OJJDP Family Listening Sessions: Executive Summary - Office of ...

mental health needs that, if adequately addressed, may have kept their children out of the system.
Other barriers, including systemic racism and both children and parents being labeled as “bad,”
were also raised.
Key Comments/Highlights
• We had never been in this system, so I had no clue what to do, where the jail was, how
visitation worked, absolutely nothing. The visitation process was horrendous, and we didn’t
understand that only one person could visit. You really don’t have any guidance from anyone
on what the next steps are. So, for us it was a whole lot of unknowns, frustrations, and time
delays we didn’t know how to handle. Now we hear things we should have asked, but at the
time I didn’t know I could ask.
• The first time my son ran into the juvenile justice system, as an African American family, you
recognize there is disproportionality. My youngest son was first involved with the system
when he was 12. They figured a way to change him was to shackle my son and hold him for 2
hours until I could get to him. But by then he was already having trouble in school, and he
had lost the love for learning I knew he had. They thought he was cute; he came out shuffling
in the shackles, and it broke my heart.
• My son was 12 or 13 when we had our first encounter with the system. He had been having
trouble in school, he had been diagnosed with ADHD, and he had severe problems trying to
stay on tasks—that was a real problem in school, with his teachers. He was not compliant
with the meds. He hated the meds. But the system wasn’t prudent at all. Having a child with
issues of that nature, you’re labeled as being part of the problem. People say you’re not a
good parent or you’re not doing what you need to be doing.
• He was 13 and found at school with pot. He was arrested at school by the resource officer,
put in handcuffs, and put in the detention center. We had no idea he was taken from school
until that evening. We went to pick him up, they let him go home, but then he was expelled
from school for 90 days.
• I didn’t know what to expect, but I thought the way the situation was set up…I always
thought it would be a little more transparent. Give us a little more options, maybe be a little
more transparent to give us time to think about it. I thought all the evidence had to be on the
table before we made a decision, and it never happened.
• I had been failed because I was not given proper representation. I had no funds; my parents
weren’t really notified at all. I basically fought the case by myself. They didn’t try to give me
any help or rehabilitation, no alternatives, no youth camps, and I had never ever been
majorly in trouble with anything. There was no opportunity to redeem myself, to show I could
do better.
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