WASHINGTON — This week, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said instead of sending some young offenders to shelters or letting them go home when they're involved in crime, they should be "detained in a secure facility." But there are child advocates meeting in the District this week pushing back on that approach.
"We're here because we need to refresh our conversation for a new day, and we need new policy calibrations for a new day," said Children's Defense Fund (CDF) President and CEO Rev. Dr. Starsky Wilson.
Thursday, the D.C.-based non-profit marked its 50th anniversary by convening policymakers, advocates and educators from across the country at Howard University for a celebration focused on solutions and hard questions about how to best help kids.
"Part of what we're talking about here over the next couple of days is our vision for a future for the next generation of America's children that CDF serves where there are no juvenile detention centers," said Dr. Wilson.
With youth violence in the headlines lately, Wilson says locking up kids in the hopes of a short term solution will only make communities less safe in the long term.
"Lawmakers generally are reactive, right? So we see a young person with a gun. The reaction is incarcerate them," said Melinda Kakani the Director of Youth Justice for CDF California. "What does it look like to be proactive about a young person and their well-being?"
"The reality is we didn't get here overnight. We're not going to get out of this overnight," Wilson said of the recent spike in crimes involving young people.
Wilson says instead of more detention, kids and families need direct investments to lift them out of poverty and make sure there are opportunities for positive activities in their neighborhoods.
But programs alone, he says, aren't enough.
"We're going to have to make sure that we structure our political conversations to think of their needs first and not them as a problem," he said.
"There's a small fix. It's not a quick fix," added Wilson. "A small fix is actually spend some time with young people."
"A small fix is to make sure that as much as we are providing public policy and legislation and we're engaged in these spaces, nobody should be in those places (who) is not actually spending time with young people directly."