#icoy

Ang next batch member ng #starmagickids at papasok sa #pbb house ni kuya🤩🤗😍 #icoy #nico #tvcom https://www.instagram.com/p/BzmjDDRjzQYC_sC0hPV7In_m8zT34zYNgt59cA0/?igshid=1rsvasnivkwdp

We have held our breath awaiting the jury’s verdict in the Laquan McDonald murder trial and can now breathe easier that a conviction has been secured. Justice has been done. But the shooting death of an unarmed 17-year-old African-American at the hands of a Chicago Police officer is a painful reminder of the continued systemic police violence against our youth of color not only in the city of Chicago but across our state and nation. McDonald has been painted by the defense team as a menace, and defendant Jason Van Dyke did not even use McDonald’s name throughout his testimony but rather described him as a black male wearing a hoodie. He was much more than a physical description. The death of McDonald should give us pause and force us to reflect on who he was and what we can do to prevent anything like this from ever happening again. McDonald was born to a 15-year-old teen who struggled with substance use disorder and a father who was largely absent and incarcerated. He was first placed in foster care at age three and shuffled back and forth between different relative’s homes and been in contact with the justice system 26 times from the age of 14. However, school officials and relatives testified to witnessing McDonald turning his life around by working with a mentor and attending an alternative school in the months leading to his death. McDonald endured significant trauma at a very early age and deserved to have the support and resources that would put him on a positive path and help him to succeed.  Our coalition of youth service providers work with at-risk children and youth every day, but many young people slip through the cracks because we lack the infrastructure to support families in need, especially children and youth of color who are at suspended, arrested and funneled into the child welfare and juvenile justice systems at an alarmingly higher rate than their white peers. Let us turn this tragedy into an opportunity to address systemic racism and generational trauma by investing in education, training and services that are culturally responsive so that we can start the healing process and move forward in the right direction.

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By Robert Vickery, Illinois Collaboration on Youth (ICOY) The Mistakes Kids Make campaign seeks to raise awareness about juvenile justice issues. When you visit the site, you’re asked to take a quiz on the immature things you did when you were younger: shoplifting, driving under the influence, vandalism, breaking curfew, getting into fights, or doing drugs. Of the visitors to the site, 27% admit to shoplifting, 17% to driving under the influence, 50% to breaking curfew, 15% to vandalizing property, 40% to fighting, and 24% to illegal drug use. These behaviors are all quite common among teens, but the point is not to excuse behavior that put people at risk of harm. Rather, this project serves to remind us: we all made poor decisions in adolescence, many of which could have landed us in the justice system if we were caught or not given a break. There is a wealth of research in many disciplines about brain development and adolescent behavior. I am not an expert, but it seems that much of the research boils down to the fact that young people make silly and reckless mistakes because of their age and immaturity. This bears itself out in large-scale longitudinal studies of juvenile offending. For example, the Pathways to Desistance study shows that most young people grow out of their delinquent behavior. How can the juvenile justice system adapt to what we know about adolescent development? Everyone could start by relaxing a little (or maybe a lot). While there is some serious juvenile crime that causes serious harm to others, many arrests are for immature teenage behavior. The community seems to have abdicated its responsibility to safely shepherd youth through their risky and reckless years to the legal system. Much of the behavior for which youth are arrested could be effectively addressed outside the formal legal system. A developmentally appropriate justice system seeks family, school, and community approaches to correcting misbehavior, repairing those who are harmed, and providing supports to youth who need extra help. For youth charged with more serious violent offenses, sentencing should reflect normal maturation processes. Lengthy adult sentences, which keep youth behind bars for years or decades, may be unnecessary in most instances given the average decline in offending behavior in the early 20s. Finally, the consequences for juvenile arrests and convictions should not last forever. Policies that keep juvenile records firmly sealed or – even better – expunged completely, promote development into successful adulthood. We’ve all made mistakes. Hopefully we’ve been given opportunities to learn from these poor decisions and to grow into more thoughtful, self-controlled adults, without consequences continuing through adulthood. We should provide our youth the same chance.