Smart Justice
Smart Justice covers the pursuit of better outcomes on justice system issues, including incarceration, foster care, and juvenile justice. The podcast is produced by Restore Hope.
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Smart Justice
Out of Isolation: Addicted and Alone
Loss and disconnection lie at the heart of juvenile crime and substance abuse. That's the powerful message from those working on the frontlines of youth justice, including Crystal Davis, who transformed her life after 26 years of addiction to mentor young people in detention.
"The biggest reason that I've seen is loss—the loss of a family member, the loss of a parent, either to death, divorce, drugs," explains Davis, whose own journey into substance abuse began at age 12. Now she teaches incarcerated youth essential life skills and encourages them to see beyond their current circumstances. "They're normal kids. They just made some bad decisions."
Today's juvenile justice landscape reveals troubling trends exacerbated by the pandemic. Judges across Arkansas report skyrocketing truancy rates and unprecedented levels of isolation among young people. "Some portion of those young people didn't feel safe going to school...mostly it was just they didn't want to be around other people," notes Judge Adam Weeks, highlighting how social withdrawal creates fertile ground for mental health crises and substance abuse.
What makes the current situation particularly dangerous is the evolution of drug potency. Marijuana wax containing 90% THC and fentanyl-contaminated pills have created an environment where "experimentation" can be deadly. Justin Buck of the Wolfe Street Foundation warns, "Experimentation might seem so innocent or we might have our own experiences with experimentation when we were teenagers. Listen, it's deadly today."
This episode explores promising solutions emerging across Arkansas, from specialized family treatment courts to community-based after-school programs. These initiatives reflect a significant shift in juvenile justice philosophy articulated by retired Judge Gary Arnold: "We recognize there are alternatives that are more effective and get better outcomes than simply locking them up."
Want to learn more about evidence-based approaches transforming juvenile justice? Visit smartjustice.org to explore additional resources and subscribe to our newsletter for the latest developments in this vital field.
Executive Director of Restore Hope Paul Chapman hosts this podcast. Executive producer is Karen Tricot Steward. Videography and production by Ti King.
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Some portion of those young people didn't feel safe going to school, but it wasn't because of violence. Mostly it was just they didn't want to be around other people.
Speaker 2:Isolation is where mental health challenges and substance use challenges really get in your head.
Speaker 3:Our goal in juvenile court is to figure out the why, so that they don't end up on the adult docket.
Speaker 4:Crime and punishment are hot topics, but are there solutions? We're hearing about the best we can do. What if there's a smarter way to approach justice, one that delivers better return on investment? I look at it like about every nine beds occupied for a year, that's around a million dollars. Strengthens, law enforcement and courts I get fired up about that.
Speaker 5:I'm excited about the potential that we have to really do something that's going to change generations to come.
Speaker 4:And connects families in crisis with the resources they need to end cycles of crime.
Speaker 2:Having that support in place. I wouldn't be here without it.
Speaker 4:This isn't just a theory. We're covering real, evidence-based solutions that are improving our communities. Welcome to Smart Justice. This is Season 4, juvenile Justice.
Speaker 6:The biggest reason that I've seen is loss like the loss of a family member, the loss of a parent, either to death, divorce, drugs.
Speaker 4:Crystal Davis is a youth advisor at the Juvenile Detention Center in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, where she leads life skills classes for incarcerated youth. These young people come from all kinds of backgrounds and have taken different paths to end up there, but Crystal sees a common thread running through all of their stories Loss. And that's something that Crystal understands on a deeply personal level. Growing up, her parents divorced and that left a void. Her father's inconsistent presence only made it worse. Like so many of the kids she now works with, she tried to fill that emptiness with drugs.
Speaker 6:But there was times where he would be gone two years and I wouldn't hear from him. I wouldn't know if he was dead or alive. But, just like me with my kids, he always tried he would show up. He would call sometimes. He would buy us Christmas gifts sometimes and I was always a daddy's girl so when he showed up I always ran to him.
Speaker 6:I started smoking weed at 12. It's something my cousins were doing. I wanted to fit in, I wanted to do what they were doing. So I started smoking weed at 12, and I started drinking. And then at 16, when I got my driver's license, it was more accessible.
Speaker 6:18 is when I started doing the hard drugs. I started with cocaine on my 18th birthday. It was a birthday present, some present, yeah. So after that, from 18 to 38, I did crack, meth, Fentanyl, xanax, hydros. I tried acid, I tried shrooms. Basically I would get high on anything just to get high, just to numb myself. I dealt with a lot of losses, not just my dad. My cousin was killed when she was 12 by a guy that was on methamphetamine. My uncle died in a car wreck because he was drunk. My aunt was murdered in Dalloway. They were drinking. The guy choked her and pushed her down the stairs. I had another aunt die of cirrhosis of the liver. I had another cousin committed suicide and jumped off the bridge here in town. My grandma died when I was 17, and we were close.
Speaker 4:After 26 years of substance abuse, she was finally able to find a way out, and now she's dedicated her life to helping young people who are struggling to find theirs.
Speaker 6:It's an honor, it's a joy. I love it. When I first started I would sit on the computer for hours. I would sit on the computer for hours searching for lessons. I was kind of learning as I went. Now it's like it's natural. I can walk in, we can start talking about something and have a whole group on it. I'm really close with a lot of the kids here. I refer to them as my kids, like I would my own kids.
Speaker 4:She encourages the kids to set a meaningful goal and to keep their focus on the bigger picture, reminding them that their current situation does not define their future.
Speaker 6:Thinking before they act is a big one. Even grown-ups spontaneously do things on a whim from emotions being angry, mad, sad, whatever and just go get in trouble. So just stop and pause and think about things before you do them. Think about the consequences. Play the tape all the way through.
Speaker 6:When you make the decision to change, don't try to change everything at once. It's impossible to change everything overnight. Everything at once. It's impossible to change everything overnight. And I told them to think about the things that they need to change and just pick one and just change that one and then change another one and change another one. That's what I did when I first got clean and sober. I still lied, I still stole sometimes. Now I don't do any of that and it's great. It feels good to do good.
Speaker 6:I can tell you this there's a red panic button on that wall in that classroom. I've been here a year and nine months. I've never had to push it. A year and nine months I've only put about three kids out of my group. They're very well-behaved, they're respectful. They just need somebody to care about them, somebody to put some time and effort into them. But you would never know, just talking to one of them. If they were in their normal clothes and they weren't in those suits, you wouldn't know they were troublemakers. Yes, ma'am, no, ma'am, like they're very well behaved. They're normal kids. They just made some bad decisions.
Speaker 4:She remembers that as a young person she didn't fit the stereotype of a typical troublemaker either.
Speaker 6:Like I was just telling the kids. I was always a good student, I made good grades, I played sports, I was in math club, science club. I was living both worlds, I was getting high and getting in trouble, but I was also a great student, a great athlete.
Speaker 4:Working with at-risk youth does come with challenges, though. She has seen many of the young people she mentors struggle to break free from the justice system, despite their best efforts. Once a juvenile enters the system, they often face numerous barriers to exiting, from lack of support at home to the stigma that can come along with being a kid who was locked up.
Speaker 6:I always hear Ms Crystal, I ain't never coming back, but they do. It's not their intentions when they leave here to come back. It's just easy to fall back into that same life, especially once you're already on papers. When you're on probation, I see a lot of the kids come back and forth, back and forth.
Speaker 4:I'm Paul Chapman. In this episode we're diving deep into the issue of teen drug use, including the urgent need for juvenile-specific substance abuse treatment.
Speaker 2:Experimentation might seem so innocent or we might have our own experiences with experimentation when we were teenagers.
Speaker 4:Listen, it's deadly today We'll also hear from three juvenile judges, two currently serving on the bench and one retired who was among Arkansas' first juvenile judges. He shares his insights on how perspectives on youth justice have evolved over the years.
Speaker 7:We recognize there are alternatives that are more effective and get better outcomes than simply locking them up.
Speaker 8:Support for Smart Justice is provided by Restore Hope. Have you ever wondered why some communities aren't seeing the outcomes they seek when trying to support at-risk families, even those that seem to have all the right assets? Restore Hope is a software and services organization dedicated to empowering communities by offering the coordination and tools needed to support the vulnerable, like those involved in the justice and child welfare systems. Learn how you can bring these tools to your community at restorehopeio.
Speaker 4:Teen drug use is rising nationwide, and in Arkansas substance abuse rates among youth exceeded the national average. The state currently lacks residential inpatient substance abuse treatment facilities for young people, aside from the more costly private options. Efforts are underway to close this gap and in the meantime, new outpatient services have emerged in central Arkansas to support youth struggling with addiction. One new option is the Six Bridges Clinic at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. Developed in partnership with the Arkansas Children's Hospital, the clinic provides comprehensive assessment and treatment tailored to adolescents and young adults. Another initiative is the Youth Empowerment Project launched by the Wolf Street Foundation. Justin Buck, executive Director of Wolf Street, explains that Six Bridges Clinic focuses on clinical services, while the Youth Empowerment Project offers youth a structured curriculum, mentorship and connects them to vital community resources there were not any programs that were in our communities helping young people.
Speaker 2:So today, you know, we have really partnered up with thanks to the Blue and you Foundation and UAMS and their Six Bridges Outpatient Clinic, there's really now like a system of care that is starting up to provide those services to young people. So we don't provide clinical services, we're all about non-clinical, community-based programming. But we've got great partners now to help us with the clinical piece and we've got great mental health providers that we can refer people to for higher levels of care that we can refer people to for higher levels of care. I do think that it's really difficult to imagine starting up programming for young people or starting up clinical treatment programs, even for young people, because it's so complicated to think about. Well, gosh, how do we sustain that and what are the funding sources and how do we keep it going and how do we do all of that while also producing a great program? And so it can be really, really intimidating, which is why we're focused on that non-clinical, community-based program. You know we don't have to do everything in that space. We can partner to tackle this little bit by little bit and make that collective impact right by partnering to meet all of those needs instead of trying to do it all ourselves.
Speaker 2:I think it has taken a long time to get these resources to young people and to communities because this for so long has been an invisible problem.
Speaker 2:You know, we can do the Just Say no and we can do the DARE program and we can do the Red Ribbon Weeks and things like that, but until we're ready, or until we have been ready to directly serve young people and confront some uncomfortable truths and some uncomfortable situations, it can be really daunting to start programs like this. So, yeah, I think that it was really difficult for people to see a problem that most people wanted to ignore in their families. And now you have the opioid epidemic that has brought so much attention to the deadly danger of substance use and the deadly danger of fentanyl getting into other substances and things like that. So there's a lot more visibility now about the real dangers and we're also starting to approach this problem. You know, not with the old this is your brain on drugs, frying pan commercials, but talking about what's really happening in the space, what's really happening in our community and how can we equip and empower our young people to make good decisions in that community.
Speaker 4:Buck says. The most recent Arkansas Prevention Needs Assessment shows that almost 10 percent of sixth graders are using substances every 30 days.
Speaker 2:That's a lot of 12-year-olds, you know, using substances on a 30-day pattern. You know data shows that teenage drinking and teenage marijuana use are really big problems. The younger you initiate the use of those substances, the more likely it is that you'll develop a substance use disorder. A lot of substance use disorders start with self-medicating or responding to traumatic life experiences. I'd say that's the most powerful underlying factor.
Speaker 2:But then you look at the stresses of daily life and like I don't know about you, but ever since the pandemic, even a normal day feels really stressful sometimes, and so you think about all of the stress that people are under in our day-to-day lives and you compound that with traumatic experiences or adverse childhood experiences or any number of things that could be contributing to the trauma load for that person and it can set up some real vulnerabilities. We really hope that this program is a great diversion, not just for the justice system but also the education system. So instead of sending a young person to you know an incarceration setting, or instead of sending a first, second, third time juvenile offender into a system, we hope that we can divert those young people over into some positive community-based programming like the Youth Empowerment Project, and we know that ultimately that will save our community's money and hopefully it again keeps that young person from entering a system and becoming, you know, a number on a recidivism chart and things like that.
Speaker 4:Drugs today are more potent, more accessible and more deadly than ever before.
Speaker 2:That's a tremendous problem.
Speaker 2:I think some of the most dangerous substances, other drugs, the illicit drugs that are out there and available to young people are, you know what they think might be Percocet or some other pill form drug. And if you're buying a pill form drug from someone you don't know, or even someone you do know, it's probably fentanyl. And so it's really important to educate and empower them to make the right decisions and then to know how to have some kind of safety in that situation. Of course, there's no safe way to use illicit substances, but we can educate young people and educate parents about how to prevent the initiation of that kind of drug use, how to store medications safely and dispose of them when the prescription is done, how to talk to your young people about social situations like going to parties and things like that and being on the lookout for risk-suggested behaviors or dangers, without keeping them cooped up in their bedroom. I think it's important in all our conversations, whether we're talking about adult populations or youth populations, to take any opportunity we can to interrupt stigma so we can look for what kind of kids is this a great program for or who is this program a great fit for, but to interrupt the stigma that says, well, we know what kids who use drugs look like. Because, yeah, maybe you think you do, but there are kids that you would look at and think all American athlete or you know, all American scholar or just, oh, that's a great kid and they're having keg parties in somebody's garage and guess what? It's one of y'all. It's an adult's house, you know.
Speaker 2:And I think it's also important to recognize that what we might think is normal behavior like this is just a kid experimenting. Well, experimentation is not normal behavior. You know, having your first drink or having your first sip of beer at 12, 14, 15, that's not normal. Having keg parties and having your kid's friends leave their keys in the bowl, that's not normal behavior. And experimentation might seem so innocent. Or we might have our own experiences with experimentation when we were teenagers. Listen, it's deadly today. You know, if your kid starts to experiment with Percocet or other pills that they might find in your medicine cabinet and then goes and looking for it somewhere else, they could get a hold of fentanyl and overdose and die.
Speaker 2:So experimentation seems like a normal experience to have as a teenager, but it's so dangerous and deadly today that we've got to educate and empower our young people to make good decisions for themselves.
Speaker 2:And empower our young people to make good decisions for themselves.
Speaker 2:And that's where parents and caring adults in the community can stop the fear-based this is your brain on drugs tactics that we've seen not work and start really having good conversation with their kids. So it can be difficult to help students who don't have a great home environment, but that's why we're focused on building character strength and building and empowering young people with internal resources so that, okay, I may be in this environment and I may not have control over my home environment, but I have control over the goals that I'm setting for myself. I have some control over the way that I'm setting for myself, I have some control over the way that I'm spending my time, I have some control over the actions that I take. And how can I build that strength of character and not just strength of character, but those decision-making skills and that sense of empowerment? How can we do that so that, no matter what environment you're in, you have some resilience and you have something to lean on until you can get connected to a healthier environment?
Speaker 2:The program takes referrals from courts, behavioral health professionals, parents and also schools Instead of going to out-of-school suspension or expulsion or an alternative learning environment or one of these other, you know, isolating experiences for young people. Because think about that, with education and incarceration right Sending a student outside of the community is really isolating, which is really dangerous for their mental health. Instead of doing that, can we divert them to a community-based program and work on these outcomes and then hopefully get them into a more restorative place so they don't enter those punitive systems? This program is a great opportunity for them to come and feel like they're being welcomed into a community of positivity.
Speaker 4:Another aspect of the program is peer support. The kids are connected to a caring adult who once struggled with substance abuse, so that they can have honest conversations about their experiences. The curriculum for the program includes making four agreements Be impeccable with your word, don't take anything personally, don't make assumptions and always do your best.
Speaker 2:Youth is a period of rapid transition, and transition is really difficult, and so we want young people to be resilient enough that, hey, where I'm transitioning through adolescence, maybe I'm transitioning out of high school, out of my family home. We want them to have that resilience and those resources to make those transitions successfully.
Speaker 4:Buck encourages parents and other adults who are raising teens to be aware of warning signs. These include severe mood swings and no longer being interested in activities they once enjoyed.
Speaker 2:If you're noticing that a young person in your life has started to isolate themselves. Maybe that looks like changing friend groups or not hanging around with friend groups as much anymore. It's normal, by the way, for a teenager to be a little bit like I don't really care about spending time with my family. You know I have teenage kids. That's normal. But if you notice that they start to just really isolate and shut down, that's a place to kind of check in and say, hey, how are we doing? You know, are you in community with other young people? Do you feel part of something? Because isolation is where mental health challenges and substance use challenges really get in your head and people start seeking other solutions for the way that they're feeling, which is alone.
Speaker 5:And that's also a really kind of opportune time for the wrong crowd to find your kid support for this podcast is provided by the non-profit restore hope in the hunter families initiative, moving families from crisis to career. Through innovative case management software, communities can develop strategies to best support those in need in their area and track outcome data in real time to see what's working. Learn more at RestoreHopeio.
Speaker 4:In Northeast Arkansas, juvenile judge Adam Weeks is also worried about drug use among teens.
Speaker 1:It's pretty clear that the pandemic took a real toll on our young people, specifically their mental health. They are showing up at court in crisis and that is just a constant refrain. In all of my cases involving young people I'm also seeing a tremendous amount of drug use, and the attitudes about specifically marijuana and the acceptance of it seem to have created just a huge uptick in mainly vaping Young people are. They're not rolling up marijuana like people used to. They have vape pens. They're taking them to school, which tells me that they're smoking marijuana in class at school.
Speaker 4:He says his community is desperate for resources to tackle the problem.
Speaker 1:There's nothing to address it. I'm left wringing my hands. I've got an ocean of problems and no solutions.
Speaker 4:Weeks sounds the alarm about one of the fastest-growing and most dangerous forms of cannabis amongst young people marijuana wax. It's usually smoked via a vape pen, making it easy to hide and even harder for parents and teachers to detect. What's more, it's far more potent than traditional marijuana flower, which usually contains around 15 to 25 percent THC contains around 15 to 25% THC.
Speaker 1:I have a case involving a family that had over 110s of this wax. You take this bong and you heat up this metal thing with a torch and you take a little dab of that wax and you put it on that metal that's been heated up and it vaporizes and that's like 90-something percent THC. And now we've got folks that show up looking like zombies and they're like well, it's just marijuana, well, that's not your mama's marijuana.
Speaker 4:Judge Weeks says he's also noticed changing attitudes among young people towards education and social interaction.
Speaker 1:A family's attitude about school attendance is totally different post-COVID. I guess being out during COVID reconfigured their attitudes about whether school is necessary. And now a kid wants to stay home, they just let them do it. And I'm not just talking about six, seven, eight, nine, 10 absences, 20, 30 absences. I think the young people don't believe that it's as important to go to school one and to go to school in person two. And the parents don't believe it either. I'll tell you there's a portion of them that the young people are. It's getting, it seems to be getting better.
Speaker 1:But there's some portion of those young people didn't feel safe going to school, but it wasn't because of violence, although it may be bullying, but mostly it was just they didn't want to be around other people. I really can't stress to you how different it is. Young people don't like being around other young people in the way that they used to. They're not driven to get out and connect with each other and the world because of those phones which fundamentally change things, but the desire for connection is still there. And so the answer lies in providing opportunities to engage these young people on a community level, not an internet level, but a person-to-person, real thing level. I have parents who aren't parenting their children, who then become teenagers, and then the parents don't have any control over them and the kid just wants to be loved, and so the resources that I need are family intervention resources.
Speaker 4:In response to the growing challenges in juvenile cases. Judge Weeks has been instrumental in creating a Family-Centered Treatment Court, a program designed to address the root causes of family dysfunction and substance abuse. These courts work to ensure families receive necessary treatment and services and foster a supportive environment that encourages positive change. He says when he examined the data, drug use by parents was a major factor in children being taken out of their homes and placed into the child welfare system.
Speaker 1:Seventy-two percent of the removals were primarily removed because of drug use, and so if we were going to successfully reunify our families, it was pretty clear to me that we had to address drug use. I always feel like we focus on trying to fix the symptoms of things rather than the root causes of things trying to fix the symptoms of things rather than the root causes of things. In my drug court, I always say that the opposite of addiction is connection. I think that the opposite of the problems we have is connection. The more that we connect as a community, as families, as schools, the more these problems just take care of themselves.
Speaker 4:Judge Kathy Hest in Forest City, arkansas, shares that sentiment. She too continues to grapple with the lasting effects of the pandemic on young people.
Speaker 3:It's almost as if the isolation was a comfortable spot for folks and so they didn't want to get back into in-class, in-person learning. We have now a lot of people wanting to do virtual, but they never log on, and so where they get mistaken is a lot of parents will come and say well, I decided they needed to do virtual. Well, virtual does not mean that we just disregard the learning process. Since COVID, our docket has been just astronomical with truancy cases. Our goal in juvenile court is to figure out the why, so that they don't end up on the adult docket.
Speaker 4:She says, young people are facing many more challenges than previous generations.
Speaker 3:When I was growing up, they didn't have to worry about going home and not being able to get away from social media. If you had certain things that you were facing in high school or junior high, you had the ability to go home with that safe refuge. You had a safe refuge. Now, with social media, the folks in junior high and as early as fourth grade they're not being able to get away from it because it's 24-7. So they're getting access to things earlier and the ability to get things like vapes and drugs is happening earlier and earlier. They face a lot more and at the same time, what's happening is this we're becoming a society in isolation and so for them, when they have a bad day and they go and they get in their bedrooms and they're isolated, and then they're comparing themselves to people they see on social media. It's just compounding the hurt, and so you have to deal with every bit of that.
Speaker 4:Like Judge Weeks, she also sees substance abuse disorders tearing families apart. She recalls the case of a mom with four children who did not have her high school diploma and had a substance use disorder.
Speaker 3:It's easy to see why you might be facing a substance use disorder if you've got four kids under eight and you don't even have a high school diploma. So the first thing we want to do is not look back, we want to look forward. So I put a team around her that would help her get her GED. And then there's a local assisted living facility that will help people get their CNA license in-house and then they can work for them for a period of time and then they're free to go work wherever they want. And I encouraged her because I told her that I know personally people that have started out with their CNA license and are now finishing up their RN degree you know, and how much money you can make as an RN right now. Because at the end of the day, she has to have hope, because if she doesn't have hope for tomorrow, then she's going to want to self-medicate at the despair.
Speaker 3:I was a non-traditional student, meaning that I had gone to college early on, but then I married and had two little girls, and so always, always, always, as many people do, I'm going to go back next semester. I'm going to go back next semester, and so by the time the youngest one got old enough to go into preschool. Then I started my full-time journey back and all of that, I think, has made me a better judge, because I can sit there and see myself in the mom who has found herself in a position where she's got little kids and she doesn't know where to start.
Speaker 4:She emphasizes that there's no one-size-fits-all solution.
Speaker 3:We've got to figure out is the child that is out at nine, at eight o'clock. Is he out because mom is working two jobs and she didn't have a sitter? Or is he out because mom has substance abuse disorder and she's just not mentally present? She's physically present but not mentally present. Or is he out because he's got the world at his fingertips and everything a child could need, but he's just being defiant Because we address those in different ways.
Speaker 3:For example, in St Francis County we have a program that we started called the Success Program, and that is because all my research showed me that most of the juvenile delinquency acts were occurring between 4 pm and 8 pm, when they were the least supervised. And so the taxpayers of St Francis County were at a crossroads where they were trying to decide whether do we build a juvenile detention facility or do we put programs around them. And the cost you know, the balancing that you have to do showed us, after a lot of research, that we could take that money and put it into programs. And so I rode and rode all over St Francis County looking for a building, and on Highway 70, there was a building that used to be a Kids for the Future building and it is absolutely perfect for what we do. On one side it has a huge room where we have everyone in there all at one time when we want to have big meetings, and then on the other side of the building it has rooms for our juvenile probation officer, intake officer, all the people that we need to put around them, and we start everything from book clubs on Monday nights. What we started with was local authors. We have one young lady that graduated from Port City and she went on to Harvard and she's in her early 20s and she's written a series of three books so far. So she was our first author, and when the young ladies in this area can see themselves in her, then they're inspired. And then we've developed all kinds of programs sports, music, group outings. We try to take them to all the different universities and we not only want to show them the educational part of it, but we also want to show them the group activities that they could be involved in so that they can see themselves there, they can envision.
Speaker 3:We did that because we know that there's folks out there that need help in the afternoons, and so we try to keep them busy and give them hope outside of street drugs and street violence and a way to make a living that will be sustainable. And I tell them all the time yes, there's some get-rich-quick people out there trying to get you to sell drugs and to sell guns, but they don't care about you at all. All they see in your face is a dollar sign. And I let them know that that they don't care about you and I make them realize that the folks that were trying to get you to sell drugs are they here with you now? Where are they? They are never in court with them, ever.
Speaker 3:You know, I am absolute believer in generational blessings and generational curses. It would be setting everybody up for failure if we expected a 14-year-old to be successful in a home where drugs were prevalent and easily accessible. It's not just from being a good human perspective, it's not just from being decent human. It is cost effective for the state of Arkansas. If we can start as early as possible and have as many peer recovery support specialists as possible for those judges that are willing to find out the why and want to get to the bottom and want to be successful in turning things around, then we will save the state of Arkansas millions and millions upon millions, because so many are incarcerated for substance use disorder and I believe that at any generation you can flip that.
Speaker 4:That includes teaching young people problem-solving skills, she says to prevent acts of violence resulting from conflicts, especially as kids have greater access to guns.
Speaker 3:It's all about early intervention, and if I had gotten that child when they were in first grade or second grade and taught them that you're going to, you know you're going to run into sooner or later, as a human being, you're going to run into people that disrespect you. That's going to happen to every single one of us. But here's how you handle it and here's how you learn the value of life.
Speaker 7:The government can't do, and shouldn't try to do everything for everybody. It takes some responsibility on parents and children too. They have to contribute and try. As a government we have an obligation to give them the best chance to get there.
Speaker 4:That's retired Judge Gary Arnold, who served in Arkansas's judicial system for more than three decades. When the Arkansas legislator recognized the need for a dedicated juvenile justice system in 1991, he became one of the first juvenile judges to serve. Before that, county judges, who were local administrators, often with no legal experience, had wide discretion over juvenile cases, leading to disparities in how young offenders were treated across the state.
Speaker 7:It's really interesting and it varied, as you might imagine, all over the state how it was handled. Many county judges deferred to some local attorney. You handle this, whatever it might be Just really varied all over the place. It wasn't the best for anybody, the best for the government, best for juveniles or their families. Several things needed to be overcome. There weren't any clearly written procedures as to this is how you do it. We all pretty much had goals on. What we wanted to do is to get the best, generally the best outcome for juveniles and their families.
Speaker 7:There's little or no previous case law to refer to. We just made it as we went along. Juniors, when we first started, were sent to jail, but just the adult jail. There was no alternative. Over the years, obviously, we developed detention centers, but even when we stopped sending them to jail we didn't have any place to put them, and that's still at times today, a problem Lack of detention centers, lack of shelters, lack of an appropriate place to put a juvenile who's in crisis, sometimes through no fault of his or her own. They can't go home. We put them in foster care, but that system is strained. In most counties foster care resources are very limited. That, I think for every judge who hears juvenile cases is a continuing problem.
Speaker 4:The heightened focus on gang violence in the 1990s, when gang-related crime surged in cities like Little Rock, significantly influenced the approach to the juvenile justice system in Arkansas. It led to harsher sentencing and increased incarceration and the birth of the super predator era, which suggested that some youth are irredeemably violent and therefore belong in adult courts.
Speaker 7:That was a really difficult time, talking about trying to balance the best interests of children and their families with public safety. That was very, very difficult and it still exists today, but not like then, golly. I remember going to town hall type meetings and it's all everybody talked about. That included the juvenile system, I mean the justice system, law enforcement and local government. That's what we were focused on, understandably so Thank goodness that is now not the primary focus.
Speaker 4:Over time, research and advocacy efforts challenged the punitive approach, showing that rehabilitation was more effective in reducing repeat juvenile offenders.
Speaker 7:Over the course of the years and I did this the same way I saw judges whose attitude changed from basically just lock them up just the way we do adults lock them up. That's the deterrent, the punishment. It's appropriate. Well, I saw some really hardcore judges through the information, the research nationwide that is available now that suggests that proves that's not the best automatic response for all situations. So that's why I saw some really hardcore judges change to 180 degrees. Instead of their first choice, that was their absolute last choice. Detention ought to be the last resort and you always have to keep them on public safety, certainly the safety of the juvenile as well. But if you have any alternatives, while not sacrificing public safety, you ought to look at those first.
Speaker 4:Despite the change, judge Arnold acknowledges persistent challenges. The availability of foster care, shelters and rehabilitation programs remains inconsistent across counties. Many judges, law enforcement officers and caseworkers struggle with limited resources, making it difficult to implement the most effective interventions.
Speaker 7:I think it's getting better across the state but still, depending on what county you're in the judge, law enforcement, dhs their decisions on what to do varies much more on resources than it does on the nature of the problem you're dealing with. So many counties in our state just don't have the resources. They don't exist. So although we know what's wrong and we have a really good idea of what to do, we don't have the resources to do it. We're not there by any means. Frankly, we'll never get there.
Speaker 7:Kids we got to be really careful with because when you make a mistake with a child, that may last for the next 60 years, when you're dealing with kids, you just got to be sensitive to the effect that you have that the system has on them and their families. Young people have to deal with decisions and consequences that people my age never had to think about. More technology, there's more opportunities to do something wrong can make a bad decision. I think overall we're not nearly as likely to incarcerate juveniles as we were in the past. I think that trend is going down and it's not because we're being soft on crime or something like that. It's because we recognize there are alternatives that are more effective and get better outcomes than simply knocking them up.
Speaker 4:On the next Smart Justice we'll meet Arkansas' juvenile ombudsman, who provides oversight of the juvenile justice system in the state. She works to ensure the rights, well-being and best interest of young people.
Speaker 10:When we start putting kids in solitary day in and day out. That is detrimental to their mental health, it's counterproductive. And then we take away their education, their access to education. It's a recipe for disaster.
Speaker 4:We'll also hear from a teen who has been locked up multiple times. Her story gives us insight into how young people end up in the system. Everyone I know they're in prison, Everybody in prison.
Speaker 9:The Smart Justice Podcast is a production of Restore Hope. Visit smartjusticeorg to read the magazine, as well as extensive coverage of community meetings on justice system-related issues. That's smartjusticeorg. There you can also sign up for the Smart Justice newsletter so you never miss the latest headlines. And please support us by leaving a rating and review. Thank you.
