field because they care about kids, learning, and community. Teaching is hard work at modest pay (the same can be said for social and justice workers).

More reading; Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Art Rolnick’s Federal Reserve Board Article

Best wishes,

tu amigos the KARA team

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Saving Ourselves From the Next Virginia Tech

Published
by
Mike Tikkanen

on April 25, 2007

in Crime and Courts, Health and Mental Health, Kids At Risk Action (KARA) and Public Policy
. 2 Comments

24 months ago in a small Minnesota town, a mentally unstable student murdered and wounded 14 students before killing himself (my April 2005 weblog posting).

Jeff Weise also kept an outrageous website openly referencing homicide and suicide. Jeff was also denied treatment and prescribed Prozac*. After the carnage, Red Lake community found the money for a mental health family center to counsel troubled youth.

At that time in Minnesota there were 15 child psychiatrists in the entire state (population about 4 million) and the student to counselor ratio in MN high schools was 900 to 1.

As a child advocate (long time guardian ad Litem) I strongly feel the need for mental health therapy for those who need it. The children I work with have been severely traumatized and need adequate attention paid to their needs.

In my many years as a guardian ad-Litem it has been my experience that at risk children don’t get help until after their behaviors have become unmanageable and dangerous. Often the help they get comes in the form of a pill and not the personal professional counselling that they really need.

A Hennepin county judge has shared with me the psychotropic drug medications being taken by children in her courtroom. It is truely unbelievable how many disturbed and undertreated youth walk among us.

When attention to mental health services comes earlier, our communities can save themselves from the immense suffering that follows these horrific events.

* Not too many years from now it is my hope that we will recognize the repercussions of legally drugging children with psychotropic medications without adequate mental health services. Today we can only read about these consequences in the newspaper.

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Another Sad Letter

Published
by
Mike Tikkanen

on August 30, 2006

in Crime and Courts, Guardian ad-Litem, Health and Mental Health, Invisible Children, Kids At Risk Action (KARA), Occasional Authors and Public Policy
. 1 Comment

Mike,

I am the Grandmother of Amy* And we are in desperate need of many new/more voice’s of everyone of the grandparents that have lost our right to be able to see our grandchildren! Either because of the other parent getting custody or just because.

Please can you tell me what you know about being able to make the courts listen to the children and what they have to say, no matter what their age!

thank you so much!

We lost our grandaughter to a man who for some sick reason had to …Get even with our daughter! We no longer were able to see or talk to her, now she is dead!

My father has written a letter to the county and wants some answers from them as to why there is not a more indepth look at the background checks of the Other parent! I know this a very shallow explaination, but I am so lost!

Grammy!

* not a real name

This is one of the letters I’ve received from distraught grandparents trying to convince the local courts that their children were neglecting or abusing their own children. After many years in the child protection system as a guardian ad-Litem, I’m convinced that our systems are overwhelmed and need to be re-thought to include more training, & resources, and better decision making for all involved.

Note, I too have experienced the county returning children to criminally dangerous parents and watching as they destroyed their children.

Copy this post and send it to your state representative

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Call To Justice Forum June 28th

Published
by
Mike Tikkanen

on June 30, 2006

in Crime and Courts, Events, Invisible Children and Kids At Risk Action (KARA)
. 1 Comment

Help ourselves by helping at-risk children;

On June 28, I attended the all day Call to Justice forum at Metro U in Minneapolis with about 500 others. Tom Johnson began the program with an overview of the mountain of research that went into the event and his observation that there is serious racial disparity in our police and court system.

Alan Page, Mayors Rybak and Coleman, smart top officers from both Minneapolis and St. Paul Police departments, Minnesota Senator Julianne Ortman, and a host of other insightful people from the University, the downtown council, WCCO, Hennepin County District Court, Council on Crime and Justice, Target Corp, and others came to talk about reducing racial disparity and enhancing public safety.

Three separate panel discussions and five presenters questioned and debated why the circumstances are so lopsided and what to do about the overrepresentation of people of color in prisons, courts, and jails. At times the discussion was passionate.

I was struck by the measured and open discourse between the panelists and the various approaches to understanding and solving the problems of discrimination and victimization. Many honest hardworking citizens have a very real complaint that they can hardly walk to the store without being stopped by police. The cops are in a hard spot for policing too harshly or not enough.

The North side is under daily assault by gunfire and murder. Families live in fear of bullets and gangsters. No amount of policing is making it easier to live in certain parts of our cities. All the prisons in the world cannot solve the problem of crime in our nation.

Only ten percent of the citations issued in Hennepin County to people of color are prosecuted (90% are dismissed). 44% of African American men living in Hennepin county were arrested in 2001 (without any duplicate arrests). At least six major cities in America have Black male unemployment rates of between 40% and 50% and ex felon rates of between 50% and 60%. There are over 600,000 felons leaving prison each year in America. Minnesota ranks behind only Milwaukee in racial disparity within our courts and prisons (Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas have better records than Minnesota).

Over ten percent of America’s African American men cannot vote because they are barred due to a felony on their record. Minnesota is in its third year of prison growth of over ten percent per year.

It was agreed that we need more decent jobs, preschool and after-school programs, diversity training, and concern for poor people.

No one at the conference addressed the mental health issues that are at the root of the criminal and juvenile justice systems problem.

Judge Kevin Burke answered my question about the role mental health plays in juvenile justice. He stated that 37% of his offenders had a serious mental health diagnosis. The national average appears to be close to 50%.

No one at the forum mentioned Prozac and other psychotropic medications that are being poured into children (as young as four) in our child protection systems without concurrent therapies or treatments. The traumas of child abuse and being removed from a birth family are severe and lasting. Children don’t learn social skills and mental health mending unless systems are in place to help. It takes a village and concentrated resources to make a damaged child healthy again.

I was keenly aware of the best and brightest minds in our community discussing the impossibly complex issues of crime and justice and racial disparity. It was disappointing that no one except Dr. Bravada Garret-Akinsanya (to the best of my memory and notes) brought attention to the fact that the majority of people in the juvenile and criminal justice systems have serious mental health problems that cannot be solved by policing, courts, or school programs. If no one talks about the core issue of mental health, nothing can be done to improve it.

Ending the cycle of child abuse, fetal alcohol syndrome, drug addiction and family violence that currently impacts the lives of America’s at-risk children will save great sums of tax dollars and allow thousands of children to lead normal lives.

Suffering and in great pain, abused and neglected children are unable to learn or succeed in school without restorative services. At-risk children grow into dysfunctional adults and often spend thirty or forty years in and out of public institutions (about 80% of children aging out of foster care lead dysfunctional lives).

While American policy obsesses over ‘terrorism’ and the few thousand ‘crazies’ that would destroy the western world, the exponentially greater problem of cyclical poverty, substance abuse, crime, child abuse, and the prison mentality lies just in front of our noses.

What is filling our prisons and ruining our cities is the methodical destruction of children of families stuck in the generational evolution of poverty, violence, and drug and alcohol addiction.

Children raised in these families enter our public schools, county child protection services and graduate into our juvenile and criminal justice system where they are punished further.

Ask anyone that has worked with abused and neglected children about the value of punishment as a tool to be used on at-risk children. Abused children often view their whole life as a punishment.

Our court system guarantees punishment for the behavioral problems plaguing abused and neglected children. That is why so many of them end up in prison. The correlation is stunning. Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz has stated that 90% of the children in juvenile justice have come out of child protection.

There is no money to be saved by not helping these children gain the skills and mend their behaviors to fit into our communities. We cannot hide from the violence and anger that grows with these children when they are allowed to move through our institutions without being made well.

We will be helping ourselves by helping them. Once the cycle is broken, at-risk children become healthy normal adults leading fully functional lives. Our schools will benefit, our courts, prisons, and jails, will shrink, and our streets will become safe again.

How best to build support for at risk children?

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Missouri Model

Published
by
Mike Tikkanen

on December 17, 2005

in Crime and Courts, Invisible Children, Kids At Risk Action (KARA), Politics and Funding and Public Policy
. 1 Comment

CHILD WATCH™ COLUMN
MISSOURI DIVISION OF YOUTH SERVICES: A MODEL FOR THE NATIONBy Marian Wright Edelman

In a recent column I wrote about the dangerous increase in the criminalization of our children, asking how we got here. Of course, this leads to a second key question: how do we get out? Researchers and practitioners agree that mentoring, tutoring, gang prevention, substance abuse prevention, dropout reduction, community service, quality after-school and summer programs and jobs, and nurse-visitation initiatives are among the right preventive investments in our nation’s youth.

But since 2001, the Bush Administration has proposed funding reductions in federal youth prevention and intervention close to 66 percent. Actual funding has dropped more than 40 percent, with additional cuts being considered for next year — a reckless budgetary decimation of the very programs and services that help keep children out of trouble and on the right path in life.

If we know what works, how can we possibly allow children, particularly poor and minority children, to consistently get the short end of the stick of our budgetary priorities?

Eliminating youth services costs us much more in the long run in terms of our criminal justice system, incarceration and other public costs. Conservative estimates place the total savings of diverting one child from a lifetime of crime at about $1.5 million. Much more importantly, that child has the opportunity to succeed in life – an opportunity that is each person’s God-given birthright. There are models for how we can do this for more of our nation’s children. The state of Missouri’s approach to juvenile justice services gives us one example of how to get things right.

Experts praise Missouri’s Division of Youth Services as a “guiding light” of juvenile justice reform, and they credit Mark Steward, the division’s recently retired director, with building – and sustaining – the finest state juvenile corrections system in the country. Dubbed the “Missouri model” by reformers in other states, the youth corrections system strongly emphasizes rehabilitating young offenders in homey, small-group settings that incorporate constant therapy and positive peer pressure under the direct guidance of well-trained counselors.

When a young person commits a crime, judges generally reserve commitment to a Division of Youth Services residential facility as the final option for only the toughest of cases – about 1,300 each year. For most youths, “aftercare” consists of a prolonged relationship with a case manager. Many youths are also assigned a “tracker”— often college students, or sometimes residents of the youth’s home community, who meet with them regularly to monitor their progress. Missouri also operates 11 nonresidential “day treatment” centers year-round during school hours, and these facilities offer a way station for many teens after leaving a residential facility.

How do we know Missouri’s approach is working? A long-term recidivism study showed that only eight percent of youths released in 1999 were incarcerated in youth or adult corrections three years later, while 19 percent were sentenced to adult probation – meaning nearly three-fourths of these youths had avoided either prison or probation for at least three years. Compared with other states, Missouri’s results are remarkable.

Besides the obvious future savings that accompany its low recidivism rates, the Missouri model is also substantially cheaper than many of its counterparts around the country. In 2004, Missouri’s Division of Youth Services devoted nine out of every ten dollars in its budget to treatment services.

Across the state the annual cost per bed in a residential treatment facility ranged from $41,400 to $55,000, while Maryland spent $64,000 per bed in 2003, and California spent a whopping $71,000. Even worse, far more young people in Maryland and California end up in prison as adults, meaning those states effectively pay twice as much for inferior treatment.
So if successful models like Missouri’s are out there, why isn’t the entire nation following them?

We know what works to keep our children safe and out of trouble. The question is will we actually provide the support for all at-risk children? Our children deserve the chance to survive and thrive and to be protected from the cradle to prison pipeline that steals too many young dreams and futures.

Marian Wright Edelman is President and Founder of the Children’s Defense Fund and its Action Council whose mission is to Leave No Child Behind and to ensure every child a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start, and a Moral Start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities

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guardian conference

Published
by
Mike Tikkanen

on November 12, 2005

in Crime and Courts, Guardian ad-Litem, Health and Mental Health, Invisible Children, Kids At Risk Action (KARA), Politics and Funding and Public Policy
. 0 Comments

I met a multitude of hard working guardian ad-Litems at a their annual conference November 8th and 9th.

Presenter Dr. Jeffrey Edleson explained that reported cases of child endangerment almost doubled (from 1500 to 2500 cases monthly) in Minnesota when the language in the law changed to include children exposed to domestic violence as maltreatment.
The increase in cases so overwhelmed the Child Protection System that the changes were dropped within just a few months.

Dr. Edleson points out that some states have found mothers unfit for being victims of violent assaults (because they had exposed their children to domestic violence.)

This brought back a vivid recollection of Joe Rigert’s Minneapolis Star and Tribune article and his well-researched stories of women incarcerated because the man they lived with was a drug dealer. These women were mostly guilty of being in love with or afraid of a man that treated them badly.

Most women drew longer sentences (under federal mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines) than the perpetrator, they lost custody of their children, and in almost all cases, they had not profited from the criminal’s activity. See Incarcerated Mothers and Their Children.

Because federal prisons were generally far from the homes of these women, they were unable to receive visits from their children. There is no doubt, that our legal system is tortured between understanding the need to make people well, and the habit of punishing everyone to the fullest extent of the law (no matter what the consequences).

We could do At Risk Children a big favor and persistently communicate to our lawmakers that we want child friendly legislation, programs that work for children and families, and no more new prisons (especially women’s prisons).

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100 Years of Juvenile Justice

Published
by
Mike Tikkanen

on November 5, 2005

in Crime and Courts, Health and Mental Health, Invisible Children, Kids At Risk Action (KARA), Politics and Funding and Public Policy
. 0 Comments

At the William Mitchell Law School today, I learned that Minnesota has been a genuine leader in Juvenile Justice in America for one hundred years.

The vast majority of people working with abused and neglected children quickly see the need for healing the mental and emotional scars left on children that have been terribly abused by their parents.

Most thinking people also perceive the benefits to the larger society of making children well and allowing them to become productive members of society (instead of leaving them dysfunctional and to go on to have more dysfunctional progeny).

Healing children through the efforts of the courts is making some people stretch their brain to accommodate something other than an adversarial approach to a Justice System.

Today at the William Mitchell Law Schools Conference on Innovations Ideas in Juvenile Law I observed the incongruity of bright committed people arguing opposite ends of the spectrum.

This would be just an interesting curiosity if it did not so glaringly exemplify the difference between healing emotionally and mentally disturbed children and imprisoning kids whose entire lives have been a punishment.

I call it our abandonment of twice-abused children. Once by their parents, and once by our Justice System.

Instead of assessing their mental status, we send them to jails and boot camps, to reinforce how different they are from we good people and why they must live apart from us.

I’m won’t recite the mental illness statistics within the Juvenile or Criminal Justice Systems (way over half), but I will draw your attention to the fact that most of the children in Minnesota’s Juvenile Justice System have come out of Child Protection system and most of the adults in Criminal Justice have come out of Juvenile Justice.

Inevitably, these children go on to spend many years in our institutions.

They hate it, we hate it, and great expense and suffering is incurred along the way as it happens.

Some very smart people at the Symposium suggested that we just quit doing counterproductive things and do things that work. There are so many successful models.

We’ll save big money and many lives and we’ll feel much better about ourselves.

Thank you William Mitchell for your Symposium celebrating 100 years of Juvenile Courts in Minnesota. This was a much needed public dialogue.

It is efforts like yours that will spread the word and make people see the wisdom of better public policy towards children.

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National Workshop On Adult & Juvenile Female Offenders

Published
by
Mike Tikkanen

on October 21, 2005

in Crime and Courts, Health and Mental Health, Invisible Children, Kids At Risk Action (KARA), mike tikkanen speaking, Politics and Funding and Public Policy
. 0 Comments

This last weekend I attended and presented at the 11th National Workshop on Adult & Juvenile Female Offenders held in Bloomington MN.

There were wardens and justice workers from many states & many stories. America has 25% of the world’s prison population.

The Program was committed to Gender, Environment, Relationships, Services & Supervision, Socioeconomic Status, and Community for women.

I discovered committed and intellegent people trying to effect positive change within communities that are becoming more open to new approaches.

Where progressive programs are encouraged (like Shakopee Women’s Prison used to be), recidivism is greatly reduced, while in regressive communities (some states still shackle women prisoners in child birth) recidivism for women offenders is about the same it is for male offenders.

Last year, 33 states held children and juveniles with mental illness in detention centers without any charges.

In 2001, nearly 2/3 of California local law enforcement departments did not have written guidelines governing the care of children whose sole caretaker had been arrested (Marilyn Moses, article in Police Chief, Sept 2005)

In Boston, the 9 year old Arts Incentive Program found that 57% of those with criminal records who were redirected to mental-health care have not be re-arrested or involved with the courts.

In the Texas Outreach & Tracking program participants had a 65% lower re-arrest rate than kids on parole. There are many states with great programs.

Chicago’s Child-Parent Centers have served 100,000 three and four year-olds since 1967. Findings indicate that the program cut the rates of child abuse and neglect in half.

The Nurse Family Partnership in Elmira, NY, reduced incidents of child abuse by 80% and children from families not in the program had twice as many arrests by age 15.

It’s hard to believe the vast differences between communities. Some policy makers are genuinely committed to breaking the cycle of violence, abuse, and neglect that drives emotionally and mentally disturbed people into lives on the edge of society.

Other political leaders are still banging pots and screaming for more prisons and fewer resources for people struggling to succeed.

From a strictly financial perspective, investing in children to solve problems (through repeatable proven programs) is a miniscule investment compared to the twenty, thirty, and forty years these children can spend in child protection and future correctional facilities.

We must also consider the havoc they wreak on the lives of the people within our communities and the progeny that follow them into our institutions.

The speaker I followed, Susan George, PhD Associate Professor, Harris Graduate School of Public Policy, University of Chicago,completed a large study showing relationships between foster children and incarcerated mothers and a significant growth in the number of children being born to women in the system.

A tremendous cost to society of not treating children and juveniles when they are still young enough to effect change, is the exponential addition of the next generation of potentially troubled children they bring into your community. The average number of children born to women in the Illinois systems has grown from three to four (Susan George’s recent study).

Our Federal Reserve Board Chairman, Art Rolnick has proven conservatively, that investments in early childhood programs exceed other public spending in return on investment percentages.

Citizens ask, “where will get find the money” when they ought to be asking, “how are we spending our Money?”

As a long time guardian ad-Litem working with youth in the court system, I continue to see huge sums spent on counter-productive mental health treatments, poorly designed and supported residential treatment facilities & other partial attempts to deal with serious problems.

One damaged child, without proper support can develop severe and lasting mental and emotional problems that stick to them for life.

Studies on foster home children indicate that eighty percent of foster home graduates go on to lead dysfunctional lives of mental illness, drug dependency, crime, and unemployment.

Many of these children will have lived in multiple foster placements and incur very real and very costly care before they leave their foster home placements. Think of how untreated abused children impact your schools, city streets, and police departments.

Examples:

http://www.invisiblechildren.org/2009/02/08/mn-early-childhood-summit-speech-david-lawrence/

http://www.invisiblechildren.org/2005/12/17/missouri-model/

Conferences like the National Workshop on Adult & Juvenile Female Offenders, exemplify that most of the people in the system care, there are many successful programs, and perhaps most of all, sharing information is critical to success in saving our community’s children.

Let’s do more of that.

In the weeks and months to come, I will post successful and unsuccessful programs and stories that I have gathered.

Send them to me.

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Perspective

Published
by
Mike Tikkanen

on September 29, 2005

in Crime and Courts, Guardian ad-Litem, Health and Mental Health, Invisible Children, Kids At Risk Action (KARA), Politics and Funding and Public Policy
. 0 Comments

Today I spoke with 40 social workers and service providers in a small room for almost 90 minutes.

We talked about perspective and how each of us has a different experience with abused and abandoned children and the institutions and services that work to help them.

Like the “elephant in a dark room” analogy- each of us has a hand on a different part of the elephant. It’s the same elephant but it feels very different depending on if your hand is on the trunk, the tail, or a leg.
We all agreed that the systems and institutions designed and built to serve troubled children are not working properly and changes need to be made.

We all agreed that it’s not educators wrecking schools, nor social workers purposefully trying to destroy the lives of the children under their care.

We are confident that the police and juvenile justice workers are not trying to incarcerate poor and needy children.

What seems to be the underlying dysfunction is the poor public policy that has continued to deny services to children in Child Protection while creating more jail cells, harsher sentencing, and a focus on punishment and away from rehabilitation.

The children this group works so diligently to help for the most part end up as adolescent felons and preteen mothers no matter what the service providers do.

As long as government resources continue to pour into Criminal Justice systems and not Mental Health services;

graduation rates will remain at 50 – 60%, high school rates of illiteracy will remain at 25% upon graduation,

recidivism in criminal justice at 66%

our insurance rates will reflect the twenty year statistic that about one out of five Americans is the victim of a crime each year.

The sad thing is that we all know it’s broken and we know what needs to be done.

It’s just that our policy makers don’t appear to appreciate the failed history of punishing abused and neglected children.

Most lawmakers ask, “where is the money going to come from?” when they should be asking, “where is the money going?”

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Saving Money Saving Children

Published
by
Mike Tikkanen

on September 21, 2005

in Crime and Courts, Invisible Children, Kids At Risk Action (KARA), Politics and Funding and Public Policy
. 0 Comments

Hurricane Katrina caused great suffering for thousands of innocent people. Katrina’s adult victims have lost everything but with help, they can still have hope for a return to normal. In five, or ten years the majority of Katrina’s adult victims will have started new lives and Katrina will only be a painful memory.

Ignoring well-known and completely understood dangers creates harm that lingers for years and innocent people will struggle to recover their broken lives. Children removed from a birth-home because of abuse and neglect, have also lost everything. But abused children do not have the benefit of having lived a normal life to which they can return.

A key difference between Katrina’s adults and abused and abandoned children stuck in Child Protection systems is that adjusting and returning to normal is just not possible for most children.
Abandoned children are unable to even envision just what “normal” is.

They see it around them, they want it, but they can’t achieve it. They weren’t taught “normal” in their birth homes. These children learned chaotic and insane behaviors at a young age. Instead of learning how to interact with peers they learned about violence and alcohol, sex and drugs.

Children raised with sex, drugs, violence, and insanity develop differently than normal kids. Abandoned children do not have the skills of socialization.

Abused children have adapted their behaviors to survive in impossible environments. Most of their adapted behaviors are asocial and personally destructive outside of their toxic home environment.

Generally they fail at school, with peers, and with authority figures. The consequences of these deficiencies are ruining the lives of At Risk Children and our society.

Failing schools, preteen pregnancy rates, and burgeoning prison populations point to the severe and lasting impact abused and abandoned children are having on our communities.

About 90% of the children in juvenile justice systems have come out of child protection systems (MN Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz). About 90% of the adults in the criminal justice system have come out of the juvenile justice system. We have created a Prison Feeder system.

Child abuse is to children, what Katrina was to the tens of thousands of Louisiana’s suffering adults. A catastrophic disruption in the normal process of life on earth.

Three million children a year are referred into child protection systems in the U.S. Almost one million children are removed from their birth families. It’s eerie that 600,000 felons are released from American prisons every year.

Had the Army Corp of Engineers been allowed to make the necessary upgrades to Louisiana’s locks and levies the huge expense of rebuilding an entire city could have been avoided. The catastrophic death and suffering of tens of thousands of Louisiana residents could have been avoided also.

If America was to practice a proactive approach to our abused and neglected children, we could avoid the huge expenses of crime, prisons, failing schools, and preteen pregnancies.

Our schools would work and fewer fourteen and fifteen year old girls would have babies that they cannot care for.

We have the resources.

We know what the problem is.

We must quit wasting money on prisons and punishment of children that have been punished all their lives.

Vote for early childhood programs and support mental health initiatives.
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Intelligent Design

Published
by
Mike Tikkanen

on June 5, 2005

in Crime and Courts, Health and Mental Health, Invisible Children, Kids At Risk Action (KARA) and Public Policy
. 0 Comments

As a guardian ad-Litem speaking for voiceless children born into toxic and violent homes, placed in overburdened child protection systems, and finally into court systems and prisons, I have been thinking about public policy making.

Designing public policy to accomplish certain goals is an important and difficult process that needs public discourse. Institutions are defined by what they actually do (as opposed to what we claim they do.) We the people, as in the voting citizenry need to appreciate our role in the political process that creates public policy.

Schools, Juvenile Justice, Child Protection, Police departments, Courts, and Criminal Justice systems are supposed to work together to foster the development of children and keep our communities safe and livable.

44% of African American men living in Hennepin County were arrested in 2001. No duplicate arrests (in fact 58% of those men went on to be rearrested within two years.) With only 4% of the worlds population, America has 25% of the worlds prison population. America’s prison recidivism rate remains at about 66%.

Five of America’s largest cities have African American adult male populations with a 50% unemployment ratio. Those same cities have an ex offender ratio of over 50% among the same population.

Almost 13% of all African American men can’t vote because they are felons. It’s almost impossible for a felon to procure meaningful work at decent wages.

48% of African American High School boys dropped out of Minneapolis Public schools in 2001.

Almost half of African American boys are in special needs classes or treated for emotional or mental health problems.

The cost of one child dropping out of school into a life of crime is estimated at between one million five hundred thousand dollars and ten million dollars.

Creating public policies that help ensure literacy and high school graduation is within our grasp. Twenty other industrialized nations have done it much better than we have.

Minnesota spends 5.3 times more money per prisoner than per public school student and we have one prison staff member for each 5.4 inmates. Minnesota prisons have been growing faster than almost any other segment of our state these last few years (averaging over 12% growth per year for the last 2 years.)

America ranks 91st among the other nations in staff to student ratios (there are only twenty other industrialized nations.)

Is this an intelligent design for our institutions or a fair approach to public policy?

If the idea is to create systems that fill our courts, prisons, and public schools with people of color with poor educations and mental health problems, then we are doing very well indeed.

If we want public policy that makes for safe streets, high functioning schools and youth, and a return to the superior quality of life indices that this nation maintained from after the second world war to the end of the 1970′s, it seems a longer term and more studied approach needs to be taken.

Pliny the elder, 2500 years ago, “what you do to your children, they will do to your society”

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Abused Children and Crime

Published
by
Mike Tikkanen

on May 24, 2005

in Crime and Courts, Guardian ad-Litem, Health and Mental Health, Invisible Children, Kids At Risk Action (KARA), Mike Tikkanen and Public Policy
. 1 Comment

Unlearning Child Abuse (or go to prison)

Children are not aware of the rightness or wrongness of their own abuse. They do not know that abuse is abnormal, or even that it is wrong. To a five-year-old, no matter how painful and frightening her life is, her life is normal. A sad and lasting fact of child abuse is that children blame themselves for the abuse they receive.

How can sex, drugs, and violence be unlearned by a ten year old child whose entire life has been just that? It takes years of therapy to change a child’s perception of an abusive past. It takes a great deal longer for an abused child to develop a healthy view of the world and a positive self-image. Our child protection systems don’t provide much therapy.

There is no book a child can go to, or code they are born with, that explains the abnormality of what is happening to them. Children can’t call their senators, or complain to the authorities (they can’t even tell their parents).

These children are invisible in our community, yet each one of us is directly responsible for their plight. They live under our laws; they go to our schools; they are convicted by our courts; many of them spend lifetimes in our prisons. They have no say in the laws and policies that rule their lives. Just like they had no say in the neglect and abuse that was their childhood.

Neglected and abused children make up a great majority of the crime, drugs, and violence we experience in our communities. Over fifty percent of the children in the juvenile justice system have diagnosable mental illness.

Ninety percent of the juveniles in the Juvenile Justice System have come out of the Child Protection System (Minnesota’s Chief Justice, Kathleen Blatz). Over 90 percent of the adults in the Criminal Justice System come out of the Juvenile Justice System. Justice Blatz (and others) call it a prison “feeder” system.

The United States is the only nation in the world to build prisons based on failed third grade reading scores.

Behaviors learned by abused children to stay alive in toxic homes are terribly counter-productive once the child is out of the abusive circumstances and trying to live a normal life. The behaviors developed for staying alive and avoiding pain dominate and thus can become significant detriments to getting along in society. As a matter of fact, for many troubled youth, their explosive responses and pain avoidance behaviors define them as social misfits and send them to prison.

There has got to be a better way to deal with abused and abandoned children in our communities.

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A Normal Kid

Published
by
Mike Tikkanen

on April 26, 2005

in Crime and Courts, Health and Mental Health, Kids At Risk Action (KARA) and Public Policy
. 2 Comments

Jeff Weise was a normal kid.

He was just a “normal kid,” until his father killed himself in a police standoff, his mother told him his birth was a mistake and she wished he’d never been born. Jeff Weise listed hating, death and dying as his hobbies and interests on his website.

Jeff tried suicide with razor blades and a therapist put him on Class II narcotics to treat him for his depression (psycho pharmaceutical drugs without ongoing therapy.)

“My mom used to abuse me allot when I was little” and “She used to drink excessively too.” Were posted on a website attributed to Jeff Weise (Star Tribune, I Really Must Be Worthless, 3/24/05.)

A functioning child protection system would have at least been looking for seriously damaged children that fit Jeff’s profile. It is clear that Jeff Weise suffered childhood trauma and would have benefited by having a relationship with an adult who understood emotional and mental health issues.

Do we think we are saving money by not providing services to mentally ill children? Providing psychotropic medications to children with severe mental health issues without providing the therapy is wrong (and perhaps dangerous). There is a growing body of evidence that this approach leads to worse results than if left untreated.

The key here is therapy. Drugs with therapy can work. What are solvable problems to children receiving the help they need instead of the madness that created the violence that consumed Jeff.

As a volunteer guardian ad-Litem, this story is all too common. There are millions of abused and neglected children in this country who deserve the help that Jeff didn’t get either. Many of them are medicated with psychoactive narcotics without adequate therapy also.

A school administered mental health assessment would have discovered Jeff Weiss. He could have received the help he needed to lead a full and productive life. This child was not born crazy; he was made crazy by the adults in his life. No one helped him. He deserved better.

Jeff Weise killed seven people and wounded seven more before taking his own life on March 21st in Red Lake MN.

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A Week After Redlake

Published
by
Mike Tikkanen

on March 28, 2005

in Crime and Courts, Guardian ad-Litem, Health and Mental Health, Invisible Children, Kids At Risk Action (KARA), Mike Tikkanen and Public Policy
. 2 Comments

The media is still filled with coverage Jeff Weiss and the Red Lake tragedy. The pattern repeats itself; tragedy, outrage, and wonder about how it happened and what should be done about it.

A special national Swat team of psychologists has been flown into Red Lake to deal with grieving students.

In a few weeks the TV and Newspaper coverage will die down and we will go on to the next tragedy and repeat the process.

It pains me that there are no serious discussions about the mental health issues that create these violent tragedies or the steps that could be taken to help seriously troubled children cope with their problems.

As a long time guardian ad-Litem I see the sadness, depression, and mental health issues that seriously affect so many children. Our culture does not recognize or help these kids. While psychotropic medications are everywhere, the kind of therapy that makes a difference is sadly lacking. I have not seen it in any of the cases I have worked on at Hennepin county.

I have two GAL children who have been with me for over six years (Alex and Nancy). I profile their lives in my book INVISIBLE CHILDREN.

Had my young friends received mental health counseling when they were young, they might have been able to lead normal lives. Instead, they are full of self-loathing and dangerous behaviors, prescribed Class II stimulant drugs (like Prozac), and they have both tried suicide. In these respects, they are just like Jeff Weiss.

Jeff let many people know his homicidal/suicidal thoughts. There was simply no help available for a very troubled young man. The suffering of the living will go on for many years. If you know anyone that has lost a loved one to violence you will understand this.

How a little care might have prevented this awful tragedy could be a lesson. I am always hopeful.

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Crime and Justice & a Great Sadness

Published
by
Mike Tikkanen

on March 25, 2005

in Crime and Courts, Invisible Children, Kids At Risk Action (KARA) and Mike Tikkanen
. 0 Comments

Today I met with Tom Johnson—he runs the Council on Crime and Justice in Minneapolis.

We both have roots to Floodwood MN where my Finnish grandparents let me stay with them on the farm each summer when I was a boy (instead of getting in trouble with my pals in the inner city.)

One of the things Tom and I spoke of was the sense of warmth and community that existed growing up in a rural community.

Powerful feelings divide us within our communities today and impact the way we vote to treat our neighbors (education, race, social safety nets.)

I find it painful that Councilman Don Samuels is kept busy holding vigils for murdered young men (almost every week) on the North side.

It hurts me that so few people care that Roosevelt high school graduated 28% of its students last year, or know that 44% of African American men living in Hennepin County were arrested in 2001.

How disconnected can we become?

What do you feel when a baby is found dead in a dumpster, a young person deliberately murders innocent people, or some other insane tragedy fills the headlines?

Do you feel a sense of loss and sadness for the suffering of the parties involved?

Or are you filled with judgment and a need to blame someone and a desire for punishment?

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Kids At Risk Action (KARA)

Kids At Risk Action (KARA) is a non-profit advocacy network focusing on issues related to neglected and abused children. Founded by Mike Tikkanen, a businessman turned socially-concerned citizen, KARA works to educate individuals and communities about the need to protect the rights of children. More on our About Us page.

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