[Oppenheim]  Time to Listen

by Jed Oppenheim
October 19, 2011

On Oct. 22, youth from all over Mississippi, but mostly Jackson, will gather at Metrocenter Mall for a special event: the first Art, Poetry and Justice SLAM. The event is part of National Youth Justice Awareness Month and brings together the Southern Regional Office of the Children's Defense Fund, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the ACLU of Mississippi, the NAACP of Mississippi, The Young People's Project and F.A.I.T.H. Inc.

Young people will share perspectives on justice in their communities through art, spoken word and poetry. The young artists who present the best pieces will receive prizes. This collaboration will celebrate the enormous potential of Mississippi's youth, prioritize the important perspectives of our young people and highlight that adults have much to learn from the voices of our youth. This event is also an opportunity to engage in some truth telling and to bust the myths that surround youth justice in Mississippi.

While youth justice in Mississippi still has a long way to go, it's important to remember that our state has made significant progress in reforming a once-brutal system—especially its two juvenile prisons, Oakley and Columbia.

In 2004, Brad Schlozman, then the acting head of the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, called Oakley and Columbia Training Schools "the worst the Department of Justice had seen in 20 years." Children sent to Oakley and Columbia endured physical and sexual abuse, prolonged isolation, and denials of medical, mental-health and educational services.

As a result of tremendous leadership from Mississippi state representatives—including Earle Banks, D-Jackson, George Flaggs, D-Vicksburg, and John Hines, D-Greenville—the Columbia Training School is permanently closed. And, because of incredibly hard work from the Youth Court Judges Council, the Division of Youth Services and legislators, Oakley has made an almost complete turnaround. Youth there have positive incentives for good behavior, and recidivism rates have dropped dramatically. Over the last eight years, state legislative and policy changes have reduced the populations in our facilities and ensured that our training school, Oakley, only has youth who have committed the most serious offenses. And crime has not gone up.

All over Mississippi, community-based alternatives and preventative-based programming are beginning to take hold. Investing in community-based alternatives so that our youth can be supervised in their communities will reduce detention rates, conserve taxpayer resources and maintain our safety. Annie E. Casey's Juvenile Detention Alternative's Initiative (JDAI) is already in place in four Mississippi counties. These simple activities ensure that a youth does not need to be held unnecessarily between their first contact with law enforcement and their court hearing.

Preventative-based programming will limit the "opportunities" for youth to come into contact with the law. This common-sense approach is really the only proven way to reduce juvenile crime. It advocates investing in vocational programs, mentorship opportunities and strong community connections through churches, sports or the arts.

There is still room for more transformation. Many of our schools perpetuate the myth that some youth just don't want to learn. This is not true. "Zero tolerance" policies—once meant for drug or weapons offenses in school—have now come to mean "habitual offender" for things like talking back, dress-code violations and tardiness. These misguided policies explicitly exclude youth whom schools believe get in the way of others' learning. Thus, a myth is compounded by a system that pushes young people out instead of educating them.

In my experience, be it in a detention center, in a regular school or in an alternative school, I have never come across a youth who says—or even implies—"I do not want to learn." This thinking is railroading too many youth, especially black male youth in our state, into the criminal justice system.

We will crack these myths when it is the youth who are speaking and the adults who are listening. We encourage youth to participate in the SLAM for just this reason. We have to re-think what we are doing and how we are doing it. Too often, we leave the media, our elected or appointed officials, advocates and the people in charge of caring for our children (in schools, detention centers or elsewhere) responsible for "being" their voice. Before we realize it, we forget the best interests of the youth. The adults at the SLAM will be asked to listen. As part of National Youth Justice Awareness Month, the partner organizations will be there to provide the platform for the youth.

The young people I work for know the lies and stories told about them, and they come to me asking why people say these things. I rarely have an answer beyond a ramble about social, racial, educational or economic injustice. What I do know is that my voice isn't the one that needs to be heard. It is the voices of the hundreds of thousands of youth in our state that are our most valuable assets.

See you on Oct. 22. Come ready to listen.

The Art, Poetry & Justice SLAM is 6 p.m. Oct. 22, at the Metrocenter Mall on Highway 80. For more information, see the event's Facebook page. All are welcome.

Jed Oppenheim is the Senior Advocate for the Southern Poverty Law Center in Mississippi. Everyone is responsible for ending the school-to-prison pipeline that is pushing our children out of school. So what are you waiting for?

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