Gang violence is not new to Brunswick. In recent months, though, local law enforcement report an increase in the rate of youth arrests, many of which are gang related.
I know families affected by gang violence, and I know a child who was arrested and charged in a gang-related incident here in the last year. His story highlights numerous egregious failures in state and local systems that research suggests are directly correlated with increased adolescent gang activity.
Before he became part of our “gang problem,” Aaron (a pseudonym) was no stranger to our local systems. He was not an under-the-radar kid. In fact, he was all over every radar we have for identifying at-risk children.
Early in his life, Aaron came onto the radar of the Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS), who eventually removed him from his mother’s care. His mother requested Aaron be placed with willing friends in their neighborhood. But, by state policy, DFCS prioritizes placement with biological family. Aaron was taken from his home community and placed with a relative who physically and psychologically abused Aaron. Isolation and abuse in childhood are known by social science researchers to be strongly correlated with adolescent gang activity. But DFCS had moved Aaron to the fringes of their radar.
Aaron’s mother, to her great credit, worked her DFCS case plan and regained custody of Aaron. But, her plan had focused on compliance over healing, and Aaron returned home to a parent whose best intentions were not enough. When a parent regains custody of their child, our systems essentially leave them helpless. DFCS aftercare is extremely limited both in time and scope. There is little consideration for the long-term impact of what both parent and child have endured, and there is no systematic support for rehabilitation beyond reunification. Aaron’s childhood continued to be marked by chronic trauma. But DFCS had cleared Aaron from their radar.
Soon, Aaron appeared on the radar of the juvenile justice system (DJJ). With very little interaction between DJJ and DFCS, the family dynamics that led to Aaron’s delinquent behavior were not addressed. Aaron would eventually serve time in a youth detention center (YDC). At the end of that time, DJJ returned Aaron to live with his mother. Georgia’s DJJ Office of Reentry Services emphasizes the importance of reentry supports, including healthy family and living arrangements. The literature on juvenile recidivism emphasizes the word “healthy.” Returning Aaron to his unhealthy home environment meant returning him to the streets where he had already begun to flirt with gangs. Ignoring his statistically sky-high risk of recidivism, DJJ had cleared Aaron from their radar.
Within months of returning home, Aaron re-appeared on a radar he had frequented throughout his childhood– that of the Glynn County School System (GCSS). This time, it was for non-attendance. When confronted, Aaron’s mother signed a letter of intent to homeschool. Many families homeschool well. But they would tell you that in Georgia, it is very easy to homeschool very badly. By state law, that letter of intent, filed with the state Department of Education, is the only documentation required to be submitted to any regulating body. There are rules about teaching and testing, but record-keeping is up to the parent. Georgia has virtually no accountability for homeschooling families. Nevertheless, homeschool was presented as an acceptable solution to the problem of truancy from GCSS, for a child who had also been on the radars of DFCS and DJJ. They all simply cleared Aaron from their radars.
Mere months later, Aaron became one of the juvenile offenders on all of our radars through local media reports of increased gang violence. We are asking local law enforcement to crack down on our children when we should be demanding accountability from the adults in the systems that are failing them. We must get serious about understanding childhood trauma, and we must commit to doing the hard work of healing wounds that are our responsibility even if they are not our fault. We must stop passing the buck, shifting children from one radar to the next.
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Published with permission from Aaron’s family.
Dr. Melissa Trussell is a professor in the School of Business and Public Management at College of Coastal Georgia who works with the college’s Reg Murphy Center for Economic and Policy Studies. Contact her at mtrussell@ccga.edu. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent those of the College of Coastal Georgia.
Reg Murphy Center