Call to Action

I started thinking of what is important in what I wanted changed and I focused on four key areas. I don't believe in finding problems without solutions so I made sure I found a number of ways to improve our systems then put it all in writing. Please feel free to share my ideas, but attribute Know Better Do Better Pennsylvania, to friends, relatives, candidates, church groups, what have you. Let's all help our kids.

As I am sure you know, crime against and by our youth is an issue of concern in Pennsylvania. While there are many reasons for this problem, as a state our response is not always productive. We tend to focus on the big issues and ignore the small ones until tragedy strikes, then look to assign blame and pass the buck instead of looking for ways to limit them.

We want to scream, “drugs” but don’t want to acknowledge that the true gateways are poverty and trauma and then criticize those who come from poor communities for struggling.

We say, “Back the Blue” but don’t ensure that the blue is held to a higher standard. We don’t require extensive training of our officers and then act surprised when they make mistakes. We give them legal protections others do not have then wonder why they aren’t trusted.

We have a juvenile justice system where a judge alone makes determinations of what will happen to a youth and the judges are seldom questioned. This is how we get more people like Judges Conahan and Ciavarella. Often, especially with teens, foster youth are placed in juvenile placement facilities because there is no place for them. These children are often traumatized to begin with and then are exposed to criminal behavior, targeted by peers and at times staff, and not able to receive the care they need due to the limitations of the facilities.

Too often we throw young people in placement over what should be dealt with at home and school yet ignore larger problems. Arguing with a teacher should not result in a year locked up. Defending yourself from an abusive guardian should not be a felony. We can and should do better.

Do young people need to be held accountable for their actions? Absolutely. But, so do the parents, community, and governing parties. We cut funding to social programs, attack schools, tie the hands of social workers and ignore mental health providers then wonder why there are issues in our towns. We use military terms and equipment in local policing and wonder why some police and residents see each other as the enemy.

There are no simple answers to these problems but there are simple steps that we can take to help us work through these issues. Working to help our youth helps us all. They are our future, future workers, leaders, and parents. We need them to be safe, secure and loved.

What are those simple steps that I mentioned previously? We are all aware that throwing money at problems does not make them go away, and while some of my ideas do come at a cost much of that cost can be recouped in time with more taxpayers in the long run and a more welcoming state for businesses.

Drug use is one of the biggest issues our nation faces. There have been many attempts at solving the issue, some more successful than others. Some of those attempts that have been shown as successful include increasing access to mental health facilities to help people before they fall into addiction and for those recovering from it. Better access to quality mental health care will help a myriad of social issues yet coverage by insurance limits access almost as much as the stigma of needing help. While access to community support varies by community one thing that can be used throughout the state is designated drug courts for non-violent users. Separating those that use without harming others from those who commit other crimes due to their addiction will help keep them from increasing their criminal behavior and leaves judges for leeway to work with addicts before their behaviors spiral. According to the Department of Justice in June of 2023, there are about 3,800 drug courts already in the US, with about half dealing with adults only. These courts tend to save money as rehabilitation is cheaper than incarceration and the recidivism rate is lower, though how low is debatable as not all courts report success in the same manner. Some of these courts concentrate on veterans as we are all well aware of how much we owe these men and women who often come back from deployments needing more assistance than we, as a nation, provide. Other courts focus on families as addiction harms more than the user, but their entire family, these courts focus on ending abuse cycles that the individuals may find themselves stuck in. More information can be found at, https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/238527.pdf.

This next part may not be very popular on the surface but it is vital to change in the criminal justice system and supports both the community and those officers protecting our communities. We have to change items in our current policing practices. The easiest and most cost-effective way is to go back to local policing, and support departments that hire exclusively from their own towns and cities. People tend to be kinder and more supportive of those that they already know and grew up around. As a young person growing up in Aliquippa in the 1990’s we all knew Chief Alston, we knew his family and he knew ours. As adults, those same teens now remember him fondly and how he dealt with typical teen behaviors in a respectful and sensible manner. Were there officers that were distrusted, yes, but they were in the minority and were distrusted with reason. Local officers know who people are and what struggles they may be facing, they know who has mental illness or intellectual delays and are able to react accordingly. Those from outside the community do not know the residents as well and that is how unfortunate incidents like the shooting of Charles Kinsely by Officer Jonathan Aledda in North Miami, Florida in 2016. This is why programming like “Shop with a Cop” that many communities have at Christmas time or New Bethlehem's “Cops and Bobbers” are important, they build community. We also need to increase training for our local police, currently, they need 919 hours, just under 23 weeks, to become a police officer in the Commonwealth, this is an extremely low number for a professional position where people’s lives are in their hands. It is no wonder that they sometimes may less than good decisions. Of those 919 hours only eight deal with juvenile justice, seventeen about different cultural and religious beliefs, and twenty-two with special needs per the Municipal Police Officer’s Education and Training Commission. There are also continuing education credits required but these are also below the requirements of other professional positions. We can not keep sending out our officers under qualified, it is not safe for them or the community at large. Federal and military police, as well as our state police, all require more in-depth training and have fewer issues with community engagement. Let us treat our officers as the professionals they are supposed to be. More information on training can be found here, https://mpoetc.psp.pa.gov/training/Documents/Revised%20Training%20Documents/Basic%20Police%20Officer%20Training/Basic%20Police%20Training%20Syllabus.pdf. My last point I will bring up as a change in policing at this time is to limit, not end, qualified immunity. Should our law enforcement be safe from frivolous lawsuits? Yes. But, they should also be held accountable for their actions, including their actions in the line of duty. As I have said previously, a two-tiered system of justice is not good for anyone. If officers feel that they are above the law, especially those with limited training, incidents happen that violate the rights of community members and at times end in fatalities. As Senator Markey has said, "By shielding police officers from accountability, qualified immunity encourages more police violence against Black and Brown people." While his point about police violence towards minorities is valid, it isn’t the full picture. Communities lose respect and trust for departments where they feel that the officers can harm them with impunity making it harder for officers to do their job and more dangerous for them to do so. Limiting qualified immunity protects the good officers and helps weed out bad ones making policing safer for everyone.

Since 1901 Pennsylvania has had a juvenile court system. Our system is considered a model for the nation and the world. Vietnam recently sent people to study our system to implement in their own nation. However, that does not mean we do not have room for improvement. Per the Juvenile Court Judge’s Commission, Act 33 of 1995, our current system is, “…to provide for children committing delinquent acts programs of supervision, care and rehabilitation which provide balanced attention to the protection of the community, the imposition of accountability for offenses committed and the development of competencies to enable children to become responsible and productive members of the community.” We have a wonderful mission and for the most part our courts and various workers do a terrific job and truly care about the children, but like any other part of life, no system is perfect. Juvenile court cases are tried in front of a judge only due to confidentiality reasons, however, that opens the court up to exploitation as seen with Judges Conahan and Ciavarella. They were paid to send children to placement for small indiscretions that typically would require community service if anything. While we have moved on from these cases and the judges were charged, one way to prevent these types of actions from happening again is by setting up a tribunal system with judges, it is harder to exploit children and the system when there are multiple people making the decisions, not a sole person. We currently have a combination of public and private facilities holding youth in the commonwealth with funding for these coming from grants, federal, state, and county funds which vary from county to county and youth to youth. This combination of facilities and funding serves the various needs of our communities but the moving pieces mean often things are missed. There are probation officers, case workers, and similar who do not make regular visits to their clients, at times creating fraudulent documentation that they made their visits. This is not only a theft of taxpayers' dollars but it also harms the youth, it makes it difficult for them to make the necessary arrangements to improve their lives once out of the system. The ones that do visit should be doing more visits after school hours, too often youth are pulled out of classes repeatedly for visits which adversely affects their education, something that many struggle with already. A final improvement I will touch on at the moment for the system is to limit what guidelines are used to put a child into placement. Self-defense is legal for adults, it should be legal for children as well. Correcting others is legal for adults, it should be for children as well.

The last area that can be adjusted to improve outcomes for our youth and our nation’s future is the foster care system. Fostering has been around since the beginning of family units with its purpose changing slightly over time. Currently, the system is important as a way to protect children when homes become unsafe, parents face struggles that prevent them from being parents, or parental loss. According to Pennsylvania Partnership for Children the number of reports made to protective services between 2013 and 2019 has grown, though the number of founded cases has dropped. This does not mean less funding is needed, however, as it costs money and time to look into each of the reported cases. Further, despite the fewer founded cases, more children were in care during this time period. This puts a burden on the number of foster parents in the state as well, many of which are aging and will no longer be taking more placements. While most of our case workers, transition specialists, independent living workers, guardian ad litems and similar do a phenomenal job for the youth, they are becoming burnt out with increasing caseloads, more paperwork, and fewer resources, these resources include placements (both foster homes and group home situations). While the budget for 2023-2024 included an increase of about $1.2 million that is not a large sum when inflation is factored in let alone the increased need. I spoke to an experienced caseworker the other day and she said the main item they need to help the youth is funding. Funding does more than pay for workers, though that is desperately needed, it also pays for activities for the youth, learning opportunities so that they can be more successful once they age out of the system, and basic items like clothing allotments which are needed for all youth but especially those in placement facilities. Placing supported youth in placements is another issue, we do not have enough foster homes for all of the children in care. Unfortunately, that means many young people, especially teens with trauma issues, end up being housed with youth in the juvenile system. This, as mentioned previously, often leads children in care to pick up poor habits and contacts as well as often being re-traumatized and not learning appropriate interpersonal relationships. Beyond funding that helps pay foster parents to take in youth, we need to look into why our tax dollars are going to religious-based agencies to vet foster parents. The commonwealth loses out on foster parents each year, people that are good people, but get denied because their religious beliefs do not align with those of the people performing home studies. While they mean well, we are a nation with freedom of religion, people should not be denied a chance to be a foster parent and children should not be denied a home based on a third party's religious beliefs. This not only limits foster homes available it also limits foster homes children may be comfortable in. Not every child in Pennsylvania is Christian and some have religious based trauma and those children also deserve to feel safe and loved in a family.

I realize this is a long proposal and parts of it have been implemented in various parts of the state. We need to take the best of what we are doing in each county and share those ideas and actions throughout the state. While this may be the end all be all of improving the future of our children, we can’t continue just passing responsibilities down the road. We each need to do what is the best for all of our children. They are our future.