An act by a youngster prompting discipline at school, without knowing the reasons for the child’s behavior, can lead to a variety of places and one of them is prison.
Anthony McIntyre, the founder and president of Waukegan’s Antmound Foundation, said without a proper diagnosis the student’s action leading to discipline at school can begin what he calls the “school to prison pipeline.”
“They get suspended, and they they’re on the streets and not at school,” he said. “They come in contact with the law enforcement and then they wind up at Depke,” he added, referring to Lake County’s juvenile detention center.
“Once they’re at Depke, they’re in the system,” he said.
McIntyre held a forum bringing representatives of law enforcement, the legal community and a mental health professional together Tuesday at Antmound’s offices in Waukegan to increase understanding of the pipeline and ways to end it.
Moderated by McIntyre and Antmound’s Jessica Boyd, the panelists were Waukegan Interim Police Chief Keith Zupec; Karen Levi, the chief of juvenile justice in the Lake County state’s attorney’s office; attorney Lenita Sims Spears and Addison Jackson, Jr., a social worker.
A gang member at 13 who served 19 years in prison for a murder he did not commit, McIntyre knows firsthand what can happen. More often than not, he said, the youngster in the pipeline is a person of color or one with special needs. He wants schools to be aware of a student’s environment.
“Their father could be in prison. Their mother could be on drugs,” McIntyre said. “They could have an IEP or 504,” he added referring to special education tools. “The (school) administration has to work with all these issues.”
Both McIntyre and Boyd questioned Levi about decision-making when a juvenile is charged with a crime. Levi said she prefers alternatives to help youngsters, rather than deal with a prosecution which can lead to incarceration.
“I would rather get them in a diversion program, and keep them out of the court system,” Levi said. “This can be done with a diversion program. When we get a police report, we review it to see if it fits into a diversion program.”
Jackson said trauma in a youngster’s life is often the reason for behavior which leads to discipline at school and potentially contact with law enforcement. Both situations exasperate the trauma. He calls trauma a “normal reaction to an abnormal event,” like a negative reaction to not receiving a Christmas present.
“A reaction to something that is hurtful, harmful or disagreeable is when you get into trauma,” Jackson said. “Instead of punishment, reward what you want them to do.”
Zupec said trauma often accompanies the initial contact people have with police, whether the officer is responding to a domestic violence call or making a traffic stop. Building positive relationships, including with school resource officers (SRO) in the schools is a way to ease the trauma when unpleasant contact occurs.
“The SRO’s goal is to develop trust, and develop the respect of the kids,” Zupec said. “They’ll talk to them and get to know them. They want the kids to feel comfortable talking to them. We have a lot of interactions with people, and we want to have a whole lot of good ones.”
Spears said a big focus of her practice is working with people who have been through the criminal justice system to get their records expunged and removed so there is no longer a stigma that follows them.
In a separate room watching the forum on a video screen, McIntyre said there were 14 teenagers giving their input to Joanna Gutierrez, the student member of the Waukegan Community Unit School District 60 Board of Education. She told the group what her peers thought.
“We would like things to be less secretive, so we feel respected and more mature,” Gutierrez said. “We would like to hear from people who are closer to our age.”
