Youth violence turns into passionate discussion at council meeting

080910PR-YouthViolence.pdf

Seattle Youth Violence Prevention Intiative

A town hall-style meeting about the Seattle Youth Violence Prevention Initiative turned into a passionate public discussion of both causes and solutions to the issue.

The meeting took place yesterday evening, Tuesday, June 25 at the Hall at Fauntleroy.

Youth violence prevention was one of three topics discussed at the meeting, the other two being public schools and urban forests. There was a brief presentation on each topic given by different Seattle City Council members, and then the crowd was split into four rotating groups to discuss each subject.

Although there was concern for all of the topics, the debate over the priorities for prevention of youth violence was filled with strong, personal sentiments.

People were sharing at a level of vulnerability and honesty that it was uncomfortable and sometimes painful to hear, but ultimately made for good discussion, said council member Tim Burgess.

Part of the struggle of creating a solution was in finding the primary cause of the issue. Family dynamics, school environment, lack of extracurricular activities, relationships with police and gun control were the dominant factors discussed.

Terrence Lewis, who runs the Fatherhood program at First AME Child and Family Center, pinpointed the father-son disconnect as the major issue.

“When daddy’s not home, things go wrong,” said Lewis.

Larry Kaminer suggested mentoring as a way of opening young people’s minds and making the “DNA of the way they think different than what they might see.”

Kaminer offered to be a mentor and called on others to look into volunteer options as well.

A mother countered the assumption that the problem is in the home explaining that she makes a good home for her kids, but said she is constantly trying to counteract negative influences of society and her community.

The one point everyone seemed to agree on was the need for extracurricular activities, and adults outside of school to act as support figures for those who don’t find any at home.

Mauranjanique Smallwood, a high school student at Cleveland, noted that many after school programs or job opportunities require multiple forms of identification, such as a social security card and birth certificate, which students from an unstable family may not have access to.

Smallwood also shared an experience at one of the community centers where a few young men started to stir up some trouble. They were kicked out of the community center, and then were ushered further down the street by police. Rather than trying to extinguish the problem, people kept trying to push it out of the way, she said.

Smallwood tried to reach out to an officer for help but they said it was not their reasonability. She noted that there is a police presence but their responsibilities are unclear.

“Where does your uniform start and stop?” said Smallwood.

In response to this, Smallwood and Janisha Sparks, also a junior at Cleveland High School, started a youth advocacy and violence prevention program called MAD, or Making a Difference.

Others also called for more positive engagement of police officers with the community beyond just enforcement.

Finally there was the issue of gun control.

“The presence of guns among young people was much more prevalent than people are aware of,” said council member Nick Licata, summarizing multiple people’s comments.

Some referenced strategies in Boston to use a “buy back plan” to get the guns out of youth’s hands.

Ultimately, the consensus seemed to be that all of the factors leading to youth violence overlap in a complex problem yielding no perfect solutions.

This was just the “beginning of an important discussion,” said Burgess, noting there needs to be another town hall meeting devoted to just this topic.