As one who has helped people navigate multiple government systems, I know the real reasons that youth can end up involved in our legal systems: poverty, restricted access to resources and over-policing.
But I also know that these policies and approaches don’t keep people or communities safe.
I have seen how the legacy of institutionalized racism directly contributes to youth violence. Racially discriminatory policies, such as the proliferation of Bronx highways leading to higher asthma rates for residents; urban renewal projects that increase gentrification and displacement into substandard public housing; the excessive policing of schools that result in youth being funneled into the “school to prison” system that both criminalizes them and jeopardizes their futures; and the unfair stigma on people formerly incarcerated that make it difficult for them to find jobs have long exacerbated health, housing, education and employment inequities.
As a result, youth in these communities, who are predominately Black, brown, immigrant, or low-income New Yorkers, are at high risk of ending up in a punitive legal system that exposed them to extreme forms of violence, jeopardizing their futures and robbing us all of the talent they might possess and achievements they might accomplish.
The lack of exposure to adequate resources can also lead children down a dark path. Indeed, a report from the National Task Force on Children Exposed to Violence found that every two out of three children experience some exposure to violence, often resulting in post-traumatic stress disorder and, in many cases, drug dependency.
In addition, incarcerating children does not make them better or make us safer. According to a report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, pretrial juvenile detention increases the likelihood of felony recidivism by 33 percent.
In my career, I have seen firsthand the solutions that help to lift our youth up and not beat them down in prisons and jails. These transformative justice solutions focus on moving toward healing and transformation by nurturing and developing more community-based programs, such as working with people to take accountability for their actions and helping educate community members on ways to interrupt violence before it happens.
For example, at The Bronx Defenders, our Adolescent Defense Project (ADP) provides specialized representation to youth between 14- to 17-years-old in the Bronx. ADP social workers are assigned to every youth’s case, assessing their social and educational needs to inform their legal defense.
This work is vital because it allows us, as social workers, to understand youth mental health needs, helping us create an environment where we can use our expertise to foster positive and healthy youth development. But social work alone is not enough.
Indeed, we know that real public safety comes from investing in the communities that have been ravaged by racist practices and policies. We need a true, earnest commitment to building infrastructure in disinvested communities, including affordable health care, decent and stable housing and access to quality education. We must ensure the creation of youth programs, designed and developed by youth themselves.
These solutions will take time, and rightfully so. We cannot expect to undo the damage of decades of disinvestment and government-sanctioned inequities overnight.
As the great philosopher and educator Paulo Freire reminds us, social work is a transformative process in which social workers, the people we support and their social conditions are transformed in pursuit of a just society. We come armed with the gift of resistance, experience and resilience as we work toward empowering individuals and strengthening communities against existing violent, oppressive state systems.
It is our duty to embrace this struggle as one of achieving liberty and justice, and to advocate for the youth in our communities. The words of an old African proverb must be our guide: “The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.”
