Reply to “Wrap-around services.” Do you agree this is the problem?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Following up on the recent panel discussion you can find (and discussed) here:

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1183416.page

Gist was:  youth in DC would not commit crime if they were given “wrap-around” services by the government / taxpayers.

Do you agree that is the problem / issue / solution to crime in DC?

Why or why not ?[/quote]

I mean it might help a bit with prevention. But people who think this would be a solution fail to realize that it requires buy-in from the youth themselves. [b]You can lead a horse to water but can’t make it drink.[/b]

Definitely wouldn’t hurt but it would need a honest cost/benefit analysis. Already spend tens of thousands of dollars on free public school for every single kid regardless of if the kid is skipping/doing work/putting in effort/actually benefiting. And public education is a HUGE if not the biggest expense of state/local governments (i.e. directly funded by tax payers, can not run deficits and print money like the fed does). Don’t want to create an even more expensive parallel service that costs the same/more and doesn’t make a massive difference.[/quote]

Actually, you can force a horse to drink as a condition of its release. There are plenty of services overall for kids/families in DC--and 'wraparound' services for kids tangled up in the legal system should provide services -- like GED for example--that they must take advantage of for release back into community. What do they need to be a better, societally inclined person? Education, counseling, job training, group sessions, check-ins? Make them do it before they are released as adults at 26. Also, if they are not adults until 26 in the eyes of DC then they should be help until then (unless they take advantage of a LOT of wraparound services).[/quote]

I thought the issue we were discussing was the unavailability of wraparound services [i]until[/i] a kid has contact with the criminal justice system. So it’s trying to treat a problem after it has started which some are arguing is too late to make a large difference.

Yes I agree that it should be a requirement of release/probation/leniency.

But if the purported solution is making wraparound services universally available BEFORE having an interaction with the law— there’s not really anything to force utilization. And the kids that don’t care and wouldn’t utilize services are probably more often than not the main sources of trouble making.

Just like in school, the kids that didn’t care about class/caused disruptions/constantly got into trouble… there wasn’t a wayto “force” them into caring about their future, and it cost taxpayers the same amount of money each year to teach them (if not more) as it did everyone else.. And now it’s not uncommon for me to see their names as adults, on the county prison roster.

[/quote]

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