A close friend of mine was sent to “reform school” as a young child. The conditions were abusive, and his “crimes” as a 9-year-old certainly did not warrant incarceration. As I understand it, it was child prison but with the potential for abuse and violence multiplied due to the vast differences in age and development of the “prisoners.” Just imagine violent 16-year-olds locked up with fourth graders. Even as an adult, he has never fully recuperated.
Thankfully, our understanding of juvenile justice has evolved since the 1960’s and 1970’s. In almost every case, counseling and mental health supports work more effectively. When a third-grader behaves criminally, we know there are deep, underlying issues driving that child. He needs help more than punishment. Our understanding of childhood trauma, adverse childhood experiences (ACE Scores), and other factors have helped millions of children. Your local schools have become substitute mental health providers, and they perform miracles every day with children who would have been discarded a generation ago.
In rare exceptions, however, children need help beyond the capabilities or capacities of your local teacher, counselor, or principal. They need intense mental health interventions, and in some rare cases of violent children, they need rapid response from actual juvenile justice, coupled with intense mental health supports to protect others. When children and teens have these supports, they can be helped. When these supports do not exist, the statistics for adult incarceration, adult mental illness, and other devastating consequences are undeniable. Virtually all inmates in our prisons have a history of childhood trauma or adverse childhood experiences. Don’t take my word for it; just Google it if you have any doubts.
Early intervention can almost always save these children, but these supports have become almost nonexistent. Our state has reduced its juvenile justice options dramatically, and we have almost no options for students struggling with serious mental health issues. Again, ask your local principals. We have all experienced either violent children who need to be arrested or disturbed children who need intense mental health intervention – only to be told that there are no beds, slots, or services.
Violent teenagers will defiantly tell administrators and police, “I am 15, and you can’t do anything to me!” Unfortunately, they are often right. Even when connected to crimes like shootings, they are often released to their parents. They return to school. They become emboldened. Such violent kids need intense mental health intervention, but on occasion, they also need to be locked up because sometimes, punishment is appropriate, at least as a wake-up call. Punishment is too late, however, because almost always, these children needed mental health supports when they were younger, and everyone knew it, just as with virtually all school shooters. This is a growing problem in every community, regardless of size or location and regardless of demographics or race.
We currently have no reliable, consistent, accessible mental health system for juveniles. Even as juvenile mental health issues have exploded following the pandemic (Google it), we have even fewer services for them. Concerns about school shootings are nightmarish, but in a practical sense, day-to-day issues in school related to the lack of juvenile justice and mental health supports are vastly more widespread. Ask your local educators. Schools can no longer meet this need.
Under no circumstances do we need the “reform schools” of yesteryear, but on occasion, some violent students need to be incarcerated. More often, they just need mental health intervention, and sometimes that means intense, in-patient care. Of course, we need high guardrails to ensure that we do not repeat the past mistreatment of children or disproportionally impact minorities, such as occurred in the past with Native American children. Oklahomans can solve any problem, even one as tough as this, so let’s rapidly rebuild our juvenile justice and mental health systems, maybe with our ARP or rainy day funds? We must do something dramatic, before more children hurt themselves or others . . . or turn into adults bent on evil.
Tom Deighan is author of Shared Ideals in Public Schools. You may email him at deighantom@gmail.com and read past articles at www.mostlyeducational.com.
Tom Deighan is superintendent of Duncan Public Schools. You may email him at deighantom@gmail.com and read past articles at www.mostlyeducational.com.