The much anticipated 2017 Arkansas Division of Youth Services report grabbed some headlines last week.
Arkansas, it seems, has a perception problem about when and how to treat troubled youths -- especially, it would seem, in the less progressive and populated area of the state.
Southeast Arkansas, an area of the state affected by declining population, poverty, crime, and lack of steady jobs -- incarcerates more youths for nonviolent crimes than in any other region of Arkansas.
Why?
Well there is less local community-, school- and faith-based programs to treat these troubled teens in those areas than the rest of the state.
Programs such as alternative schools where disruptive students can be isolated from traditional school classrooms -- and be under a much lower student-to-teacher ratio -- cost money. Southeast Arkansas has fewer of these programs than anywhere else.
It also has fewer faith-based juvenile counseling services and fewer community programs which engage these youths with job training, skills assessment and counseling. Many of these disruptive students come from homes where basic needs are not being met -- adequate food, shelter, and other basic amenities many take for granted.
The youth population served by the Department of Human Services, as far as young kids in juvenile lockups, varies from year to year. In the year just ending, the state has jailed 451 youth -- spending as much as $238 a day per child for a whopping $87,000 for a year of being locked away from their family, friends and schoolmates.
This statistic caused state Sen. Stephanie Flowers, D-Pine Bluff, to make a remarkable statement: "We have built a school-to-prison pipeline. It is offensive to me and it ought to be offensive to all of us."
But her remarks largely went unchallenged.
The needed programs -- community-, school- and faith-based programs -- according to Betty Guhman, director of the Youth Services Division and a long-time staffer for Gov. Asa Hutchinson, is stymied by stagnant funding.
Finding the proper funding, Guhman indicates, is a challenge as the state General Revenues are not growing to provide funds for these partnerships for communities, judges and other state agencies.
I'll never forget hearing a similar comment from a former state senator years ago.
When noting that adequate funds were not forthcoming to provide housing for the projected number of teens who would, over the next year, flood the juvenile lockup system, a majority of the lawmakers in the room seemed unconcerned about covering the need.
"Ya'll need to wake up," the senator said. "What are we going to do with these kids? You can't just hang 'em up on a nail (like an old coat) and say done. We have to find the funds."
Guhman has often ringed, rang and rung the bell as loudly and forcefully in this GOP dominated legislature and administration as possible.
Too bad, no one is hearing the outcry.
Now, in comes state Sen. Alan Clark, R-Lonsdale, wanting to evoke the "church card."
He wanted to know if DHS asked youths in state lockup if they attended religious programs or if they had a daddy at home.
Clark went on to say, "Wouldn't it be good for the state to recommend those two things?"
That got a rise out of his colleague, Flowers.
"These children should not be written off. It is about poverty... it is not because they don't have a dad."
Director Guhman, in the job less than a year, reminded the legislators of her commitment to overhauling the juvenile justice in Arkansas.
Despite the philosophical differences between political parties on what has led to troubled teens in state lockups, Guhman needs funding and serious attention paid to this problem.
Or, does Sen. Flowers have it right.
"Is Arkansas, indeed, building a school-to-prison program?"
-- Maylon Rice is a former journalist who worked for several northwest Arkansas publications. He can be reached via email at [email protected]. The opinions expressed are those of the author.
Editorial on 09/20/2017