There are no formulas, no magic words, to end the kind of violence against children that occurs every year in the Chicago area.
If experts agree on anything when they talk about dealing with violence, it’s that you can’t start too early, and you can’t start too late.
Early is best, of course. That’s when a child can be set on a course of success. But lives that have gone the wrong direction can be changed too. That task is more difficult, though it’s not impossible. Even a child who has spent time in juvenile prison for murder can turn around.
Declaring that a society could be judged by how it treats its children, the Tribune began to explore the issues surrounding violence against children with a 1993 series called “Killing our children.” In 1994, possible solutions were examined in “Saving our children.” Last month, with the publication of “Killing our children: The search for justice,” the newspaper reported on the aftermath of the 65 killings that occurred in 1993.
After reading one of this year’s articles, a reader called to say, “This series is absolutely incredible. I’m moved, and I’m hoping that … you reach some conclusion–I fear you won’t–and that there are some things that we out here in the world can do to try and make this situation better.”
A fair request. Today, the Tribune turns to people we have met along the way–families, teachers, court workers, even a killer–who see the problem first-hand and have a sense of how to fix it.
They’re not all what we traditionally consider experts, and they don’t always agree. But no one is closer to the violence. Here are their thoughts.
`NO COOKIE-CUTTER APPROACH WORKS FOR EVERY CHILD’
TOM SCHNEIDER has been a juvenile probation officer in Cook County for 25 years. His present caseload includes 44 young offenders who have been convicted of crimes from vandalism to murder.
If there is anything I’ve learned as a juvenile probation officer, it’s that violence — and especially violence to children — does not occur, nor is it nurtured, in a vacuum.
The causes are numerous, and the solutions are equally numerous. The trick of it, though, is that solutions are different in each case.
When I first started at Cook County Juvenile Court in 1973, there were two courtrooms devoted to abuse and neglect cases. Now there are 16. Then, guns were much more difficult for kids to get. Since the mid-1980s, when crack began to take hold, children in far greater numbers have started to carry guns–and use them.
I’ve seen kids who were victims of terrible physical and emotional abuse turn around and become victimizers themselves. I’ve worked with nine children who later have been murdered in gun-related gang violence.
To change this, help has to come early. The probation department and the state’s attorney’s office now have an early offenders program that seeks to identify young offenders when they are first charged and divert them to specialized programs. We even have a group for young sex offenders made up of kids as young as 10. Though it’s appalling, it’s all too real. This is the time to identify those kids and intervene.
The task of reversing violent behavior is daunting, not to mention time-consuming. No cookie-cutter approach works for every child. You have to consider their unique problems, from abusive parents to drug use, from learning disabilities to poverty. Rarely does a case boil down to just one issue.
You learn to savor the smallest victories. There’s nothing like running into a former probationer years later and seeing that they have turned their lives around.
To achieve that kind of success, though, you have to use whatever resources are available, although sometimes you can’t find just what these kids need. More frequently, it’s in short supply. Parenting training, even for teenage fathers, and violence prevention groups are helpful but sometimes hard to get children into.
I have been involved in the anger management groups for male offenders; they provide an invaluable outlet for at-risk juveniles, both to learn other non-violent responses and to confront their fears, especially for their own safety.
Because violence is often tied to drug and alcohol abuse, programs are needed to deal with those problems. We need more slots in outpatient programs and more beds in residential facilities. We need more intensive outpatient programs, where youths spend several hours a day in treatment while living at home.
I have seen these programs work, and I know that violence cannot be effectively addressed until substance abuse is brought under control.
The juvenile probation department has a drug program that works with police to identify drug users and place them in programs. It has been successful.
But perhaps most important is we have to give children a sense they have a stake in society. Without basic skills and job training, many teenagers see little choice for themselves but to join with gangs.
Because most children involved in crime are underachievers in the classroom and see school as a humiliating experience, we need basic learning and vocational training.
Mentoring also is invaluable. Finding a father in the home of a juvenile delinquent is rare. Without a model for responsible behavior, there’s almost no reason to expect a child to learn it. I met with seven young men recently in a violence prevention group session, and they all raged at their inattentive or absent fathers.
Mentoring is a tough job, though, and almost every youth will test their mentor. These kids are used to rejection; in fact, they almost expect to be rejected. It’s their way of protecting themselves against disappointment. They need consistency in their lives, and the worst thing you can do is make a promise you can’t deliver.
But it’s difficult to recruit volunteers for work that rarely pays quick dividends. It takes a strong, resilient mentor to overcome this.
When it works, and it does, the results are gratifying.
These days, the trend is to toughen the approach toward criminals, including violent juveniles.I understand the need to protect society, and I agree that the needs of victims must be kept in mind when dealing with violent criminals. They need to understand and appreciate the harm and pain they have caused.
Still, there is no denying that the approaches we take in juvenile court work. To take each juvenile offender as an individual, trying to understand his background, his family situation, his possible history as a victim himself, his special treatment needs, then using a combination of approaches, is invaluable. It will serve the young offender, and it will serve us all.
The solutions to these problems are not easy, and the answers are not simple, especially in a popular culture where movies and music glorify violence and romanticize gang life. But just because we try to understand violent behavior, especially in children, does not mean we excuse it.
But we can’t solve the problem if we don’t understand it.
`YOU HAVE TO MAKE THE CHANGES YOURSELF’
TOMMIE TURNER was 15 and a member of the Black Gangster Disciples street gang in 1993, when he and three friends were arrested for the murder of Randolph Scott, a 14-year-old from their South Side neighborhood. Turner is serving a 20-year term at Shawnee Correctional Center in Downstate Vienna.
I wish there weresome kind of golden answer that would solve violence. But it’s a lot of things–education, family structure, spirituality and maybe just growing out of it. You get older and then some of this hard-core violence just doesn’t make any sense anymore to you.
Sometimes I think if people could see what prison is like, or if they could see their friends in the grave, then maybe they’d figure things out. But I saw friends go to prison and I saw friends get killed. You think that happens only to somebody else.
But mostly it’s an individual thing. Nobody’s going to do it for you. You have to make the changes yourself that are going to keep you out of prison or keep you from selling drugs.
You’ve got to choose the right kinds of friends. If you want to stay straight, you’ve got to find people who are going to stay straight with you, people who are going to encourage you and not get you in trouble.
But sometimes the change happens when you get tired. I’ve known guys who say, “Man, I’m tired. I want to be a family man. I don’t want to be in this violence or drug dealing no more.” Sometimes that’s just your head. You’ve got to know what you want to do.
`WE CAN’T ACCEPT THIS’
ALICE THOMAS-NORRIS of Hillside, a certified nurse assistant and home health aide, is the mother of Rolanda Marshall, who was shot and killed in 1993, at age 14. Marshall’s slaying remains unsolved.
The main thing is that America has been in denial for so many years. We need to repent and restore the faith in mankind. Mankind has strayed so far off the path that we accept anything as being normal.
That these things happen–that someone was in the wrong place at the wrong time and got shot–we accept this and we simply can’t anymore.
These are human beings. We have become desensitized to the killings, to the robberies, to the rapes. We accept this as being normal, like it goes with the territory of living in the big city. But we have to start admitting that this isn’t normal. We’ve been lying to ourselves. Kids being killed isn’t normal. The blood is crying out from the ground for justice.
We can’t accept all the garbage, the acts of violence, that come on TV. We need limits on what’s on.
We have to realize that everything that happens to me affects you, and everything that happens to you affects me. And I don’t think we all understand that. Because if my child could be killed, so could yours.
And guns. We have to do something about guns. Guns are being manufactured 24 hours a day. Why are there so many guns when we’re supposed to be a peace-loving nation?
`BY THE TIME THEY GET IT TO ME, IT’S TOO LATE’
JERRY BUTLER is superintendent of the Illinois Youth Center at St. Charles, one of the state’s seven youth prisons. Several of the juvenile killers from 1993 spent time at St. Charles.
In corrections, we’re kind of downstream. The problem is upstream. The problem is in the neighborhoods and in the schools and the families. By the time somebody gets here, it’s almost too late, really.
We need neighborhoods where people care and take an interest in what their neighbors do. We can talk about drugs and guns, but we need to do something about them. We need to fix the fabric of our culture–a lot of the fabric that made up the good old days has been lost.
Maybe then we’ll get back some of the concepts from the good old days: respect, kids being responsible for their behavior–the guidelines for behavior.
Most of our kids here aren’t here just because of the criminal act they’ve committed. It’s not just one thing. They’ve got substance problems, family problems, neighborhood problems. And the entities in society that were supposed to help them have failed.
Where was the church? Where was the family? Where was the school? Those places used to be more involved. They need to get involved again. PTA meetings should be packed, standing room only. And those parents should be involved in everything else in their community: church, school, clubs, the whole thing.
Because by the time they get here to me, it’s too late. We’re expected to redo all that society was supposed to do in those first 13 or 14 years, and we can’t do that. We can’t give these kids completely new lives.
`AS LONG AN IMPRISONMENT AS POSSIBLE’
GLEN WEBER, assistant Winnebago County state’s attorney, has been a prosecutor for 11 years and tried Mardell Traylor for abusing 23-month-old Cardell Redmond after Traylor was acquitted of the murder of 15-month-old Jasmine Bolden.
First and foremost is the need for strict and harsh punishment–as long an imprisonment as possible. But to achieve that you need diligent prosecution and judges who understand the need for long-term imprisonment and punishment.
People who hit children are just so fundamentally rotten to the core that you’re really not going to get very far with any kind of education or training. I’ve seen it first-hand, where people are in these parenting classes–and it’s all good-intentioned stuff–but it doesn’t work. These people still hit kids. They get out of class and they hit their child. It’s such a simple concept–you don’t hit kids. But they don’t get it.
I subscribe to the same theory on a broader scale too. The only education for these gangbangers is to see that their fellow gang members are no longer out on the street. That’s all they understand, really.
Maybe in a perfect world, if we had all the money and all the resources, training and education would work. Well, I don’t know, I’d probably still want to spend more money on imprisonment. These criminals don’t rehabilitate.
`A HELPING HAND FROM OUTSIDE’
Ira Coward is a former teacher at DuSable High School, which is across the street from the Robert Taylor Homes public housing complex on the South Side. This fall he began as a teacher at the school for juvenile detainees at the Cook County Juvenile Detention Center. Coward, an ordained minister in the Pentecostal Church of God, often takes youths to church and on outings, lecturing them about the importance of school and moral conduct.
This generation of youths is not lost but in need of the investment of resources and concerned people in order to change their lives and to save our society. I am convinced that they have great potential, which has not been realized. We cannot afford to ignore their plight because our destinies are connected.
We must somehow lift them above a feeling of helplessness. They feel like they’re stuck and there’s nothing to be done. It’s like a person in quicksand — the more they struggle to get out, the more they go down. They need some help. These kids need a helping hand from outside.
It’s hard to rise when you don’t know there’s anything else to be exposed to. A lot of them haven’t been downtown. They’ve never been any farther than the store or the school. They think that’s the world.
In the ‘hood, they’re deprived of their childhood. I take them to the beach. I take them out of their element, where they don’t have to be tough. I had a van before it got stolen. We’d just pack it up and go to the Indiana Dunes or to church.
But churches generally are more interested in building glass cathedrals and empires than in investing in what they should be investing in.
Churches should be providing after-school activities. You tell them don’t do this, or don’t do that but you give them nothing else to do. Give them activities, recreational outings, mentoring, tutoring, field trips. After these kids see enough, they realize there is something else.
Money–that’s not going to work. You have to have people who are willing to give of themselves, give their time.
`I’M MY OWN WOMAN’
CAROLYN HUGHES is a single mother of five living in the Englewood neighborhood. She used to reside in Robert Taylor Homes, but moved out in 1993 after Arthur Williams Jr., a boy nicknamed A.J., was killed by a gang sniper. Hughes’ son, Larry Oliver, was good friends with A.J. Hughes’ own life turned around after she ended an abusive relationship with a man.
My message for all women is to watch their step. I’m a loner now. I just stay to myself. I have the twins’ father come by but he’s like my best friend. Men want to boss you. When you get with them they just change up, and they change so quick. It wouldn’t hardly matter until you get abused so much.
I do what I want to do and I feel good about it. Because I’m my own woman and I’m not being programmed to do what they want me to do.
I think they need more police who will come when you call them. They were shooting the other night again. They got this things they call CAPS (Community Alternative Policing Strategy). I don’t see CAPS doing too much of nothing. The dope dealers are still outside there, and it’s so bad on the kids. They can’t help but see what’s going on.
The main thing I would say for the mayor of Chicago: He needs more patrol officers. The police, they’re not doing their job.
`GIVE A PERSON A CHANCE’
LARRY OLIVER, 19, was a close friend of Arthur Williams Jr., a 13-year-old killed in 1993. For a while Oliver ran with a gang and was involved in drug dealing, but now he works in the mail room of a firm at the Chicago Board of Trade and has hopes of a better life.
All fast money ain’t good money. You’re out there, the money’s coming easy. It’s coming real quick. But you gotta think of the consequences. You got the police down there who’s gonna whup ya. You’re gonna go to jail. You got other people who are gonna hate you. It’s no good like that. You gotta watch over your back.
I know a lot of guys that need jobs. Give a person a chance. Let ’em try to do something. Me and my cousin we’d go fill out applications and it’s just a stereotype: just because you’re young and black they think you’re mugging people. A lot of white people aren’t going to hire you like that. They’re not going to hire you just because you fill out an application.
Just give ’em a chance. Let ’em try to do something. Let ’em work.
I speak in ebonics. People in my job notice that. They look at me a certain way but I can still hold a conversation with ’em. But it’s the way I be sayin’ things. It’s street slang, ebonics. They speak way more proper than me. But I understand the things they’re sayin’ and they can understand me. See beyond that. We’re from two different types of cultures.
`REALLY GET INVOLVED WITH THE KID’
STUART LUBIN, Juvenile Court Judge, was a public defender for 17 years before he became a judge in 1991. He handled the case against a 10-year-old boy who was accused of kicking a toddler to death in 1993.
You just have to find somebody to really get involved with a kid, to really care about him. If a person has a sense of his own worth, then he’s less likely to inflict harm on someone else.
How do you do that? By having a mentor, for example. By ensuring that someone gets an education. By counseling somebody. By instilling some kind of faith or moral values in a person. By having somebody volunteer or do community service to show kids they can make a difference. To give them some hope for the future and show how valuable life is. To have them try to put themselves in the place of their victim, to help instill a sense of empathy.
And to teach kids not to just react to situations but to analyze them and to respond to them in a more appropriate manner. The hardest thing, I think, is to teach kids to think about the consequences of their actions. To think, to wait a second and say, “If I do this, what’s going to happen to me?” If somebody looks at you the wrong way, does that mean you should shoot them? A lot of kids come into court and say, “He gave me a hard look.” But so what? Why should kids get so angry that they risk their futures?
The really violent kids make up a small minority of the cases in Juvenile Court–maybe 5 percent. And for them it’s really tough to find something that works. But sometimes even with them there are programs that work. Sometimes, of course, the only thing is the Department of Corrections. Sometimes it’s just that they have the strength within themselves. You can call it an epiphany. Maybe it’s just the maturation process, a function of getting older and more mature.
You just don’t know what’s going to work for a certain kid. You just try something and if it doesn’t work you try something else. And if nothing works you go to the Department of Corrections.
`SEEK EDUCATION LIKE NOURISHMENT’
RUTH MITCHELL is an English teacher at DuSable High School; she is divorced and is raising an 8-year-old boy. Some of her students were profiled in Tribune stories looking at the aftermath of the slaying of a 13-year-old boy.
Education is a great equalizer. It will provide access to careers, not jobs. Education will provide the means to make decisions, not deal with directives given out with food stamps and a monthly welfare check. Education must be looked upon with respect and sought after like nourishment.
My mother always made my sister and me her top priorities. As a parent, I make my son my first priority. His health, education, welfare and happiness are the concerns that I handle on a daily basis. I decided to become a parent; he did not decide to come into this world. As his mother I am his guide, caregiver, teacher, role model, coach, disciplinarian, confidant and a host of other titles. In my family we believe in our children. We have no fear of them and we are right there at every moment — watching, correcting, sharing and protecting them. When parents show the proper amount of care and concern for their children, those children succeed in all areas of life.
WHOM TO CALL
ABUSE PREVENTION AND PARENTAL COUNSELING
— The 24-hour National Abuse Hotline
1-800-4ACHILD
— The DCFS Hotline, Illinois
1-800-25-ABUSE
— South Suburban Family Shelter Inc. hotline
708-335-3028
— Family Shelter Service hotline, Glen Ellyn
630-469-5650
— Jane Addams Hull House, Chicago
312-906-8600
— Casa Central, Chicago
773-645-2300
— Children’s Advocacy Center of Northwest Cook County, Hoffman Estates
847-885-0100
— Family Service of South Lake County, Highland Park
847-432-4981
— Illinois Action for Children, Chicago
312-986-9591
— Juvenile Protective Association, Chicago
312-440-1203
— A Safe Place/Lake County Crisis Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Domestic Violence, Waukegan
847-249-4450
— Metropolitan Family Services, Chicago
312-986-4000
— On Our Own Inc., Chicago
312-435-1007
— The Paternal Involvement Project, Chicago
773-651-9262
— Rainbow House, Chicago
312-935-3430
— Teen Living Programs, Chicago
773-883-0025
YOUTH ACTIVITIES, VOLUNTEER PROGRAMS
— Boys and Girls Clubs of Chicago
312-627-2700
— Boy Scouts of America, Chicago Area Council
312-421-8800
— Center for Volunteerism, United Way/Crusade of Mercy, Chicago
312-906-2425
— Chicago Youth Centers
312-648-1550
— Girl Scouts of Chicago
312-416-2500
— Volunteers of America, Chicago
312-707-8707
— YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago
312-932-1200
— YWCA of Metropolitan Chicago
312-372-6600
TEEN PREGNANCY
— Aunt Martha’s Youth Service Center, Matteson
708-747-2701
— Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health, Chicago
312-427-4460
— Jewish Children’s Bureau of Chicago
312-444-2090
— Ounce of Prevention Fund, Chicago
312-922-3863
