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Aug222019

American Crime Costs & Statistics

AAA Featured Slider Post, Crime and Courts, for the record, Kids At Risk Action (KARA), mass incarceration, Public Policy, Statistics & FactsLeave a comment

Louisiana (the World’s Prison Capitol), Georgia, Mississippi, Oklahoma & several other states have incarceration rates 20 times that of incarceration rates in most other industrialized nations. The best prisons in the world release good neighbors back into the community American prisons release hardened criminals with mental health problems and an 80% change of recidivism within five years.

Federal Prisons are 131% of design capacity – 2015 18 states are over capacity. 800% increase in women in prison since 1980.

These statistics and research calculate crime in America today and its cost…

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Aug52019

It Didn’t Start In a Vacuum (crime – impact & statistics)

ACES, Crime and Courts, Kids At Risk Action (KARA), Public Policy, Statistics & FactsLeave a comment

DJ Tice Star Tribune article recently made crime very real by describing his wife’s rape, his own assault and home burglary along with the awful Barry Latzer assumption that 80% of Americans could become victims of a violent crime in their lifetime.

No obfuscation here.

Crime hurts when it happens to you or someone you love.

What best should be done about crime and punishment is our national conundrum.

Damn the data, “hanging’s too good for em’ and “lock em up” our national chant for fifty years bringing us such data as;

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Jul162019

Hard to Watch; Immigration & Children as Political Footballs

Crime and Courts, International Child Abuse, Politics and Funding, Public Policy, Statistics & FactsLeave a comment

Dropping napalm on children and families in Vietnam (PBS video) was an unforgivable evil. Thousands of small children died by napalm.

Burned alive is the most painful death anyone can suffer. Survivors live with scars and trauma that never end.

Today, my government takes helpless babies & children from parents and places them in the custody of money driven defense contractors who warehouse them in cages at vacant shopping centers by the thousands.

The American Psychological Association condemns this act as needlessly cruel threatening “the mental and physical health of both the children and their caregivers”.

*Torturing immigrant children for political reasons is a vile act and it needs to be called out. *The World Health Organization defines torture as “extended exposure to violence and deprivation”.

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Jun262019

Beat Up, Dead & Prostituted – Kids In CA’s, Florida’s Privatized Foster Care & Juvenile Systems (videos)

Child Death, Crime and Courts, Invisible Children, Kids At Risk Action (KARA), mass incarceration, Politics and Funding, Public Policy, The StatesLeave a comment

These videos are disturbing but accurate. Not knowing cannot help the state ward children of Florida (the password is “foster”). What we know, we can change. What we don’t know, gets worse until we do know.

Florida To Completely Privatize Juvenile Correctional Facilities. In an effort to reduce costs, Florida’s state-run residential programs for juveniles will soon be completely privatized. … About 95 percent of Florida’s youth residential facilities for underaged offenders are now privately run.

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Apr62019

It’s Enough To Make You Sick

child abuse, Crime and Courts, International Child Abuse, Politics and Funding, Public PolicyLeave a comment

Being involved in child protection, you see people torture their children and it is traumatizing.

It’s gets worse if you witness the impact trauma and terror have on a child in your caseload and you watch school and peer failure and how a child’s life is destined to play out.

Unhealthy children become unhealthy adults.

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Feb272019

National Workshop On Adult & Juvenile Female Offenders

Crime and Courts, Health and Mental Health, Kids At Risk Action (KARA), mike tikkanen speaking, Politics and Funding, Public PolicyLeave a comment

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

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Oct52018

30.2 % of America’s Youth Arrested Before Their 23rd Birthday (25% of us are state wards & special needs people)

AAA Featured Slider Post, Crime and Courts, for the record, Health and Mental Health, mass incarceration, Politics and Funding, Public PolicyLeave a comment

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, either of which could reduce the stresses driving the extreme growth in crime and courts.

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Sep292018

Judge Kavanaugh, The Catholic Church, Statistics & Child Sex Abuse

child sex abuse, Crime and Courts, Kids At Risk Action (KARA), Politics and Funding, Public Policy, Statistics & FactsLeave a comment

The miserable politics of rape at the highest level in our government are playing out today. Once more, sexual violence is in the spotlight as America’s second recent Supreme Court nominee (Kavanaugh) is being questioned about horrid behaviors of a sexual nature.

This topic has few friends. It remains under the surface until someone makes a painful accusation and the community accepts or rejects the accuser.

Our attention lately has been on the tens of million and hundreds of million dollar verdicts awarded to victims of church sanctioned child abuse (3 billion to date).

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Jul112018

Reported Child Sex Abuse for June 2018

Crime and Courts, Public Policy, Reporting, Sad Stories, Statistics & Facts, The StatesLeave a comment

2 Nodaway County men charged with child molestation, sexual abuse
Maryville Daily Forum
NODAWAY COUNTY, Mo. — Two Nodaway County men were charged on May 18 with several counts of felony child molestation and sexual abuse in …
Flag as irrelevant

Creep accused of sexually abusing 5-year-old girl may have more victims, cops ask public to help …
New York Daily News
Investigators fear he may have molested other children. They released a photo of him Wednesday and asked the public’s help finding additional …
Flag as irrelevant

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Jul22018

Child Death & Sex Abuse May 2018 (7) find your state here

Child Death, Crime and Courts, Kids At Risk Action (KARA), Public Policy, Sad Stories, Statistics & Facts, The StatesLeave a comment

NH parents of child who died arrested on drug charges
Boston 25 News
Following the child’s death, police executed a search warrant at 473 Hevey St. and said they found 28.1 grams of heroin, 11.8 grams of cocaine, 15.3 …
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Day care provider enters guilty plea in baby death case
MLive.com
MUSKEGON COUNTY, MI – A day care provider has pleaded guilty to child neglect in a case involving the death of a toddler in her care at the hands of …
Flag as irrelevant

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Jul22018

Criminalizing Mental Illness (statistics & stories)

Crime and Courts, Health and Mental Health, Kids At Risk Action (KARA)Leave a comment

It is upsetting that the only significant authoritative voice speaking to the horrific practice of criminalizing mental illness is Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek.

Stanek’s Star Tribune article today paints the ugly picture of mentally ill patients not charged with any crime, locked up in a tiny, isolated, empty cell for 23 hours a day for months at a time because there is no other place for them.

HCMC downtown is seeing 800 to 1000 emergency psych visits/month, MN hospitals are turning away mental health patients and a very large percentage of people in the juvenile and criminal justice system suffer from diagnosable mental health problems.

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Jun282018

Prozac, Poison & Children (May 2018)

Child Death, Crime and Courts, Kids At Risk Action (KARA), Sad Stories, The StatesLeave a comment

Dramatic rise in ADHD medication mishaps among kids, report finds
ABC News
Nationwide, more than 156,000 calls were placed to poison control centers for exposure to ADHD drugs among those 19 or younger between 2000 …
New study released on ADHD sheds light on rising calls of medication exposure: Experts stress … – WMBF

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Jun202018

Children at the Border “Torture; “extended exposure to violence and deprivation” (World Health Organization’s definition of torture)

Crime and Courts, Health and Mental Health, Kids At Risk Action (KARA), Politics and Funding, Public PolicyLeave a comment

The psychotropic medicating (Prozac, Ritalin and Zoloft type drugs) of very young children was deemed worthy of billions in civil fines for big pharmaceutical companies not long ago. Today, America is illegally drugging migrant children with psychotropics without parental consent. It is a crime.

Torture is what happens to a child separated from her mother at a U.S. boarder crossing. Torture results in trauma. Children in cages – toddlers in pens? Traumatizing children has a very real effect on a child’s developing brain, impacts mental health and can last forever. To think this government has a policy of drugging and torturing children should be a wake up call that this administration will stop at nothing to achieve a small political gain.

It’s wrong and we should all be ashamed.

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Jun122018

Child Welfare by State (statistics & news April 2018 (9) child death

Child Death, Crime and Courts, Kids At Risk Action (KARA), Politics and Funding, Public Policy, Sad Stories, Statistics & Facts, The StatesLeave a comment

American states are struggling to find answers for ending adverse childhood experiences (ACES) and saving at risk children by reversing the explosive growth of child abuse and neglect. Today, many state ward children are the 4th and 5th generation of abused children raising their own families without parenting skills and with serious drug, alcohol and mental health issues

37% of children overall and 57% of Black children are reported to child protection services in America by the time they turn 18. (American Journal of Public Health 1.17)

12 million children a year are reported to child protection services each year and in many states, 1/3 of foster children are required to take psychotropic medicines

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May42018

Police & Lack of Coordination (thank you Safe Passage for Children)

Child Death, Crime and Courts, Kids At Risk Action (KARA), Public PolicyLeave a comment

Today’s article at Safe Passages for children makes a very serious point.

I advocated for a boy (call him Andy) over many years who was suicidal on multiple occasions. He spoke about his own violence against cops. The hatred Andy had towards police as figures of authority are common to abused children. Andy was suicidal and could have caused his own death by his actions.

When I met Andy, he was 7 years old, covered in bruises, had been left alone in the home tied to a bed for days at a time (from 4 to 7 years of age) without food or water. He was on multiple psychotropic medications for his profound mental health issues.

Several children in my CASA guardian ad Litem caseload had multiple run ins with police -some very serious. It is dangerous to the officer and the child when there is no coordination between Child Protection & Law Enforcement. All Adults are the Protectors of All Children

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Apr32018

ACE Study, Crime & Ramsey County (reprinted from 2006)

Crime and Courts, education, Guardian ad-Litem, Invisible Children, Kids At Risk Action (KARA), mass incarceration, Politics and Funding, Public Policy, ResourcesLeave a comment

ACE research shows a strong historical pattern of criminality in families of child delinquents. Using Cohen’s estimates, we calculate the multi-generational “multiplier effect” to be between $3.4 and $11.5 million. In these families, criminality is likely to grow exponentially.

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Mar22018

Sad Stories Feb 2018 Part II (child abuse articles & statistics)

Child Death, Crime and Courts, Health and Mental Health, Invisible Children, Kids At Risk Action (KARA), Politics and Funding, Public Policy, Sad Stories, Statistics & Facts, The StatesLeave a comment

American states are struggling to find answers for ending adverse childhood experiences and saving at risk children by reversing the explosive growth of child abuse and neglect. Today, many state ward children are the 4th and 5th generation of abused children raising their own families without parenting skills and with serious drug, alcohol and mental health issues.

37% of children overall and 57% of Black children are reported to child protection services in America by the time they turn 18.

(American Journal of Public Health 1.17)

12 million children a year are reported to child protection services each year and in many states, 1/3 of foster children are required to take psychotropic medicines

ALL ADULTS ARE THE PROTECTORS OF ALL CHILDREN

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Feb252018

Faith Healing Child Death (more common than you think)

Child Death, Crime and Courts, Kids At Risk Action (KARA), Public Policy, The StatesLeave a comment

Two members of an Oregon Sect that believes in faith healing were charged with murder in the death of their premature infant daughter. What would Jesus do? this is not a difficult spiritual question.

8 month old Brandon Schaible died of treatable pneumonia as did two year old Ella Foster because their parents didn’t believe in medicine, Two of Herbert and Catherine Schaible’s children died years apart from each other for the same reason.

Children in Idaho have been dying by the dozens for years at the hands of their parents. By 2014 144 children lay in the Peaceful Valley Cemetery because their parents denied them available medical care – it is likely that the number is above 200 today.

This U.S.is the only nation on the planet to not sign the International Rights of the Child Treaty, most likely because the treaty bans training children as soldiers which our Southern States do regularly (military schools).

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Feb162018

A #ProtectChildrenToo Movement? (Thank You Safe Passage For Children of MN)

CASA, Crime and Courts, Guardian ad-Litem, Invisible Children, Kids At Risk Action (KARA), Public PolicyLeave a comment

This morning’s ebrief from Safe Passage for Children of MN is spot on. Their legislative efforts to stop the practice of advance notice of child protection visits to perpetrators is crucial in ending child abuse. Putting perpetrators in the room with a child during the interview is traumatizing for the child and has a profound impact on what the child will say. Giving perpetrators prior notice of investigations allows them time to threaten and cohearse a child. As a long time CASA guardian ad Litem, this is all too familiar.

Most children are not aware of how wrong their abuse is – what happens at home is by definition normal. My youngest sexual abuse case was 2 years old.

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Feb92018

Expression (the suffering is immense – anonymous)

Crime and Courts, Health and Mental Health, Invisible Children, Kids At Risk Action (KARA), Occasional AuthorsLeave a comment

Every day, Every thought, Every act

Tainted by prior trauma

That part of the mind effortlessly calculating numbers, finding words and laughing at funny things

Is absent in a tortured child*

Instead

The darkness from before

Spits out bad words, regrettable behaviors and violent reactions to unexplainable triggers

And small brain space left for math, trust or coping

For other children

Sitting in the chair at the desk in the classroom

Is a peaceable journey of learning and friend-making

Not so for me

PTSD is a foul meaningless nonword

Raped and traumatized by a monster many times my size deserves a more meaningful definition

And maybe

A bit more understanding from the rest of you

*The World Health Organizations definition of torture is “extended exposure to violence & deprivation”

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Jan122018

For Profit Child Prisons (beatings at the Elmore Academy and the Value of Children)

AAA Featured Slider Post, Crime and Courts, Health and Mental Health, Politics and Funding, Public Policy, The States1 Comment

12 year old boy forced outside on a ten degree night at a privatized group home in Cambridge MN when I was his guardian ad litem. That night, the boy walked over 30 miles to a friend’s home in a tee shirt. Andy told me he thought he was going to freeze and die.

As a volunteer CASA there I have seen many traumatized and tortured kids shuffled through child protection and juvenile court and then sexually abused or beaten half to death in a state sanctioned child group home or prison (Elmore Academy).

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