National Workshop On Adult & Juvenile Female Offenders

This last weekend as 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.

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

This blog will address community issues.

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.

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 both
successful and unsuccessful programs and stories that I have gathered.

Please send me your stories of success and failure.

mike@invisiblechildren.org

I will post them on my website (under news)

Let me know if I may attribute them to you.


Mike Tikkanen

A Myth That Will Bring Down America

There is a myth about our public education system that has the potential of bringing down our nation. The myth is that the lack of funds does not plague America’s schools.

A year ago the St. Paul Pioneer Press published a series designed to help voters make choices leading to the November election. It ran for several weeks and featured listing of "facts unfiltered".

In an issue devoted to education, one of the facts voters could take to the bank was that America spends more money per K-12 pupil than any nation except Switzerland. In other words, putting more money into education is not the answer.

The idea that we spend as much or more on K-12 education is a myth. The truth is that our peer democracies devote far greater resources on educating their children. Until we realize the myth for what it is, we are on our way down.

One of the most important reasons for a good public education system is to insure that all of our children get the best possible start in life. If we care about our country, we should want all children to be successful.

Educating our kids isn’t just a priority, it is the highest priority.

There are two critical factors that determine the success of education.

First, children must come to the process ready to learn. That means they have good nutrition and good health. It also means that their young minds are nurtured and that they are comfortable with children their own age. Second, the teachers need to be of the highest quality possible.

Combining kids ready to learn and excellent teaching leads to educated children.

What do other nations do that we do not? I can cite the countries of Northern Europe because I lived in three of them for a total of ten years. I have been in their schools.

I also served on a Fulbright scholarship committee working with education leaders.

Every child in these countries has preventative health care, homelessness among children is forbidden, they have the lowest rates of infant mortality, and they lead the world with the lowest rates of child poverty.

On average their child poverty is one sixth of America’s!

Every child has access to high quality pre-school child care. For example, the pre-kindergarten centers in Denmark are run by the ministry of education and child care workers are required to have three years of child development training after high school. Most Danish parents work so nearly every child attends these pre-school centers and they are ready to learn when they start kindergarten.

Their schools offer breakfasts so no child starts school on an empty stomach. In Finland, taxpayer paid school lunches are served to all kids, and every school has a dentist who provides in-school dental care. None of these countries has America’s silent epidemic of tooth decay as described by former Surgeon General David Satcher.

European teachers have greater support and they are far less likely to leave teaching for a higher paying job elsewhere. These countries also provide tuition for higher educations so qualifying children of teachers do not rely on their parents to pay for college.

In the US we have too many kids living in poverty, homeless, without health care, hungry, and left alone while parents work several jobs. Too many school children are not ready to learn, estimated at 35% by child development experts, and they never recover.

We have the highest rate of 12th grade illiteracy and the highest dropout rate. Too many end up in gangs, on the street, and ultimately in prison.


Spending on K-12 education is not limited to the cost of operating schools. That’s the small picture. The comprehensive resources devoted to child health, nutrition, early child care, housing and antipoverty programs result in a massive investment aimed at giving every child a chance to succeed in school.

In Minnesota we are going in reverse. The National Women’s Law Center has just ranked our state 40th nationwide in support for low income child care. In 2000 we ranked in the top five. In a breathtaking reaction to this report, Republican state rep Fran Bradley stated, "Our taxpayers remain very generous compared to other states".


In our race to the bottom, some Minnesotans don’t seem to understand the issue. Providing resources to help children succeed is not a question of generosity. It is the life blood of America and it is a moral obligation.

The Pioneer Press was wrong, and their unfiltered fact is a horrible myth. We do not value educating our children, and that means we do not value children. That is shameful.

My friend Mike Tikkanen has written a new book, Invisible Children. On its opening page he quotes Pliny the Elder. "What we do to our children, they will do to society".

Amen.

David Strand

Author, Nation Out of Step

A Public Unconscious

The beginning of a solution to a problem begins with building support by raising public awareness.

Raising awareness about issues such as child abuse and neglect is not an easy task. Child abuse is a difficult conversation to have and in the end I have no concrete answers for fixing such a large scale problem.

It is much easier to talk with my friends about the need for a new stadium. Professional sports is a much more enjoyable conversation to have than asking what to do with the thousands of children in Child Protection Systems.

While not necessarily true, it's easier to convince people that millions spent on stadiums will have greater economic benefits than millions spent on early childhood programs.

The complexities of policies impacting the lives of at risk children are not well explained in a twenty minute conversation.

Federal Reserve Board Chairman Art Rolnick through extensive research has proved that rates of return on money spent on early childhood programs are greater than tax money spent on malls and stadiums (FedGazzette, March 2003).

But who reads the FedGazzette?

As a community we will continue to turn our backs on the hard topic of child abuse because the answers are painful and we don't see how the issues personally impact us.

Until we take the time to explore the core problems, the public (we the people) will be unwilling to pay for long term solutions.

It may be that we are doomed to third world status in education, health care, children living in poverty, crime, and huge prison populations until we reaffirm a committment to child friendly legislation and programs.

Child abuse affects each and every one of us every day. We pay for at risk children each year in taxes & insurance premiums, and the detriment they cause our schools, health provider systems, courts, and community.

Public policy that builds new stadiums might make us a little happier on the night of the game. But the walk home could be dangerous if you live in the city. Minneapolis public schools 53% graduation rates won't be positively impacted by a new stadium. Health care costs will continue to rise (the expense of treating at risk kids is very high). The list of impacts at risk children have on our communities is long.

I know that by sheer public will a new stadium will be built.

I don’t see a sign of a public will to end child abuse anywhere in sight.

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Contributing editor,
Chad M. Ramaker, Intern
Grasstops
Phone: (651) 228-7222
275 East 4th Street. Suite 705
St. Paul, MN 55101