MANSFIELD: Doing What Works to Curb Urban Violence

OccupyCleveland!

The revolution has started and will come to Cleveland at noon on Thu 10/6 at the Free Stamp. Come out; don’t miss this opportunity to be part of history.

Doing What Works to Curb Urban Violence

Last Friday, a group of local organizations, under the banner of The Greater Cleveland Consortium on Youth Violence Prevention, recognized the efforts of former U.S. Rep. Louis B. Stokes to impact on one of our more critical problems and changed its name to the Louis Stokes Greater Cleveland Consortium on Youth Violence Prevention. The event also was used to announce a National Institute of Child Health and Development grant secured by Case Western Reserve Mandel School to “conduct community-informed violence prevention research.” Case Professors Daniel Flannery and Mark Singer will collaborate with Michael Walker, executive director of the Partnership for a Safer Cleveland, to conduct the research.

The featured speaker for the event was John A. Rich, MD, professor and chair of Health Management and Policy at the Drexel University School of Public Health in Philadelphia. He is the author of the book Wrong Place, Wrong Time: Trauma and Violence in the Lives of Young Black Men. In a community as plagued with youthful gun violence as ours has been of late, his comments could not have been more timely or incisive. It’ll be interesting to see the results of the research.

Indeed, my wife and I developed our own little youth research project in our community of Hough over the summer, and it was — for a time — highly successful. The impetus for our project was the slogan of Homeboy Industries on Los Angeles: “Nothing Stops a Bullet Like a Job.”

While Cleveland’s gang violence is certainly bad, it really can’t compare to the level of destructive negative behaviors found in the barrios of East Los Angeles — the young outlaws there make Dodge City look like a church picnic. However, Fr. Gregory Boyle, a Jesuit priest, founded Homeboy Industries in 1988 to provide wealth-building opportunities to area youth, and, guess what? It works. The gangbangers who avail themselves of the opportunities provided by the social enterprise (the organization recently began operating a diner in Los Angeles City Hall) have turned their lives around using the sweat of their own brows.

I’m no anthropologist, but here’s my theory: All of God’s creatures are genetically hardwired to propagate… that’s how species survive. When humans hit puberty hormones drive them to seek the attention of the opposite sex… that’s why formerly funky little boys begin washing under their arms. But to make themselves attractive to the opposite sex they need all of the accouterments of success: the little diamond earring, some sort of cool communications device, high end tennis shoes — in other words, all of the things our vacuous, shallow and acquisitive society tells them are important. And here’s the dangerous part: they will do virtually anything, and I do mean anything to acquire these talismans of success… nature compels them to do so; they really have no choice.

What Brenda and I did was offer an option: Due to a small grant to our non-profit from attorney Steve Schultz we were able to hire some of the badass youth from the neighborhood to work in our vineyard during the summer and early fall. These were the dudes that might have exercised other options to earn money… and when our grant dollars ran out a couple of them did: They began hustling a little weed. Next thing you know someone beats someone on a petty drug deal and BANG! another youth lies dead in our streets.

Now I might not know everything, but I do know this: If you don’t put $50 or $60 a week (from a job or an allowance) in a young man’s jeans pockets, with rare exception, he’s going to do whatever it takes to acquire the things needed to help him become attractive to the opposite sex… again, it’s compulsion.

I once asked Eugene Sanders about doing what some other school districts around the country are doing… paying students for grades. He told me he was “philosophically opposed to incentives” — in other words underprivileged youth (some from backgrounds where not much value is placed on education) are supposed to somehow love education… for the simple beauty of gaining knowledge. “Bribes are bad” one parent was overheard saying… as they jetted off to Disneyworld with their kids in tow.

Some communities are offering incentives for good behaviors (Brazil pays poor people to go to the doctor, knowing that, economically, it’s wiser to keep people healthy than expend public funds to cure illnesses) and in New York some districts are paying for good grades… and the program is producing good results. Indeed, it’s wiser to find a way to pay a child $50 a week than spend $24,000 a year to house them in prison once they are adults. We claim we can’t find funds for the former, but we always find funds for the latter.

If someone wants to do some serious research, try this: Fund a program like my wife and I ran, give young people a chance to make a little pocket money doing something positive, and see what the long-term results are. Is that asking so much?

Veteran Jurist to Treat Veterans

Over its long history, Cleveland’s Municipal Court (which celebrates its 100th Anniversary on January 2, 2012) has established a stellar reputation as one of the most innovative and progressive courts in the country. In August of 1942, the Court appointed Perry B. Jackson to the bench, making him the first African-American judge in Ohio’s history.

Under the leadership of Administrative and Presiding Judge Ronald Adrine, the Court established Cuyahoga County’s first Drug Court, as well as its first Reentry Court. Last month it continued the tradition of being first by establishing a Veterans Treatment Court, which will be presided over by Judge Lynn McLaughlin-Murray.

It’s long been realized that returning men and women who served their country in uniform often suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, which causes them to sometimes act out in inappropriate and even criminal ways. This new docket is patterned on a model first developed in Buffalo in 2008, and replicated in Ohio in Mansfield and Youngstown to address those specialized needs of this demographic. “This is a problem-solving Court and is another example of how we as judges need to take the steps necessary to make the community safer and ultimately a better place to live,” said Judge Adrine.

Since her appointment to the bench in January of this year, Judge Murray has been a strong advocate for veterans, and has eagerly looked forward to handling this docket. “This new court will allow us to identify the needs of veterans who come before us and coordinate the many services available with the hope of transitioning them to a better and healthier lifestyle,” said Judge Murray, a Justice Center veteran who previously to her elevation to the bench served as a Magistrate on the Muny bench since 1999.

The goal of the Court is to bring together under one umbrella all of the parties that assist honorably discharged veterans with their substance abuse, mental health, housing, employment, education and general health issues. Judge Murray said that somewhere between 85 and 100 defendants currently on probation with the Court now qualify for the new program. She envisions that eventually the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court will also get involved on the felony level.

As I was exiting the event at the Louis Stokes Veterans Hospital where the new docket and Judge Murray was introduced to the public, I overheard one observer remark to a companion, “Isn’t this better than just bragging about how many people a Court can lock up?” Indeed.

Politics 101

Rumor has it the Ohio Democratic Party is set to launch training classes for people who are eying a run for public office. Judging from some of the bonehead moves and nonsensical messaging constructs I’ve come across over the years, such classes are more than necessary, they should be mandatory.

For instance, why would candidates running for office in one city hold their fundraisers in other cities? Even if someone offers a facility and free food, they should turn it down. If they’re too dense to realize the residents of the city they want to hold office in will not know the back story and consider this is a slap in the face, perhaps they are too dense to hold office in any city. Dumb-DE-dumb-dumb.

Another pet peeve of mine is not being able to reach a candidate by phone, mail, email or carrier pigeon. These can be categorized as “stealth” candidates who run undercover campaigns. They never know what kind of nefarious deeds the “enemy” (the other candidate) is up to, so they play it real close to the vest. They seemingly don’t comprehend that running for office is all about communicating, not hiding.

Even when you can get a working phone number on them, numerous candidates I’ve attempted to reach over the years have not bothered to set up the voicemail systems on their cell or home phones. How do they know if anyone has attempted to reach them? Will they be just as hard to reach if and when elected to office?

Now some do have their voicemail set up, but it can never take any additional messages since it’s not been checked or emptied — maybe for weeks or months… who knows, maybe even for years. Amateur hour.

One candidate had their number restricted so that only calls from recognized numbers could get through. Really exclusive… this is known as the “important” candidate, who has yet to win any race. And then there’s that real career killer, euphemistically called “being off the air” which is just a nice way of saying the bum has not paid their phone bill.

Oftentimes, when the call does go through you get that generic woman’s voice telling you the number you’ve reached and directing you to leave a message. Anyone too dumb to realize this is an opportunity for a bit of free publicizing by leaving a message that says something like: “Hello, this is Nevis P. Butt head, candidate for dogcatcher in Bumf, OH, please leave a message, and remember me on Election Day” it really too dumb to be in the race in the first damn place… even for dogcatcher.

And lastly, if they can’t teach politicians to be honest, can they at least teach them how to take bribes without getting busted?

From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://www.neighborhoodsolutionsinc.com.