s shocked when i was in court after i filed, um, charges that his mother got on the stand and lied to protect her son. not only has she let me down, his sister sent me texts that included cursing also. every day i have to look over my shoulder when i am alone. fred took away the only thing that brought peace to us.ay he stopped playing the alarm bill. sure that the alarm is set. he is afraid to sleep with the light off. he has gotten probation in the past and has had his record expunged. i asked the court to hold him

accountable. i ask that the restraining order remain permanent. the judge only joel lee gave unsupervised probation. he cannot touch the come near me for five years. he may not be allowed to contact me only through e-mail or text concerning our children. i want to go on with my life and perhaps find happiness one day through prayer counseling and support of our loved ones. hopefully my children and i will get there. thank you for listening to my testimony. it is helpful in your work in protecting children from the many forms of violence. they experience. i am actually a realtor from line and foster neil but after being here and having the honor to be here i would definitely see myself helping women and children in this scene. that have gone through the same

experience that i have gone through. thank you. >> thank you. >> my name is jacquelynn kuhn and i am a provider -- survivor of child sexual abuse. why abuse began when i was 5. at the time my family lived in a small michigan town called chastity. my abuser was a teenage boy who lived next door to us. he would take me alone into a tree house that was in the yard. at first he just laid down on top of me during our game play and simulated sex with our clothes on. at such a young age and never having been talked to about sex i didn't know what sex was so this type of play was confusing. than the abuse escalated. to fondling and other acts of sex. i know a lot of people wonder why kids don't tell when this is happening to them.

people need to understand that child molesters of masters of manipulation and they know what to say to make sure victims never tell. first he threatened me. he told me if i told anyone, were stopped letting him abuse me he would bring my older brother or my younger sister up to the tree house and do worse things to them. then he made me feel ashamed. he told me if i didn't like what was happening i would not be coming outside to play with my friends. then he convinced me that i would be the one to get in trouble. when i got brave and threatened to tell my father and he would go to jail for the bad things he was doing to me he laughed and told me i was doing the same bad things. and i would be the one to go to jail because my father would be angry that i didn't tell him

earlier. one of the most important parts of my story that i like to share with people is that my father was a michigan state trooper. many nights there was a police car parked in front of my house and my father would come home in his uniform carrying his badge and his gun. if that won't keep a child molester at bay, what will? if i felt as though i could not tell my father who was a police officer at the time what was happening to me, why would anyone question children who don't have police officers as fathers? by abuse only ended when i was 7 years old because my father was transferred to a new post in the state of michigan and we moved. i never told my family about by abuse until just recently after i turned 30 and after i went through a very painful divorce from a man i was married to for ten years who also abused day. he knew about my abusive past

and made me feel as though i wasn't good enough in our bedroom because of some emotional or psychological issues are was trying to work through during our marriage. instead of loving me through any problems that i might have been struggling through he abused me by carrying on extramarital affairs with many different women and treating me at times as if i were a paid performer for him in our bed room. he even got a vasectomy so he could sleep with other women without wearing a condom or worrying about unplanned pregnancies in danger in my health and safety. it was during my marriage that my personal defense mechanism, perfectionism or the illusion of it was at its strongest. ahead on back-to-school to finish a bachelor's degree and when i entered the intensive exhilarated academic program have booked a full time class load every semester and work full time as well. i made it might goal to achieve a 4 g p a and remember during my second to last semester weeping because i thought i might receive an 8-instead of an a and

this would ruin my hopes for finishing with a perfect grade point average but i did. earned that 4 point but the funny thing about academic records is they don't equate to a good grade, report card of life. that department are failed more than once. have been divorced, they are fed fired from jobs and always been a struggle to build stalin friendships that last more than a few years. as a survivor of child sexual abuse our struggle with every personal relationship that i have. before i ended my marriage i made appointments for marriage counseling to which my ex-husband never showed up. this turned out to be a good thing for me because i needed talent to win for my own struggles and issues. it was during these sessions that i figured i needed to tell my family about the sexual abuse are suffered as a child. part of me was scared my parents wouldn't believe me. another part of me was scared they would downplay my abuse and not care that it happened but

instead tell me to get over it because i'm an adult now. that is the same fear every survivor faces. the fear of wondering if anyone really cares about you. including your and family. we always feared rejection. i am working on trusting people enough to love me for who am now. because i was 5 years old and -- i was made to feel as though i were a throw away. someone who doesn't matter. someone who has no worth or value in the eyes of others. some days i am still at 5 year old girl. that is how powerful the shame and guilt can be for a victim who doesn't get help through treatment and community support when he or she is still in that stage of being a victim. without reporting their abuse and receiving excessive support and empowerment from a caring community that surrounds them victims end up with lives much like mine where they continue to be abused in different relationships and even abuse themselves.

that is why i began volunteering my time and talents with adam rosenberg, director of baltimore child abuse center and is dedicated staff in march of this year. baltimore child abuse center is a nonprofit agency that provides crucial work in the lives of child sexual abuse victims in baltimore. not only does it conduct foreign the interviews for child victims in a safe, stalin centered, not running environment but also provides advocacy resources for victims and their families. i also designed the butterfly mosaic you can see in the family waiting room. the mural is called life after abuse and it is there to symbolize the abuse -- of fort healing in every survivor of sexual abuse. as a survivor to see myself in the reflected mirrors of one of those butterflies and to know that i might half of self expression and beauty is a very powerful thing and to know it is because so many people in the

community banded together to work on this mosaic, putting broken pieces of childbed symbolize the broken pieces of my life and lives of all sexual abuse victims together in a way that makes sense and create a beautiful picture from something that happened that didn't make any sense and was extremely ugly, knowing that has taught me how valuable i am. nearly 100 community volunteers put in 40 hours of work to help me put together that beautiful mural. i am also currently working with many talented people in baltimore including songwriters, pellets and visual artists to create the creative expression program to encourage healing in abuse victims. by using a variety of creative art forms it is my hope that childhood sexual abuse and adult survivors will learn to deal and trust and find their voice.

i will continue to promote bcac and continue to work with the prevention coordinator at bcac to tell my story to help parents recognize signs of sexual abuse and how to respond appropriately. i feel i won't be wasting my life and my passion for study and hope for victims and survivors at helping prevent this crime from happening to more children. in conclusion i would like to thank you for the opportunity to testify today and to be part of this important task force and i hope my story and the work i am doing inspires others to embrace victims and survivors of child sexual abuse to help them deal. >> thank you very much. this is up period where we will have questions. >> thank you all very much for

sharing your personal stories. this is exactly the type of information we need to hear and it is important for us to hear. miss kuhn, i have a question for you. what could have helped u.s. the child to tell your parents or some other trusted adult about what you were living through? >> empowerment. i think that parents labor under the delusion that the schools are teaching their children about what are appropriate touches and what is safe and unsafe and at the same time schools are laboring under the delusion that parents are teaching their children and this is a message that needs to be reinforced constantly with children to 0 and their bodies and those bodies belong to them and nobody should be touching them. if i had been taught that and if i had been taught the correct anatomical names for my body parts i would have felt safer in

telling somebody. >> thank you. [inaudible] >> -- being alone with way too many feelings. i am glad you are not alone. i am glad you are here today. i do have one question. when you were talking about your experiences and how chillingly horrific they were, thank you for sharing with us. i did want to know, at any point in terms of your feeling and being physically threatened, whether there was any place, any agency, police or otherwise to whom you felt you could turn for

any reliable protection? >> i did contact the department of social services for one of the times when my husband spanked my daughter and was carrying my children but they simply said it was not against the law to spank your child in maryland unless you leave a mark. it was kind of crying out for help and then. i felt that they didn't do what they were supposed to to protect me and a few months later he dragged my daughter across the -- across the house by her hair. i don't think say responded, even when i did report which was a few months after about when he did drive my daughter -- i act showed pictures of her bald spot and showed him the club of hair on the counter. the detective just said i don't want to make you feel like this is not important but i have far more other cases where

children's arms are broken or -- in a sense that what he did to her wasn't as important, sort of. so that kind of disappointed me. and i want to touch on that. i was also abused as a child. my grandfather molested me when i was 7 years old and my family actually -- we were at my grandmother's house on long island and my sister went down because she heard something going on. she was in a room and the lights went out and she called my grandmother up and my grandmother turned on the light and she was a 0 angry and she started kicking me while i was on the ground and asking me what was going on. i just remember the whole family getting together and it was -- to this day to me it seems a little twisted but that we were

going to forgive and forget. my parents never knew about it. i will be told my father about it when master was pregnant or her son was 21 and it was on the way back from the hospital that i finally told my father and he was upset that i never had told him when i was a child but i was afraid of our family. breaking up and causing problems for the whole family. to touch on that, i went through the same thing too. i am sure that affects me too. some of my relationships also as an adult but i am getting counseling to help me deal with that also. >> thank you, miss almond. thanks for your courage and your self-respect and your

willingness to empower us. i have a question for each of you for miss kuhn and miss almond. given the story, the narrative and what you have seen and how you have continued and not quit and not given up, can you help us as a task force understand what it is that kept you going, what it is that allowed you to get to this place today where you are sitting before us trying to help? >> for me it was definitely my faith community, having personal faith in god and have a relationship like that definitely helped me being able to recognize there is a being who is perfect love and truth helped. but also learning to share my story and talk about it is very important. if i stay silent i just contribute to the stigma

associated with sexual abuse. when i break that violence fibril -- help break the cycle of abuse. >> thank you. >> through counseling and talk to my children all the time. they keep me going. my husband -- the last thing you know as a child. they keep me going. just knowing they have me that is all we had to protect them. my family is very supportive right now. i am just happy that i am in my house and are working on eggshells anymore. i feel like i am surrounded by love and support and i go to church and pray and ask god to have me in his favor every day. that is what i do to help me get through it. >> thank you. >> i want to at one point.

it is helpful to -- [inaudible] -- how difficult or frustrating or easy was it to get a restraining order or protective order? with a fast or difficult -- >> the first time i remember going down and getting one and the girl wasn't so helpful. it was not -- this was the second time. i had two restraining orders. the second time -- a i guess i got there around midnight after the attack. i was fragile to begin with. my neighbor came with me and she didn't tell me not to write on the front and back of the sheet that had me rewrite it and was being not nice and that made me want to leave because i was so

frustrated. i guess it was kind of easy. i knew what to do the second time because the first time i had a lawyer that worked downtown and his office was next to mine and he told me and i was going through -- and the abuse and he told me what i should do or where i should go to. like that night he said if you ever have a problem again, go to the commissioner's office at the courthouse. at least i knew where to go the second time. the first time, and i don't believe it was that long ago. the second time was definitely more fresh in my mind. first time i don't remember having such a problem getting it. >> i have a question.

do you feel that -- [inaudible] -- were there other interface communities can take off and how could the taskforce encourage the faith community to recognize boys in particular as being the most common perpetrators of the types of violence we are seeing and that children are exposed to? >> in the context of religious -- it was community-based. our group, african-american leadership institute started -- with a myriad of men -- some that had limited -- they understood the need. the other thing was i don't want to eliminate the young ladies. what we were seeing in the last

-- the juvenile girl services in baltimore city, we are seeing an enormous amount of girls coming through the system of violence, perpetrators of violence and recipients of violence. we think the best way weaker still doesn't necessarily -- has to be a model predicated on showing young people what it is to the irresponsible individual. we always say we got to get back to what is human. what do human beings do? how do we -- how do we find human beings -- do we want to provide environments where we see people who are flourishing and children can see that and a lot of them incorporate that and want to do some other things.

it is loving but also intends. and you go through different stages in your evolution from boyhood to manhood. as a man my age i am still evolve in the. all of us are evolving as men and women. we would encourage you to support that. there was a lot of interest around the diversion. i think that is very important. running out program -- is very important also. the family happens to be modeled. the family happens to be modeled. johnny can come you counseling for every day but if he goes into dysfunctional environment your back at square one every time he comes back. has to be involvement with significant others that allow everyone to be involved in this process even in the rights

process. the parents or the significant other have to buy into this also. >> am i on? thank you very much for coming before us. the task force really aspires to know there are problems out there. but for you, you have an enduring mission to reduce inner-city violence and for the most part a lot of this takes a lot of resources to provide harnessing that energy. and environmental conditions in the community and social programs are the first to get cut the matter where you go because they are rather soft. in the context of what you are doing today, could use some wedge highlight the types of resources you are getting and

the kind of resources you are not getting, to mary success in propagating the right of passage you are doing today and how we improve the lives of youngsters? >> we started out and in many instances it came out of our pockets to be honest with you. the community-based initiative a few years later just so happened that we were fortunate to receive some funding from a foundation, will smith and data smith. just so happens that -- she was the head of the foundation. we have received a 10 of money from municipalities and government agencies. private funding from people who have bought into what we were doing and going in your own pockets. a lot of these programs are

being run by people that are just committed to doing what they are doing and they see that what they sacrificed on the front end or the back end will be productive for them. it is a matter of -- in many instances it is something else and the gentleman laid on -- dr. lee will speak to this. hopefully he will. in a lot of cases people have the desire to work in communities and the barriers that are there for them to receive types of funding it is so difficult for them to receive the funding because they don't have an accountant or a grant writer or these things. consequently many programs that are being funded are not necessarily the best programs. they just have to have the best grand writers and accountants.

so what is happening on many fronts. the people that are really sincere about what they're doing are not getting the opportunity with enough resources to really, really make a profound impact. they are doing great stuff but they could make a profound impact if given the opportunity were given people with the expertise to help them to work through this process when they are trying to acquire funds like the justice department. when you open a package -- dedicated individuals, we can't do this. we can't do it. some avenues, people have been supportive like the provision program at hopkins they have been supportive with those things. in other instances they don't give up but they just say i am

not going through it. we are piecemealing it and we will go forward and put our trust in god. >> if i could follow up on that area of concern, the gentleman sitting behind you is the activating administer of the office -- [laughter] -- >> i just want to say that one of the things go j.j. focus on is the model -- they look at promising approaches and best practices and eventually a mall or a ram that can be developed and used across the nation and getting to the point that you have a lot of a valuation, the rights of passage program found the kind of program that will be useful across the nation. the question i would ask is

whether there has been anyone who had the opportunity to evaluate the program to look at the structure and determine the referral process and whether it works. when you heard the attorney general speak earlier, you're looking for what works and you want to get rid of what doesn't work when we channel our money into what does work. if you have an opportunity to have the rights of passage program evaluated as what happened as a result. you are shaking your head. >> a record passage collected and over the years we started in 1987. the first one in baltimore city, mushroomed for about the country. there are programs with those rights and they have had folks who came into look at it and review the program. some of them were highlighted from the work they have been able to do the urban leadership institute in baltimore city and

other groups -- >> dr. lee still here? >> dr. lee could provide you a list of all of them that are doing some good work. the right of passage doesn't have to be an ethnic model but it is a model that takes a boy and girl's -- girlhood to womanhood. they are out there. >> we would really benefit from that. thank you. [inaudible] >> thanks to all of you for what you have shared with us today. incredibly brave and heard wrenching. i have a question for imam el-amin. we were just speaking -- expressing generalizations about the rights of passage program.

could you present for us an example of a specific person who has gone through your program and has benefited from having gone through this and what that might look like? >> as a young man, got about 50 sons or daughters. as a young man who started with us when he was 8 years old, he is a grown man, mary, responsible citizen, he is on one of the boards of community college in baltimore city, he is an attorney. part of his right of passage was we had a two way talk show for 13 years at morgan state

university. part of his right of passage was he had to a program once a month so -- so that is someone -- at that level. we have many young men who are doing very well in the community and in their neighborhood associations and -- when i mention that type of progress to me that is real progress. doesn't necessarily mean he is the school teacher or a lawyer but as the responsible individual in the neighborhood. that is the ultimate. that is the ultimate. he is a model of manhood and fatherhood. that is the ultimate. >> thank you so much to each one of you. you presented eloquently and touched our hearts. i was going to mention we had a

program called self and dads in l.a.. you probably heard of it. kids who don't have a father have someone they can call on a cellphone and those cellphone dads are available 24/7. is that something you inc.? >> no we haven't. i heard of it but never research did. that would be something that would be a good nationwide model. [laughter] i heard you twice the first time. >> the question i have for rosa and jacquelynn is this. what about the kids? have they received any kind of grief counseling? in particular, rosa, you are pretty raw out of your situation. hasn't been long. do you receive the kind of support -- is your counseling a group kind of counseling where you have piers, you have other

women who have been through a similar situation to you can call on at any point in time and the day or night when you are feeling this incredible reverberation from having been through what you have been through plus being a multi generational victim? there is a lot of open wounds still that i don't think you had time to heal totally. you are working on it. look great and sound great but in the middle of the night there have to be times you are terrified. so i am wondering if you have people you can call on at any time of the day or night or if you do. >> i was referred to turn around which is located in thousand for victims of domestic violence.

and after iffy attacked last year my kids and i started going and eventually after a few months they released as or discharge us because we were doing good. now my divorce trial is coming up next month, the fourteenth and the fifteenth, by sun -- is affecting him. i had to take him back. in the past, his father has been right before we have -- we have been to court so many times. postponement after postponement and one time by extoled my son he may be going to jail. the next week he said he was mad about something. said he was going to kill himself. so turnaround has been great. they would work with each of us to help us get through it. right now it is tough for him.

i have taken him again and i started going myself because i felt i was breaking down. but late at night, if it wasn't for my sleeping, i wouldn't sleep. my sleeping pills, i can't be without them. and started back in new jersey when things started going bad. the number one person who has helped me is my sister. she is back there. she came from new jersey to be with me today. she came last night. if it wasn't for her i don't know, i probably would have had a mental breakdown. that is my rock. she is here today. thank you. >> i have a question for imam. i have an issue being in the sports business and you mentioned opening up about the

hardest hit and loudest slam, it gets all the glory. it is a conflicting message. i don't think there's any question, especially if we have our high school kids go out friday night and the coach is telling them attack, attack, attack. and then later in the evening the rules don't apply. i am not sure they know that. do you have a suggestion for the social -- the thing about the baseball stuff for the football stuff, and it is happening on tv. the one who yells the loudest gets to talk. it is all very consistent. i know it drives me nuts. it is not that long of a drive for me. do you have a suggestion? >> we live in a society -- and you find if we look at it, when

the economy is at its lowest point, sports are pushed a little harder for the society. it gives us some ease. this is a spectator society. america is a spectator society. it gives us a lot of ease to watch these athletes. but i think we have put too much emphasis especially in lower income neighborhoods. when my father was growing up he told me -- he graduated from college in the 40s. he told me that the avenues for african-american men who were very small, it was athletics and entertainment in one period of time. it seems as though we are back there again for men of color.

our boys aspire to be an athlete or entertainer. we have to put an emphasis on what it is to be a good human t ay ct as you very w long

some of these guys we need to highlight or gary men and women and we're doing these things, third -- forty or 50 years. they are the people who are staples of the community and we tell our young people and somehow they stay together. those types of things happen. back to community. back to real community. substantive neighborhoods and communities. our children have to know that it is not a good fit that if you don't make it as an athlete you can make it as a banker. as a lawyer. as a schoolteacher. all this stuff is interrelated. i don't know. athletics is big. i looked at a commercial last night, baltimore high school team under armor, promoting under armor.

it is big. it is a big business and i don't know how to breakthrough. just be good human beings. >> amen for me. the stuff that is glorified isn't necessarily stuff you want to teach in your home and again, you hit it again. i don't understand it but you certainly said you understand it because that is what sells and that seems to be driving everything. i would like to have one more question. go-ahead. >> thank you for sharing your personal experiences. very valuable for us in the task we have before us. if we could go to all of you just briefly, on the things you have experienced and we often learn more from those things we could have done differently what is your takeaway on that? what would you have done differently and in the text decks -- the context of the

report we are looking to prepare based on your own experience what would you like to see included in that report that might have implications on a national basis? >> i guess i will start. what i would like to see in your report, more support for places like baltimore child abuse center. being a nonprofit center that helps children in the baltimore area who have alleged they have been sexually abused. those kind of support services are important you can imagine for a child having -- it is difficult but then they have to go through 14 different places and talk to 14 different people and their story might change because they feel if someone is asking they're telling it wrong or whatever--causes a lot of problems. they have one central place that is nonthreatening, that is important and we need more centers like that in our community and unfortunately when

there is non-profit and they don't receive the funding that they need to receive they can't do all the work they can do so that is very important. >> this was very powerful. i want to thank our panelists. it was so informative, powerful and brave testimony and for lee something that we listen to and will continue to go over and i want to thank you very much. we will take a 15 minute break. [inaudible conversations] >> in a few moments more from the national task force on children's exposure to violence the first look at how the problem affects society and local communities. that will be followed by discussion of what a weak economy and high unemployment and for children's exposure to

violence. later the importance of mentoring kids and the impact of prosecuting children as adults. according to the u.s. justice department and% of americans children have suffered some form of abuse or neglect and one in 16 have been the victim of sexual assault. the attorney general national task force on children's exposure to violence in a forum in baltimore in november. one session looked at the effects on children and the community. this is just over an hour. >> we would like to reconvene. thank you. earlier today we were given our call to action by attorney general holder and we had the benefit of hearing from several individuals from firsthand experience about the impact of violence on them as individuals and on children. we now have the pleasure of

hearing from several national leaders on how various agencies are working to address the issue of children exposure to violence. mr. nigel cox is in his senior year at farmville central high school. he is the chairman of the youth advisory board for students against violence everywhere, a student driven organization that provides opportunity for you to yet learned crime-prevention and conflict management as well as the virtues of good citizenship, stability and nonviolence. dr. patrick mccarthy is president and ceo of the e 8 c foundation. a private philanthropy organization dedicated to helping build better futures for disadvantaged children in the united states. he is a trustee of the casey foundation and chairman of youth opportunity initiative and a director of the case the family

service board of the fighters. jon corzine -- sonja sohn is founder and ceo of rewired for change. she was inspired to start rewired for change by her own life journey which began as a child growing up in an underserved community in virginia and eventually lead to her role as a principal cast member of hbo's wired. nigel cox. >> my name is nigel cox. i am chairman of the youth and freeboard which stands for students against violence everywhere. a public non-profit -- to decrease potential for violence in our student community by promoting meaningful student involvement. a student -- and gary ward leaders will a teacher from

north carolina started save. in 1989, in the memory of outboard, a student from the school, at a party trying to promote -- break up a fight at a party. the same, it's come from alice horn at last maine and the color purple come from the peace symbol and the peace, we tried to promote -- in all forms -- violence -- been reckless driving, gained violence, child abuse and cyberbullying to name a few. we do this by the four es. power, engage, encourage and educate. by engaging we engage citizens to violence prevention with their schools and communities. and power, by empowerment we empower you with knowledge and skills necessary to provide

service to their community and schools. we encourage positive peer influence within the school and community through violence prevention efforts. we educate students about the effects and consequences of violence as well as activities for students and parents and community. are two main components of save is conflict management and service project. we accomplished management, the key to conflict, normal part of life. we all know that conflict will not be resolved all the way to be resolved but we try to resolve in a non balanced way were we can talk about peer mediation or with the person you have a problem with and service projects. service projects are how we give back to the community and connect with other people. by connecting and giving back, you should feel you are doing something to help the problem.

the reason i got involved with save, i got involved in my sixth grade year. my teacher saw potential in the and right then and there she started working with me and when i got to seventh grade she told me i see something in you and i am glad she saw it in me. i am glad she did see it. just one person can stand up and take the stand and say not here, not today, not while i am around, another person gets the statement. just by doing that i hope i encourage somebody in the save group corestates organization can help someone. save work to do this by promoting non violence. i would like to tell you a story about an experience i had. it was a time where i was

speaking in north carolina, and a young lady came to me, younger girl came to me. i have a personal story and she started telling her story and i felt it in my heart because i had the same experience at one time in my life and i could see her expression getting brighter because she had someone on her side who had been through the same things i had been through and i can help. i really am glad that i did. i would hate to come for rescue and help. in my closing statement, for being involved with save is not about the title, not about being a chair person or being on the board. it is about getting the message across for the young people to the girl and people. it is all about -- shouldn't be

tolerated. growing people, some people have abusive relationships and this is not -- that is another kind of violence. the key to growing up to do the same failed which i don't think is right but as you say, we try to work this situation now. but if there had been somebody who could help them, that is one more type of violence we don't have to worry about some day. and if you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem. on behalf of nigel cox and myself and the national varsity board we like to thank you for having me today. >> dr. mccarthy? >> i want to thank the task force for the opportunity to speak with you about ways to reduce children's exposure to violence and share the way to work together to infect reduce the negative effects of violence

on kids. a little bit of a daunting and humbling idea for me to attempt to provide guidance to the assembled expertise that i heard introduced this morning but i will do my best. the foundation's work is guided by data and evidence and research we have looked at suggests there are three factors that predict most rotten outcomes for kids across the board. first with the vague grow up in poverty with limited hope that limited opportunity to develop their talents. second, whether they have a stable, nurturing connection to a strong family that will be there for life and whether they live in a community that offers will models, good educational opportunities and connections to up half for success. all three of these factors are critical to preventing violence and lessening the impact of exposure to violence. my written testimony makes the case for addressing these

factors and in my remarks today i will touch briefly on each of those three but i intend to spend the bulk of my time discussing the importance of reforming our reform schools. the impact of poverty. we know the root cause of most of these outcomes is poverty. or lack of opportunity. we also know that poverty and violence are closely linked. kids in poverty are more likely to experience violence at home or in their communities. what do we know about how to reduce poverty and to build up halfway to opportunity for all children? we know the pathway requires two generations, success strategy, must start by investing in opportunities for young parents to build the skills and find a stable family supporting job and take full advantage of income and other supports to make ends meet and start down the road to building assets to pass on to their children. we have to start with today's parents to build a future for

children. at the same time we must work to ensure every child is on the pathway to opportunity for educational success, using the important benchmark of reading proficiently by the end of third grade, going on to graduate from high school and secure post secondary certificate or diploma were skills certification. is especially disturbing when you look at the data and realize over 80% of poor children of, reach the end of third grade without being proficient in reading. this is the point where learning turns from learning how to read to reading how to learn. it is very difficult to catch up if you are not reading proficiently by the end of third grade. in addition to the foundation's work on reducing poverty we invest time and money and various approaches to promoting strong families including our direct service work in the wings and and maryland where we provide foster care to young

people with high needs and help them find a permanent family for life. we work to promote responsible fatherhood and healthy marriage. we support teen pregnancy prevention programs and work with charlie welfare systems across the country to improve outcomes for kids and families and promote more effective prevention and early intervention programs. our approach to community rest honorable the family's lawyer on strong communities and strong neighborhood support to raise their kids to have places with a street, good schools, quality housing and access to economic opportunity and access to employment and engage thriving community knows to work with law-enforcement to provide neighborhood policeing and positive youth development activities and anti violence that can reduce violence and promote behavior for both adults and kids. in the time i have left i would like to highlight the negative consequences of this country's approach to the challenge of

juvenile delinquency and an approach i believe it is singularly effective, huge the wasteful and a contributor to violence rather than an effective response to violence. whether we call a training school or juvenile correction facilities or youth prisons these large institutions have become places of poor treatment and abuse rather than rehabilitation and hope. recidivism rates are dismal suggesting that these institutions fail to protect public safety. abuse and port treatment are rampant as evidenced by the absolutely shameful prevalence of court cases and reports of substandard conditions and violations of basic rights going back decades and sadly still prevalent today. there can be little argument we overrely on these institutions.

united states locks up kids at approximately seven times the rate of great britain and 18 times the rate of france. states with relatively low incarceration rates to not suffer high juvenile crime. they are -- their juvenile crime rates are lower than states that law, more kids and states like california and louisiana and louisiana and texas that greatly reduce the number of incarcerated kids and in some cases by over 815% have not experienced a rise in youth crime is. the sad irony is as many as three force of the young people incarcerated in these often brittle facilities have in fact themselves been victims of trauma and violence in their own lives and following their incarceration they are more likely rather than less likely to commit violent acts. you would be hard pressed if you tried to design a less effective response to a child's exposure to violence than to lock him or

her off in overcrowded, brightly lit, frightening conditions with a large group of children with similar problems, little or no privacy and no sense of personal safety and failed to provide a decent education more opportunities to build skills, neglect to introduce substance-abuse trauma and other issues contributing to this behavior and release him or her to the streets with little hope of a future of promise or possibility. this is not a recipe for success. the case foundation published report called no place for kids:the case for reducing juvenile incarceration which provides considerable detail on the flaws of these systems and recommends replacing them with evidence based community centered intervention with much greater success and rehabilitating younger people and protecting public safety. these evidence based programs can more effectively address the trauma and lost that often contributes to kids behavioral problems. casey intends to reduce the

number of use locked up in this country by at least half as well as supporting the vellum of more effective model for those youth who do require some form of secured care to assure public safety. if we are successful we together can close the last door on the last training school in this country. while foundations and nonprofit can help develop and demonstrate effective intervention at the program level taking the most effective program to a scale large enough to make a difference for all populations of kids and families requires public investment which means redirect resources from the failed approaches of the past. we need public will lead political courage to abandon these failed strategies that use so much of our limited resources and invest in things that work. a chance to change the future depends on it. thank you. >> thank you.

sonja sohn. >> good morning. i would like to thank the childhood task force for asking me to participate in this panel. i would also like to say by no means to i consider myself an expert in the subject of violence against children. however what makes me worthy of participation in this hearing is i lived the experience of millions of children who have been exposed to violence in their homes and communities. when you grow up in a household where domestic abuse is a regular occurrence you see things that volume a deal from you will never forget. i remember lying in bed on dollars late one night and heard an argument ruling in my parents's bed room only to be shocked by the deafening sound of my mother's job being crushed. i remember watching in horror as my mother's head lay on the chopping block of our kitchen farther to the discounter wal-mart father held a knife to her throat as she begged to be put out of her misery.

a story of how our stock argument between her and my father telling him to stop it. don't make my mommy crying. i was two years old. that incident kicked off a pattern of my belief and i had some control over and responsibility for the situation. for years i tried to fix the family problem. my mother was a first-generation immigrant to the united states and did not be or write english fairy well. from the age of children i tried to convince her we could make on her own. i could read and write for her. for a while i did job application to keep her checkbook whenever she considered stashing away something to leave with. inevitably my hopes were dashed when her belief we needed a father would begin to override her ability to see that our living situation was much too harsh for any of us. by this time is 10 years old by grew hopeless. i knew the only thing that kept my mother alive was she had children to live for. my best laid plans to save

myself became more reality to me. i knew i was too young to get work permits july became a prostitute as my only option. on the day i was to leave i thought i could. .. >> i spent weeks trying to figure out how to get my hands on a gun, but i had no success. i read in a magazine how a popular r&b singer of the day had been scalded by a hot pot of

grits. i watched myself calmly take the biggest pot we had, fill it with water, put it on the stove to boil and went back to doing the dishes. i know now i had dissociated. i took the pot, and i stood over my father as he slept on the sofa. all the scenes of violence i had witnessed trashed before my mind's -- flashed before my mind's eye, and then i saw us without him. i saw laughter on the faces of the rest of my family. i stepped closer to the sofa. just as i was ability to throw the water on him, a horrifying thought suddenly jolted me to consciousness. the singer did not die. this pot of water was not going to kill my father. suddenly, the pot seemed to shrink in my hands, and so did i. i began to see myself as the tiny child i was, a wave of grief and sadness rushed over me.

i stood there growing smaller and smaller until i felt completely insignificant and totally useless. within a couple of years my contempt for the entire family and this crazy situation had poisoned the only thing that gave me any real validation, doing well in school. now all i wanted was to survive the next eight years. i bridged back to finding some kind of joy when things felt unbearable became getting high. my childhood and part of my adulthood were completely lost to the effects of living with violence in my home and community as a child. the story i'm telling you about my childhood is playing out right now in the homes of children right here in baltimore. within a mile of where we are sitting, there are children who live in the midst of violence and fear every day, and when they walk out the front door and onto the street, they often face still more violence. growing up with physical and verbal abuse means much more of this violence is carried into your social interactions with others on the playground, school, the streets of your neighborhood, another threat to

your safety that you have to begin to handle corrupts your thinking even more. for many children living with this type of violence, participating in crime becomes a way of creating safety. if you can illustrate how tough or daring you are, if you can fight and win, then no one will challenge you for a while at least. inevitably, there will always come a time when your last victorious fight or daring act will be forgotten. someone else will challenge you, and the cycle begins again. you fight for that brief period of what feels like safety and, of course, it isn't. these kids only know the shadow of safety, not the real thing. when you live in a world that is never safe, where you feel abandoned and uncared for, numbing the pain becomes an essential survival skill. this is how i became and how many children today become easy prey for pedophiles. this is why our young people create the nurture answer they so desperately need by forming and joining gangs. this is why many children enter

into the drug world at an early age. this is why the sex trade begins to seem like a viable option, and this is how we lose our nation's future. without resources to deal with trauma, numbing the pain with drugs or sex or creating an illusion of family on the streets become coping mechanisms. often times these children end up in a pattern of using these self-destructive acts to escape the smallest of discomforts, never gaining the proper ability to handle the stresses of everyday life. they become very young parents. the effects of the violence they live with just adds up in layers, burying them sometimes literally. we have generations of people living in this country, not some third world country overseas, this one right here, suffering from the effects of trauma, abuse and violence. the problem is so severe and so large that it threatens to overwhelm us. we wonder what we can do.

particularly for youth who have already entered into a life of crime and violence, oftentimes society has simply given up, especially on the older ones. there are so many challenges that these young people face. they face obstacles inside their own minds as well as outside, and it's the desperation that keeps them trapped in their own minds that we deal with through rewired for life, our program for high risk youth who have been involved in the criminal justice system. the objective of the program is to make personal transformation in the hood cool. rewired for life focus on individual success, it uses the arts as a tool for healing. some of the young people who have gone through our program have changed their life goals, they are working or have gone back to school, they have made a decision to leave the life of drug dealing and to excel at a life of law-abiding employment. less money,less of a certain kind of prestige in the neighborhoods they come from, but they are safer and less violent and have gained more self-respect. we are all here today to ask

ourselves what we can do to contribute to the change that must take place. as adults, as professionals, as human beings we owe it to these children to give them more. kids in this environment must have easy access to tools other than drugs and unhealthy associations to keep them out of survival mode, and we cannot forget or ignore their parents. to effectively address children's exposure to violence, we must address the needs of the families and communities they live in as well. i'd like to close by saying that my family of origin and, to a much smaller degree, my children have suffered from the aftereffects of the environment i grew up in. and though we lost my brother to homicide some years ago, my family has come a long way -- including my father, who has realized over the years the causes of his past behavior. today i am thrilled to say that we enjoy a healthy family life. so from me to you, i know what

it takes for a family to heal. i know what is possible. i know there are many paths to inner peace and healing and that it is an individual process and a lifelong journey. no matter who you are or where you come from. though the path may be more difficult for some than others. and i also know that no one can find that path on their own, that we as a society must come together to be the supports and cornerstones for each other, especially for those who cannot mount a support team when they are living a life that is always in a constant state of crisis. i appreciate the efforts of those who are here today to share their testimony and the defending childhood task force for the work they're all doing to stop this vicious cycle of violence that has affected our entire society. i am grateful for the invitation to testify before the task force and to join you in your efforts to help change the lives of our nation's children. thank you. >> thank you. like to thank each of the

panelists for your testimony. at this time it's open to questions from the task force. >> hi. i want to thank all of you for sharing your personal and powerful stories and for your commitment to this very important issue. mr. cox, i'm very impressed with your leadership. oftentimes we talk about how we're going to address gang and youth violence without actually asking the youth. you know, we as adults sometimes take it upon ourselves and say we know best how to define a problem, what the solution should be without including you as equal partners. i think it's absolutely essential to have groups like yours, like save, and i depress the question i have for you would be how can adults or grown people, as you say, be able to better support organizations like yours? >> um, i would say treat your child the way you should go. if you just train a child when they start younger, you know,

that long get them some kind of support, backbone, you know, to lead them not going to that gang direction or going to that path that we wouldn't want, a parent wouldn't want the child to go into. but if people don't, if parents don't do anything as their child younger, you know, it's always you can talk to them, it's always, you know, show them the worst case scenario what can happen when they're out this and just talking to your child can make a whole lot difference in their life. >> thank you to all the panelists for your contributions today. i wanted to ask dr. mccarthy a couple of questions, one is about what you're seeing in the rural areas. i think a lot of times we tend to focus on youth and violence in an urban setting. so i'm curious to know what you found in the rural setting, in indian country, if possible. and then what do you see are the biggest gaps in the research right thousand?

you've done some tremendous work in terms of defining and describing the problem, but if you were to be able to design, um, a new research, um, plan to address these gaps, things we don't know, what would that look like? >> sure. you'll probably have to remind me of the second question after i take a shot at responding to the first. [laughter] you know, we do a fair amount of work in rural communities although most of our work is in urban communities. and what we've found in rural areas is the combination of poverty which actually is higher proportionally in rural communities than it is in urban areas, the combination of that 306rty and isolation -- poverty and isolation can lead to the kinds of challenges that, again, in turn lead to violence whether that be alcoholism or substance abuse or the general sense of disconnection from the labor force. we've supported, um, tribal communities in a variety of ways.

we've not focused specifically on issues around violence. we focused more on raising up the general issues that are affecting tribal nations as well as child welfare issues as tribal nations take on more and more of that responsibility themselves. and, you know, i have to say that although the particular pattern, the values, the norms, the preferences of different groups, it's going to vary, of course. you know, my own family is different from my wife's family, our families of origin, and it's always interesting at thanksgiving to watch this mini cultural clash. so there are differences, but i actually believe whether you're talking about rural families or urban families or families who are native american origin or european origin or african origin that this notion of families working together to raise their children and relying on themselves as a group, but also on families outside of the

immediate family, that's the pathway, i think, for kids to be successful. i think that's true whether it's the rural areas or the urban areas. so we do have to take account of the differences, they're very real. but at the same time let's not lose touch with the fact that we all grow up in the context of family. um, you asked about the gaps in the research. and this is one of those interesting things from my point of view. i actually think we know a lot more than we use. and so there are huge gaps in research in understanding all the dynamics, and we don't have by anywhere, nowhere close to a magic bullet or a set of magic bullets, probably a bad analogy. magic solutions to resolving issues of violence. but we're not using anywhere near what we already know. so it seems to me that one of the biggest gaps in research is figuring out how you go from effective program-level

interventions, and there are many with lots of evidence behind them, how do you go from that to scaling them up largely, large enough that they actually can help whole populations of families and kids? for me, that's a huge investment that we ought to be making because, again, we've got to continue doing the basic research to figure out what works. but if most of what we know sits on the shelf and the bulk of the resources we spend are, in fact, going towards things that not only don't work, but actually do harm, that's not so smart. o -- >> dr. marans. >> i want to thank you at panelists. you'll hear that from each of us, but it's quite sincere. ms. sohn, i wanted to thank you in particular for, um, making our work harder. um, you have given us such a brilliant, um, personal but one that is generalize bl in terms of the complexities of what we

really mean when we talk about exposure to violence. and to remind those of us in the behavioral health and health fields that the issue of what for whom is a major, major issue. but i'm grateful for your making our task harder by reminding us of the complexity. i want to focus on one issue, and i have a question for you and for dr. mccarthy. you describe this incredible sense of being small and going back and forth between planning and plotting and action to remedy your situation. and being defeated and the subsequent feeling of absolute helplessness and being small. and then you made the link to the kids that you're working with now who have had similar experiences, who find the antidote to that smallness in the, all of the things that you so beautifully listed. i won't list them again.

um, but the what for whom also goes to how and who can reach those kids, especially as you point out, the older kids. because it makes a difference, doesn't it? >> yes, absolutely. >> i wonder if you can share some of your experience in that regard with the committee. >> from my experience the older kids need to know that the adults who are reaching out to them really understand where they come from. so generally speaking, from my experience, those older kids begin to open up when they hear the stories of the adults who are facilitating, programming with them, um, and they see that, um, there's some similarities. we, you know, initially during our pilot session, um, the

co-facilitator was a gentleman who had spent 20 years in prison and, you know, had the whole story. and after a couple of weeks, thigh, the young men in the class began to open up and listen. and our conversations went quickly from defending, um, for the young people defending their actions out on the street to through the brilliance of this facilitator by using his own life, um, to, you know, the young people then starting to question their former actions. so i would say with the older kids if folks can find adults who have lived the kind of lives that they have lived, then it makes for a much quicker transition. >> just a question for

dr. mccarthy. thank you so much, and one of the issues we know, all of us as human beings, is one of the hardest things is to tolerate and acknowledge that, in fact, we were helpless and small. >> uh-huh. >> dr. mccarthy, in your, um, disturbing and dismal account of our current system of reform training schools, whatever, um, you pointed out that the real upside lying behavioral health issues -- underlying behavioral health issues along with the opportunities that are not addressed. are you aware of any programs where the combination of necessary external controls, for example, via probation, court orders and behavioral health interventions have been blended in a way that address a particular group of kids with whom i think ms. sohn has some experience with as well? >> sure. i'm going to take this opportunity to make a couple points along this line.

one is i suspect if you ask the average person on the street whether youth crime has gotten worse or better, the answer you'd get is it's gotten much worse or. whether youth violence has gotten better or worse, oh, my god, it's much worse than it was 15 or 20 years ago. you look at the data, and it's absolutely untrue. in fact, youth crime has gone down by at least a third in the last 15 years, so that's a fact that people don't pay attention to as they think about build more prisons, less prisons, etc. you asked the question about what do we know that's effective that blends mental health, substance abuse, trauma-related problems together with the necessary response to adolescent misbehavior. twenty or so years ago we had the combination of a series of articles that warped us about -- warned us about a coming wave of superpredators. remember that? superpredators who born of the crack epidemic and the collapse of the family in urban areas

were going to overwhelm us with delinquency. and as i said, not true. accompanying that notion of superpredators was a very widespread belief backed up by some data that, quote, nothing works. in other words, folks who had done careful, controlled studies of lots of interventions in juvenile and adult criminal behavior concluded, you know what? it really doesn't make any difference if we do these programs or not, so to protect the community, let's lock these kids up. twenty years later that is a very different scene. we now know at least four very strong evidence-based interventions that, in fact, do exactly what you asked about. and three of them have terrible names, i think. apologies to the developers of these wonderful programs. but one is multisystemmic therapy, the other is functional family therapy, and the third is the -- ready for this one?

multidimensional treatment foster care model. forget those names, they all build around the fundamental notion that the way to help kids is to strengthen their families' ability to work with them, family defined very broadly, and to provide these young people with a path towards hope. whether you look at recidivism, mental health scores, education, job attachment, all of these programs have much greater success rates than just leaving them ea loan which is the -- alone which is the one alternative and much, much better than locking them up. and these programs have worked with young people with felony-level and violent offenses, some of the toughest offenses. and this research is not just anecdotal, it's not just stories, this is controlled, scientific research replicated multiple times, not one-shot research, but replicated multiple times. when i say we're not using a lot of what we know, that's an example of what i mean. for those young people, and i'm not as polly annish as i

sometimes come off, for those people who need protection from themselves and the community, there are alternative approaches to providing that secure care that lead to much better results. probably the best known is known as the missouri model where about 30 years ago a friend of mine, mark stewart, began the process of moving from these large, hard-wired, hard security institutions to smaller, still secure, but smaller treatment-focused, norm-changing-focused, i would suspect using a lot of the kinds of approaches that father boyle uses with gang members; working to change their expectations about their future while still holding them accountable. whether you look, again, at recidivism rates for young people coming through the missouri model are much, much better by a factor of two or three than young people going through much more expensive, by the way, ore interventions. -- other interventions. so you pull all that together, and we just don't have that excuse anymore.

we don't have the superpredator excuse that was total -- what's the appropriate word? malarkey. total malarkey. we don't have the excuse of juvenile crime as going up, it's gone down consistently for the last 15 years, and we don't have the excuse that nothing else works. the only excuse we have is the lack of courage, the lack of political will as the adults in this society to stick up for our kids and do better by them. >> mr. mcdonnell. >> thank you all for your leadership and your courage on this issue. dr. mccarthy, if i could, just an issue you raised that i don't think gets enough attention in our society, and that's the issue of literacy. by the time a kid leaves the third grade. i've seen that throughout the course of my career in dealing with kids going into gangs, kids that go down the wrong path, and it seems that at 9 or 10 kids come to a crossroad, particularly in urban america, where they either are encouraged

by their ability to do well in school and then stay that path or become disillusioned because they're not getting positive attention in school and then start to look for it elsewhere. that elsewhere too often is gangs or crime. in looking at that issue, what recommendations would you make that you'd like to see this panel address as a remedy to be able to start moving in the direction to deal with those issues at that age group? >> sure. and this is another area where we have lots of evidence about what works. not everything we need to know, but we know a lot more than we're using. so if you think of it not just as is the child reading by the end of third grade, but what are all the things that need to happen for a child to be reading well by the end of third grade. so you have to really start prenatally, again, preventing teen pregnancy, that's a huge impact on a child's start in life. once the child is, once the parents have conceived, having the child receive the kind of

prenatal care necessary so they get the right start. in the first three years of life, this is common knowledge now, much of the neurological development -- not all of it, by the way, let's be clear -- but much of the neurological development that takes place over the course of a lifetime begins and gets associated in those first three years of life. we know about effective home visiting programs and early childhood interventions that start children on the right path. especially those children who may be growing up in families that don't have the opportunities to provide them with the kind of cognitive stimulation and emotional and social supports that children in more well-to-do families may have the opportunity to experience. we know that high quality early childhood and preschool makes a big difference. there is ample research, not all early childhood programs let's be clear, there are a lot of things that don't work, but we do know what does work. and if we can take that to larger scale, then we can put

the child on a path. we tend to think of preschool, and then there's like this little membrane, and all of a sudden they're in school. if we just tear away that membrane and recognize that from 0-8 is a critical period where the transition from those early childhood programs into preschool, into kindergarten, into the first elementary years need to be lined up. and at each step in that path we need to be providing the most effective interventions not only for the children, but remember, parents are their children's first teachers, through the parents and the families. that's the pathway to success. just a quick story. i have four kids, one of them has a pretty severe learning disability which we didn't discover until fourth grade, and your prediction of what happens to a young person. here we are, a well-to-do family at the time living in a suburb, we're white, we have all sorts of supports, and i want to tell you that when my son was not doing well in school, he began to exhibit all sorts of

behaviors that stuck with him until he was in high school. and somehow the synapses connected, and he made it. but he could have very easily gone down a very different path, certainly if we were in an urban area, if we were treated differently because of the color of our skin and if we didn't have the financial resources to provide him with the supports he needed. this is not anything about opportunity here. my son had it, kids don't. >> father boyle? >> just again thank you all for being here. this question is for sonja. i -- it's the etch sis here because children are so vulnerable that how do we shield them and protect them from the effects of violence, but i'm curious as to give us a window on your father. because even in earlier testimony you start to get hopeless about the ability of an anger management class or what would you have delivered now given your, you know, adult and

retrospective, the perspective on what was his profile. you mentioned in your written testimony about, you know, he was a veteran. so what could have helped him and shielded you in the process? what would we have delivered as a society to him that would have prevented any of this from happening? >> that's a great question. i think that's the question in so many ways. um, and i have to tell you the first answer that comes to my mind is there's nothing. there's hardly anything that you could have done. i think there's only one thing that could really surmount the insurmountable problems that i faced as a kid. my father was mentally ill. i later found out that he was paranoid schizophrenic. he was on lots of medication. my father is a brilliant man. he had moments of brilliance as a parent.

my father, you know, there were phases in our life where we tried to have sunday dinner. now, it might have been a tyrannical nightmarish affair at times, but there were times when there was laughter at the table. my father thought he should teach us all how to play chess. by the time you were 6, you knew how to play chess. he had these moments of brilliance. but he had these -- there came a time when he just turned into a monster, and i could no longer justify loving him. um, the only thing that i think -- and this may, you know, seem very "kumbaya"ish, polly annish, i think we underestimate the power of love. i think the other answer that i gave you, you know, what i failed to say is that not only, you know, these children or these young people don't simply respond to people who come from the same backgrounds they come from. that's helpful, for sure. that will knock the door down

quickly. but they are also very moved by people who continue to show up when they disappoint them. they are moved at consistency of presence in their lives whether you come from -- because a lot of times they will sort of, they'll discount your, your history because it was so long ago. you know? sometimes it takes a minute. but i do believe that there's, you know, father boyle, surely you know this, you know, that all of us have the ability to effect, you know, these children's lives whether your specialty is through, you know, policy and being a part of this task force or not. i think that, you know, mentoring and having a young person in your life and your showing up on a regular basis despite whatever challenges that come, despite the fact that they may get locked up again or

something else has happened or your heart is broken or, you know, they've disappointed. but continue to show up. and that's, you know, consistency, you know, that kind of consistency, you know, um, and that kind of support, you know, that's nurtureance. those are the components of love. and i think, you know, we should not forget that just the power of the human spirit and the human heart here when we're doing our jobs. when we're interacting with people in general, our children especially. >> well, at the sake of repeating everybody, thanks again, all three of you, for sharing your stories with us. i want to ask ms. sohn a question and only because i share your same story. i come from an immigrant family, my father is a very rigid man, highly disciplined, also an army soldier. so he was brought up in that particular segment, and he was

also absent at the time and very abusive to the family. but my question to you in terms of your project here, you know, i know we're going to be hearing similar organizations that deal with domestic violence and youth programs, but have you thought -- and resources are kind of a premium today. >> uh-huh. >> and i know you're probably not getting a lot of federal funning or state funding, things of that nature, but have you thought about partnering with other organizations that have the similar mission, the similar objectives, the similar target population that you're dealing with? >> uh-huh. well, we do in small ways. our organization, you know, has a pretty broad mission. one is to help these young people who have been affected by violence and who live in these underserved communities, and the other is to raise awareness through our association with the media. right now our efforts in baltimore are focused out of the village house which is our community, a community house

that we started here in east baltimore. and over there we, you know, we could not do what we are doing, um, without the help of zion baptist church and pastor marshall prentice who for the first year gave us place and continues to give us place to operate out of. we are working with the oliver community center which is just around the corner from, um, where we're located. um, they are providing space for some intergenerational programming. it's a small operation right now, and, um, we do have our partners. we work with the police department. there's the eastern district commander, major melvin russell, is an amazing man who actually has his own nonprofit called the transformation team. and he's been, he and the neighborhood services unit that is a part of the police department, um, have been particularly helpful to us. helping us renovate, helping to

provide security for events, um, they have, some of the officers have come and done, facilitated the d.a.r.e. program with some of the smaller children. so that's how we are partnering with the community right now. um, yeah, i'll leave it right there. i'm still thinking about father boyle's question in terms of -- and if i could go back to it quickly, may i? may i revisit that? >> please. >> um, you know, i know it sounded sort of hopeless that i don't think there was much anyone could have done. i mean, the scenario could have played out a number of ways. um, i, you know, there were times when i thought about, you know, going into foster care, but, you know, with the situation with my mom and feeling like i had to protect her, that would have given me a lot of stress had that happened. i thought i could survive maybe that way. when i was 12 years old, i wanted so badly to be sent to a boarding school. i thought that would be my

ticket. but when all my teachers sat me down because i intentionally failed all my classes. i was an honor student, was the president of the student government, i had great promise. they knew my test scores. i could read and most of my friends could read, okay? i was a pretty smart kid. but when all my teachers sat down and said what is going on, you've failed -- i was trying to get somebody's attention. i could not speak, and i was going, can't you see, in my head, that i want to go to a boarding school? i just, i shrank in that chair, and i cried. and i wanted them to ask more questions. i wanted them to -- because i could not find a voice for it. so, um, you know, but what kept me afloat, let me tell you what kept me afloat, why i'm here, you know, besides, you know, my decision at the age of 27 to stop doing drugs and to really, you know, get some help, um,

what kept me afloat all those years were there were some families in that neighborhood. most of my friends were sexually abused, most of them witnessed violence in the neighborhood. um, you know, the whole neighborhood was traumatized, you know? that's why we were fighting all the time. but what kept me afloat, i remember, and this is the inspiration for the village house actually. across the parking lot from where i lived was a couple, many and ms. cook -- mrs. and ms. cook. ms. alice had a glass eye and a limp. she was physically challenge. they drank in the evenings. but they were always happy, and they were jolly. they had adopted a son, and they were always home, and in the summertime they had a u-haul in the middle of the parking lot where they had bicycles. and for a quarter you could rent a bicycle all day. and if you didn't have the quarter, of course, you could have the bike. they taught you how to patch

your tire. she ran a little candy store and snow cone shop out of her country. they were the boy scout, girl scout leaders. and some people would have thought they were dysfunctional in their own right, but they were the bright spot of that neighborhood, and they kept us going. there was another couple down the street, there was one fully functional, beautiful family in my whole block, and i became -- they moved into our neighborhood when i was about 10. i became friends with the daughter. mr. and ms. braxton. mr. braxton works at the shipyard, ms. braxton was a stay-at-home mom. and they always had food on the table, you know, at the right times during the day, there was always a parent home. they took me on family trips. you know, i would go to their house as a respite because it felt warm, and it felt fuzzy. and it was, i had bright spots

like that, you know, that kept me going. and i happened to be a kid, and i think, you know, what we're also leaving out here is emotional intelligence. regardless of how smart you are, how well you can read, you know, or how little you can read if you are, if your emotional intelligence quotient is very high, you can, you know, the likelihood that you're going to make it out of this thing alive and somewhat functional is actually higher despite all your challenges. and though i think we had a genetic predisposition for this kind of thing particularly considering where my father came from, and my mother had a completely tragic story, um, i happened to be someone who was born as a kid, as a 5-year-old i knew i was born for a purpose. it was something i knew more than anything in the world. and i just spent my life looking for that, even in all the darkness and all the pain. and at a certain point when i decided to start using drugs, i was just going i can't be

miserable. like, this is hopeless, i can't change it, i need something that's just going to bookmark me and hold me right here. and most drugs weren't a great idea, but they were all i had, you know? people couldn't get inside my mind and figure out what was going on and then immediately service me, you know? but i also, you know, had the ability to say, okay, where is the light? where is the positive, the i'm going to find that? so, you know, we need to find a way to nurture that in our children, the ability to find positivity and to find light in your life. that despite your circumstances, where can you be grateful? you know, where do you have resources? let's not just crowd them with all this information of what they don't have, and let's not totally treat them as victims. let's treat them as champions and as people who can and will overcome their circumstances. >> ms. sohn, how do we as a task force translate that need into a policy recommendation in it's

clear that that is, those are the saving graces, those are the tools that children need in order to survive really difficult circumstances. but how do we translate that into a policy recommendation? >> that's a big question. and i'm sure that i will have a lot more to say about it once i leave here and process it. [laughter] i have to think about it. you know, but, but, you know, and i just have to say what i think a lot of times is unspeakable in forums like this, you know, which is, you know, we don't -- there's not a lot of programming out there that focuses on, you know, one of the reasons why we use the arts in rewired for life is because, you know, we want to nurture, you know, a child's ability or a young person's ability to create. see, i know what creativity can do. i know what happened to me when at the age of 30 i started acting. and i know that some of my healing tools came through the techniques i learned in acting. and i know that my fellow, you

know, co-founders of this organization who come from very similar backgrounds that i do, that i come from understand the power of creativity. and creativity, you know, is very closely linked to spirit. and if we can find programming that fosters creativity and opens up the window inside a young person to their own heart and the power of their own spirit, then, you know, we can -- then i can say that we'll be on a, you know, we'll be adding, you know, to that track. but in terms of policy, you know, um, that's something that i'd really have to -- i'd actually like to talk to you about that on the side. [laughter] i'd like to hear your ideas considering, you know, what i've said, you know, in terms of policy. policy these days is a tough one, i think, all around no matter what subject we're addressing. [laughter] >> we are, folks, we're nearing the end of this panel. i have one question i would like to ask dr. mccarthy, and it bears a great deal on the

overall issue of money. it costs $150, 60, 70,000 a year to send one child to secure confinement in the state of pennsylvania for one year. over $150,000 prime. why is it -- and not speaking of pennsylvania alone -- but why is it that states find it so hard to listen to the evidence that has been developed on why many of these placements are not successful with the kind of costs that are involved, when those costs could be shifted to a program like the one mr. cox is talking about, the one ms. sohn is talking about and hundreds of other programs that are valuable, viable and effective? why is that? >> so let me start by saying thank you for not asking me as tough a question as you asked ms. sohn. [laughter] i greatly appreciate it. you know, i think there are a number of answers to the

question. one, we're just talking now about the huge investments in juvenile correctional facilities. >> correct. >> let's start with that. um, you've got the problem, essentially, of sunk cost. i used to run a juvenile correctional system. you know, i ran these facilities. so i've been inside the belly of the beast, so to speak, but i had a key to get out. the marginal cost of putting one more young man in that facility was close to nothing. so when you say that something costs $150,000 a year, it's not that every time a young person gets on that conveyor belt towards the institution that if you grab them off that conveyor belt, you'd have $150,000 to send him to harvard for a doctoral degree over the course of time. that's not how it works. so that's a big challenge. fortunately, you know, we're actually starting to see in,

again, places like new york and california and alabama and to a certain extent even in pennsylvania and louisiana and texas we're starting to see partially drawn out of the fiscal crisis, partially drawn out of a championship consensus that -- consensus, the conservative point of view, the progressive point of view kind of coming together saying it's not making any sense and we can't afford it anymore, that people are finally this a lot of these states taking steps. they just changed the incentives. used to be if you were one of the counties in california and you had a young person who was a felon, you could send them off to to the state, and it didn't cost you a dime. if you kept them in the county, you had to provide services. so the state basically changed the incentives. they said if you're going to send them to the state, it's going to cost more than if you keep them within your own county.

if you really need to send them, send them, but you're going to have to keep the freight. and lo and behold all these children who couldn't survive any place else except behind bars, all of a sudden that wasn't such an attractive option for the counties. so we're experimenting with ways where you can basically figure out the financing you need to do to flip these systems. in other words, and that's where i think foundations actually can be helpful. foundations have huge endowments. we can use those endowments to do bridge funding so that during the period of time where you still have to invest in your high-cost enterprise because you can't just close it one day and open it up the next, we can bridge to more effective interventions and thereby close the pipeline down. and then at that point the states and the cities, etc., can close these institutions or greatly downsize them, freeing up resources and then continue things on. so i think that's another piece. but, you know, at the end of the day, the end of the day this is

only a little bit about money and all that technical stuff. at the end of the day, again, it's about political will, you know? the reality is the political will emerged in these states that i rambled on about. the political will emerged. people rose up and said this is just wrong, it's too expensive, and it's not working. we've got to do something different, and that's when it changed. that's when it changed. >> thank thank you very much. we'd like to thank our panelists for this very insightful testimony. at this time we're going to recess until 1:00 for lunch. thank you very much. [inaudible conversations]

>> we have more from the national task force on children's exposure to violence coming up here on c-span2. up next, a discussion on what a weak economy and high unemployment mean for children's exposure to violence. and then a look at the importance of mentoring kids and the impact of prosecuting children as adults. the justice department reports that children exposed to violence are more likely to engage in criminal behavior, to suffer from depression and to use drugs and alcohol. in november the attorney general's national task force on children's exposure to violence began gathering evidence and hearing testimony. in baltimore the task force heard about how a weak economy and high unemployment exacerbate the problem. >> the next panel will introduce a broad framework for understanding the complex and pervasive nature of children's exposure to violence. children's exposure to violence occurs across all races and socioeconomic situations and

effects children of all ages. it can be direct and acute, and it can be a daily reality for children who witness violation in their communities. violence in their communities. many branches of social services serve these children. therefore, diverse, professional perspectives are essential to addressing the issue of children's exposure to violence. this panel will discuss the issue from the perspectives of law, medicine, law enforcement and research. children's experiences of violence are often hidden or kept a secret. this panel help to open a conversation about the widespread and insidious nature of childhood exposure to violence. and our -- i want to introduce to you our panel, dr. howard dubowitz, he's the head of the division of child protection and director, center for families. he has studied the problems of child neglect and family

violence for 35 years and is widely known for his work on the problem of childhood sexual abuse. dr. jeffrey edelson is a professor and director of research at the university of minnesota school of social work and is director of the minnesota center against violence and abuse. he has authored the bestseller, "best practices guide for addressing the domestic violence" that is utilized around the country. chief marshal t. goodwin has been chief of police for baltimore city schools since 2007. prior to his appointment, chief goodwin retired from baltimore city sheriff's office at the rank of major and has also served in the maryland house of delegates. ms. sheila bedi leads the southern poverty law center in louisiana. ms. bedi directed effort to

close a notoriously abusive girls' prison and continues to represent imprisoned children in suits challenging unconstitutional prison conditions. dr. dubowitz. >> good afternoon. and i'm really grateful for the chance to share a few thoughts with you this often. and i have to say listening to the attorney general earlier today, i was struck by how much we know. and what can i possibly say that's going to be new? but often i feel that the problem, perhaps the tragedy is not what we don't know, but how we ignore what we do know. um, we do know that many american kids are exposed to violence directly, indirectly. we have about 75 million children in our country, and

incredibly each year there are reports of possible abuse and neglect for over six million children. and that is the tip of the tip of the iceberg. because we also know that this is a problem that often happens behind closed doors and is kept darkly secret. um, studies have steadily shown, for example, that as many as one in five girls and perhaps one in ten boys experience sexual abuse. and as you'll hear from other panelists, many kids are exposed to violence between their parents or adults in the home as well as other forms of violence. um, the attorney general said it perfectly; we have a national epidemic.

it's important how we define violence, and some forms are, obviously, obvious. but others are less so. for example, corporal punishment or hitting kids remains widely accepted. and some believe it's even necessary. however, we have lots and lots of evidence of how hitting children can harm them and make them more aggressive. i think it's reasonable to conclude that corporal punishment, hitting kids really is a form of child maltreatment, it's a form of violence. another, i think, interesting issue concerns child neglect. and you probably know that two-thirds of what gets reported to our child welfare system actually concerns neglect.

for example, when kids go hungry, this too might be construed as another form of violence. um, i should quickly add, though, that this is seldom parents intentionally not giving their kids food. rather, it's in the context of poverty and not enough to go around. so perhaps we can think of this as a form of societal neglect or violence. we know we're paying a very high price, literally and figuratively, for kids' exposure to violence. there is enormous evidence of both the short and the long term serious harm and the costs. more than three kids are killed due to child abuse and neglect

in an average day. um, for example, studies have shown that abused and neglected kids are at risk for juvenile delinquent and then adult criminal behavior. other studies have found very serious medical and mental health problems including cancer, heart disease 50 years down the road. one conservative estimate is that we're paying over $100 billion a year related to this problem. so very, very clearly the suffering and the costs of this are enormous. we've also learned a great deal about what contributes to violence and child maltreatment, and it's not simply about bad

parents. rather, there are usually several, multiple contributors including aspects of our culture, of our society. so again, for example, despite plenty of rhetoric about our children being our nation's most valuable resource, i'm sorry, but the evidence is says otherwise. how do we explain nine million children without any health insurance? hard to hear, sorry. is this on? okay. how do we explain the lousy public schools in so much of the country? thinking of many be families struggling with unemployment, housing evictions and the many burdens of poverty, it's not a big mystery how abuse or neglect may occur. in fact, thinking of families

living a few blocks from where we're sitting in dangerous neighborhoods infested with violence, with crime, with drugs and with very few supports the mystery for me, actually, is how many families manage to do pretty well. i'm not sure how well i would do under those circumstances. so understanding what's underpinning the violence and child abuse and neglect should really guide us as we seek to tackle this big problem. like enlightened police chiefs who have long realized that vantages of prevention over punishment and revolving doors, we need to be smarter, more strategic and make prevention a priority. and here are six ideas, i think, of how we could help prevent child abuse and neglect.

the first is the problem cries out for strong national leadership on children's issues. perhaps having a cabinet-level position for children and youth. the attorney general, too, has a useful bully pulpit. and having some good mid-level folks or officers within offices within agencies is just not good enough. number two, developing a really sustained public education campaign to help create a culture that really values kids. so if we could harness the geniuses of marketing, the folks who convince americans in the suburbs that they need a jeep, if we could harness that genius to promote ideas and practices

that will serve children as well as their parents and families, that would be wonderful. and leaders in the entertainment industry and religious institutions should be important allies. number three, if we would bancorpal punishment in the home as 29 other countries have done -- and i realize a complex issue -- but at a minimum this would send a powerful statement of how we think children deserve to be treated. the fourth idea is that our need to address the underlying contributors, the circumstances that are the root of this problem, it's not enough to simply treat the symptom. let's hope that the proposed changes in the health care system will insure access to

those nine million children. but proposals to add jobs, help for those at risk of losing their homes, efforts to tackle poverty need our strong support, and children and families will benefit. the fifth idea is that we should do better at disseminating promising prevention strategies such as home visiting programs for new parents. these have been found to be effective in lowering the rate of abuse and neglect. the sixth, we also need to invest more in the development and testing of new prevention strategies. if prevention is so important, we do have to learn more about how to do better in this area. shifting to after the fact, much

can be done to help abused and neglected kids and their families. this can lessen the likelihood of those bad outcomes and also help prevent further abuse and neglect, and here are four ideas. most abused and neglected children remain with their families. we need more and better resources to help families take good care of their kids such as parenting programs, parenting support programs. a second idea is so much time and money goes into investigating child abuse and neglect, yet relatively few cases are prosecuted. some, perhaps much of that money, would be better spent on services strengthening and supporting families. ..

>> the quality of decision-making often leaves much to be desired. a nice example of having a clinic, attached to the court, develop why judge cindy lederman in florida, it's an idea that really is worth replicating.

my last thought is to really urge you to strongly recommend that the senate ratify the u.n. convention on the rights of the child. this is a wonderful blueprint for what a decent society would aim to ensure for its children. and it should be a bipartisan no-brainer. as you likely know, only somalia and the united states have not yet ratified this convention. so, i hope that these few thoughts are helpful as you consider how to improve our response to the many, many children exposed to many forms of violence. thank you. >> thank you for inviting me today.

it's an honor to be here. and i'm going to focus primarily on the issue of children's exposure to domestic violence. i want to start by speaking to the definition of exposure, because under many state laws, is within sight or sound of the violence. and i think there's probably a much broader experience that children have with domestic violence that calls for a broader definition. and i think in the social science literature that definition has expanded over the last 20 years, from being an eyewitness or speaking about witnessing domestic violence to children who are exposed to domestic violence or experience it. because that exposure includes the events leading up to the violent incident, the violent incident itself and the many different cascading events that follow that, a single incident pics i don't think we should be focused in our definitions of exposure, and i'm talking about

the indirect exposure to violence of children being exposed to domestic violence between adults and their homes. i don't think we should focus on the term witnessing or i witnessing, or within sight or sound but think about the broad experience that children have, even living in a shelter, in the aftermath of violence there can be many different experiences that i would pose or part of that exposure experience to domestic violence. i also, and i've written about this, i question whether child exposure to domestic violence in our current context should be defined as child maltreatment. i think of it as child maltreatment but i don't think our systems are sufficiently supported eleanor to respond to children exposed to domestic violence. and one experience i can tell you about in detail is minnesota's experience when we redefined child exposure to family violence broadly as a

form of child neglect under our state statutes. and it ended up overwhelming our child welfare system with about 50% increase in new child, child protection screenings and investigations, led to actually fewer services for abused children because there were no new funds for this change in law and the resources had to be moved from services to screening and investigation. so during the nine months that was in place in minnesota, we had a huge increase in screenings and investigation, and decrease in services. and together, the child welfare system, administrative and the domestic violence network in the state got together very quickly, unanimously for the first time in their history, to lobby for the repeal of that law under minnesota statute. and it was repealed. and sadly though, upon repeal, now 50% fewer children are being

reported to child protection. so on one level we had a lot more reporting but we had no new resources, sort of an unfunded mandate. on the other hand, we know about these children but we're not reporting. and i think there's a third way that we need to support which is a community-based outside of the child welfare system but more of a voluntary system of supports for children and their families who have been exposed to domestic violence in the community but cannot talk about that more in a minute. in terms of, i was asked to talk about the scope and david will be on the next panel, and he is part of the team that did a national survey on children exposed to domestic violence. it was published just two years ago, and they continue to publish a number of papers on that. as howard said, 75 million children in the u.s. come and then when you think about that under the national survey, 6.6% of american children were

exposed to physical assaults between their parents in the last year, 6.6% of all children between zero and under 18. 17.9% of children of all ages exposed to physical violence since birth, between parents since birth. one real key factor in that survey is they interviewed directly 14-17-year-olds. under 14 they interviewed the caregivers. those, that's the first time that i have seen 14-17 your old strictly surveyed, and those children, 20 7.7% of them said that they been exposed to parents physically fighting during their lifetime. so that's more than one in four children in the u.s. and you can extrapolate that to the 75 million figure that howard gave. they also found that a third, 33.9% of children who had been exposed to parents fighting in

the home were also directly maltreated in their home. so a third during the past year, compared to 8.6% of kids that did not, were not exposed to violence between their parents. and then when i looked over lifetime, over half, 56.8% of children exposed to domestic violence in homes were also maltreated sometime during their lifetime. so there's a huge cooccurrence of these issues in families. other studies, nearby at the university of pennsylvania and his colleagues studied five different cities that the police report from five different cities, and when the police arrived on domestic assault calls, zero-50 children, their young children were disproportionately present which raises a big red flag for a lot of the child protection systems around the country.

that those children, because they're not in school, they are not able to leave the house on their own. they are often playing in the house, supervised by a parent that they are more likely to be there and stay there during a don't domestic assault. also there's data on children's exposure to homicide and attempted homicides. that's in my written testimony. and one issue that a lot of people are not aware of, more than half of the residents of battered women shelters our children. so i usually treat people in audiences, i ask them what percentage of the residents of your shelter are battered women? and even the shelter advocates say 100%. but, in fact, it's more than half of the children of american, in an american shelters, more than half the residents in american shelters our children. the impact of this violence has been found to have similar impacts of direct maltreatment, so the impact of indirect

exposure to domestic violence has, can have similar impacts on children as being a direct victim of child physical or sexual abuse. a recent meta-analysis found that of 60 different studies found that boys in particular showed much greater likelihood of abusing antisocial and aggressive behavior, and overall, children showed much greater presence of trauma symptoms as result of being exposed or associated with being exposed to domestic violence. we also know that children physically intervene and take action during a told to adult domestic violence events. the recent national survey by david and their colleagues found that 49.9%, half of the children yelled at their parents to stop during domestic assault. almost a quarter called for help. almost half reported trying to get away from the violence at

least once. in the study i did in four cities across the country, 38% of children were reported to be accidentally hurt during an adult to adult domestic assault. often when they tried to intervene to protect their mother. and a quarter, 26%, were intentionally hurt when they did intervene in those events. long-term we have a number of longitudinal studies that i started to add questions about domestic violence exposure, and those studies have found that into teenage and adult relationships, that an early exposure to domestic violence is highly associate with use of violence and problems in teenage years and young adulthood. and in particular, the adverse childhood study in california find an occurrence that children exposed to domestic violence, over 50% of them had five or

more other adverse childhood experiences call occurring without exposure. so there was a very high, as david called poly victimization, multiple victimization exposures. one bright spot is that significant hours of children and all the studies of children exposed to domestic violence have been shunned of no greater problems than children not exposed. so among, between the group exposed to not exposed, you can find significant difference. so when you look within that group of exposed children, you find that upwards to half of those children are not showing a great degree of problem ticket could beware measuring poorly. it could be were not followed up long enough. i do think very patient issued an important factor to keep in mind. that children have a different set, each child comes to the situation with a different set of protective and risk factors in their lives, and, therefore,

will respond to the same event in different ways. and i think if there's one major take-home message, i would hope yoyou would take from my talk today is that very, children have varied exposure to domestic violence. that often leads to varied impact on them, and that we need to read responses to those children. that we can't just have child protection as single response in those communities to children exposed to domestic violence, that we need much more than analysis and what are the protective factors in their lives, earlier, the different adults on her block, it was interesting to listen to that, but the protective adults in her children's lives are very important i would like to argue that battered mothers and a significant protective factor for children. even when they are being beaten, many of them are taking steps to try to protect their children. for example, i had a social

worker in saint paul, minnesota, tony, she has got three orders for protection and gone to the shelter twice with her children. she cannot keep those kids safe. and so, i would turn around and say, that mom, that's just cash it those are difficult steps you take into protect her children are probably hundreds of others were not even see that she's is taken. so to turn that around to say she can keep those kids safe i think is a negative attribution to what i see as protective steps but battered moms. they are are a of promising practices that have been developed and survey the department of justice has been promoting a variety of those. the ones that i find applied most directed to children exposed to domestic violence, child parent psychotherapy, alicia lieberman in san francisco and nancy mcalister groves in boston, kids club, a

children's group and shelters for children exposed to domestic violence, projects support by renée mcdonald down in texas. and then the fourth comes out of ontario, canada. there are a number of other great practices, and as howard alluded to, and i really want to end by stressing his fifth and sixth points, is that we do not have an infrastructure for developing evidence-based practice. there's huge pressure upon social services in this area and others to use evidence-based practice. but the few that are out there have gone through maybe 10 to 15 years of stephen can probably attest, 10 to 15 year develop and parry with significant public funding to support that. testing randomized clinical

trials in the case of child parent psychotherapy in san francisco. that then is followed by a translation to the field that's an intense process. and i've heard them talk about the process they have engaged in to the supported national network. that not only after, after the clinical trial they have spent years with mentoring and intensive training to try to translate that to the field. and i think that infrastructure, and howard explains, we need an infrastructure to support developing evidence-based practices, a variety of them that are out there that are great but don't have evidence behind them, to test those out. and then translate what we find in the field. there's very little support for the work in the field. of those. been a good afternoon. thanks, panel. is my pleasure and honor to

speak before you today to talk about children exposed to violence. and i know i have some comments that have already been written in steady, but i want to speak from my heart because i believe that from the lens i see young people is different from others. i'm always under the belief that children are raised to be respectful and be responsible in society. and when young people are not in a home that is suitable for growth, academic growth, social growth, they begin to display negative behavior in our community. i can tell you from my position that oftentimes i am speaking to young people, myself as chief of police, some people think i've lost my mind because i put so much time into this job, but i believe it's important that young people here from adults and adults here from young people. because in order for us to change a community, i think right now as we live in this society with urban cities and

drugs and gangs in our committee, the key to build it to rebuild the family. we need to give the family the support, the services that are needed to rebuild the family because oftentimes we find young people are being raised by their siblings because the parent is either working two or three jobs to support their home, and/or deceased, or the grandparents are stepping up to take over that responsibility. i believe if we look at the family in an open lands to understand that in order for young people to achieve academic success, and learning invited, they must come from positive learning environment. oftentimes we have disruptive behavior and we call on our partners and school system, one of which will hear from in the next session. and it's called community conferencing. what are we doing in community conference he? we bring families together. we have opportunity to talk to families, you find out the real

core of the issue of why your people are behaving with such negative behavior in our committee. what can you be comforting, it helps us to bridge the gap of what's going on and why we're in a position where in today in terms of disruptive behavior. young people today, for some reason, do not want to use conflict resolution but combat resolution in terms of altercation. so i said before you today to say that i believe the biggest focus in violence today in our committee is focusing on the family. what can we do to change a family to change a young person? and i believe to change a community you to change families one by one, as the actor said earlier, that in her committee there were two family she grabbed hold of. i can tell you myself, i was raised by a single mom working three jobs. but i had a grandmother and i had hoped. they taught me the benefits of

working hard and succeeding. in the position of chief of police and the school system i tried to talk to young people about my upbringing and what i came from, to let them know that my road was not easy. i had some stumbling blocks along the way, but i think if we take the time to give young people a voice in society today, we can change some of the violent behavior that is going on. but within our school system, as we all know, violence takes place in the community, it ultimately ends up back at the school. so what is the school left with with limited resources to attack those issues that are coming in from the community? we have reached out to many partners within the city of baltimore to address the violent behavior, the disruptive behavior, to bring calm to the storm, before the storm really erupts in our school system. i can tell you that in our school system, our students have taken it seriously -- our students have taken -- the

school is the safest place to be. and it tells me that we have a problem between school and home and home and school. so what do we have? we have limited resources that will address the issues between school and home. with limited resources for afterschool programs. we have limited resources for athletic events. so what is left for a young person to be counted on but us because then they go nay from a positive structure to school back to the community weathers negativity in between the school and home, and they want to be a part of a family. i remember hearing the first case dealing with the gains in the city of baltimore company and the young person said well, i want to be a part of something. sollecito, why not be part of the educational system where you can succeed and achieve growth? and he said well, i have some issues. so off like i took a little walk with him and he said sir, you have to understand where i'm coming from. i said what are you coming from?

he said well, my mother is deceased, my father is incarcerated. what do i do? it's tough to respond to young people if he didn't have the resources to guide them in the right direction, to overcome that which has impeded their bodies and minds and hearts. i believe the educational system is the right place for any in person to achieve, but i think resources are badly needed, overly needed, and they need to be imploded in elementary school level where we can grab young people at an early age. i think starting with young people in high school, in middle school is not the answer today. we need to start pre-k straight on through 12th grade. and i can tell you to a great program and our dare pro ram that my officers are conducting an elementary school, we are attempting to make a difference in young people's lives. and i think from a police perspective it's not about locking up every young person that violates student code of

conduct or violates the law. it's about finding the resources to help that young person. i'm often asked when the officers argued with young people, what's going on with that student. have you talked to that student today? do you know what happened last night in that home? because oftentimes what's happening in the home is having an adverse affect on a young person coming to school. i saw a young lady sleeping in class a lot and asked the teacher what is going on. she said you've got to understand, this young lady is taking care of her family. what do you think? her mom works to midnight shift so she is responsible for closing the students, feeding the student can make sure the homework is done. by the time she gets done, she's extremely tired so she has to get up the next day and get ready, get her siblings ready, get herself ready, she is late for schools or sleeping and school. and adult must recognize that. an adult must know that the young person is in need of help, and oftentimes when the students do not receive that help the often go into the street and begin to create a disturbance

somewhere in our community, gangs, prostitution or robbing or of being just total disrupting. in our community. so i would venture to say to the panel, to the task force, that necessary resources are in place today in our society, i think we can make the difference as adults and allies but we have to put the necessary resources in place to support young people. and also give them a voice get we try to do the inner school system by reaching out to prevention programs that have young people be a part of that. i truly believe that in order to overcome the violence in our community, we need to put the resources in the right place where young people can achieve academically and grow professionally in our community. thank you. >> good afternoon. thank you for the opportunity to be here to share with you some

thoughts about violence in our nation's juvenile justice system. i have had the incredible honor but also experienced tremendous heartbreak of representing children who are in prisons throughout the deep south. and these children are like children who are imprisoned throughout the country. the vast majority of them have committed very low level offenses, and that's a very disturbing fact when you think about the fact that we spend millions of dollars in praising children for very, very minor offenses. so what's even more disturbing is the violence and the abuse and the trauma that these children often experience when they're behind bars. there's no dollar amount you can put on the number of young lives that have been destroyed by violence experienced insider juvenile justice system. i'd like to share with you just a few stories of some children i have worked with. in may 2007, a 16 year girl was

left alone with a member was under investigation for sex abuse in another resident in that facility. she was brutally sexually abused, and that same staff member went on to abuse three other girls before he was finally removed from his position. in that same facility, seven girls were shackled for over a month because they were in an alleged runaway threat. in october 2009, a detention center implemented a policy of keeping children locked down for 23 hours a day here and children would come to the front of their cells to request water, to have to go to the bathroom, the staff at spray tan in the face with mace and tell them to get to the back of their cells. in one particular brutal and corrupt private prison that houses young men, ages 13-22, who are tried and convicted as adults, in the last three years there have been three suicide, a

number of raids, and staff instigated youth assaults that have resulted in a number of youth receiving permanent injuries, including permanent brain damage. another very serious injuries. these examples all occurred in the deep south, but prison abuse for children isn't in just one region of the country. according to a report, since 1970 that have been 57 lawsuits in 33 states. reports ordered specific remedies by detention centers to address unconstitutional and abuse and issues. so who are the children who are experiencing abuse? well, the data suggest that state juvenile justice systems are targeting black and brown kids. african-american youth are 41% of our nation's population, yet they represent 69% of all children who are detained.

these children experience a lot of the violence that i just spoke about. then they are released back into their communities. this is why the violence and abuse suffered by children caught up in our juvenile justice system affects us all. evidence also suggests that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender's youth are also disproportionately hot up in a juvenile justice system. often for reasons related to their orientation. sometimes when you come out they get disconnected from their families and, therefore, are on the street. that can be dragged back into the juvenile justice system. other times these youth are defending themselves against pervasive bullying that happened in the committee and on the street. a report by the juvenile justice project in louisiana suggested these youth are very gullible to sexual abuse while in prison. in this report a number of youth talked about being forced, being sexual assaulted and forced to perform sexual acts or

experienced physical violence. children living with mental illness and girls are also particularly vulnerable to abuse while they are in prison. there's another population that is going to over the past few years there's also very vulnerable to abuse, and that's children are imprisoned in our adult correctional facilities. the juvenile justice system was initially created to protect children from harsh and punitive environment of these adult correctional facilities. in the 1990s, in a way of tough on crime policies, this was reversed and a lot of states began to allow children to try to be convicted as adults. it is in the facilities were we've seen some of the most brutal abuses. supposedly children are sent to prison and an effort to reduce crime and violence in our community. but in reality the active in prison at child can create more

crime in more violence than it actually solves. based on recidivism rates, one thing we know is that secure confinement is one proven ineffective way to address juvenile crime. and we also know that abuse and violence is endemic in these facilities. my written testimony contains a number of detailed recommendations for the task force. i will briefly summarize them here. i hope the task force will consider urging congress to reauthorize and strengthen the juvenile justice difficulty prevention act. i also hope the task force will ensure that the prison rape elimination act will address the needs of detained youth. both of these statutes should have a prohibition on how these children and adults facilities. i hope the task force will consider making recommendations at the state level, that they reform their system to

systemically reduce the number of children who are imprisoned by developing alternatives to incarceration that are data-driven and they can save states money. like many of the other panelists have noted, a critical component of these alternatives will be to engage families and communities into the rehabilitative system. investing in families is one of the surest ways we can reduce our nation's reliance on incarceration. of course, even with all of these policies, some children will still end up behind bars. and it's absolutely critical that we do whatever we can to protect these youth from violence. states should be encouraged to develop strong in the end it oversight for all prisons and jails, for any facility that houses children. in conclusion, i'd like to commend the task force for recognizing the silent epidemic of violence the high and the walls of the prisons that house our children. and for recognizing that this is a crisis that resounds far

beyond those walls into all of our communities. >> question? >> on the question of children juvenile detention facility, do you have any recommendations on issues of children being held in isolation come either from the point of view of the lens of time or the circumstances of the children held in isolation speak with my recommendation would be that children should never be house in isolation. it is one of the most devastating things from a child, or make about the perspective to be housed alone in a cell without contact with staff. what we've seen in some of the facilities we're working in, where there is an outright prohibition on isolation is severe behavior issues can be dealt with with adequate staffing, and with other consequences for negative behavior. kids will break rules but there

are ways to get them consequences that will not affect the development of process. >> is there any research you have on this issue? >> there certainly is big and i'll be happy to provide that to you. there's significant amount of research on the departmental affects of isolationism on children. >> is there a place you can cite within the united states as best practice would be a model? >> on the issue of isolation? i believe that the missouri juvenile justice system has a model behavior management program to it does not rely on isolation is him. >> i want to thank all of you for your powerful testimony. i did have a question for maybe all of you that can answer this. you all provide a wealth of information, specifically in your own individual field. i wanted to know if you were -- if you work conference of the with other experts in the field,

and how that information gets transferred to the community residents in south? >> -- residents themselves? how would that information be shared? >> so, i think the first part was the extent to which we work with other experts or folks in different disciplines, was that? so, right here i'm at the medical school across the street, i would say everything we do is interdisciplinary, and involves usually four, five, six disciplines. i couldn't be here for part of the morning because we have a new project on training law enforcement officers about investigating child abuse and neglect, and i had to go to that meeting. so i think the nature of this problem really requires a different disciplines and fields

to work together your it's not just a nice idea. it's a necessity. i think in terms of the second question of how do we do in conveying information to the public, let me first say i think we could do a lot better. that often does not give enough attention. but just one example is where in maryland we have an effort to develop statewide medical expertise in the field of child abuse and neglect, and on the website there's lots of info that would be useful to parents as well. so it's one small example, but much to be done. >> thank you, each and everyone, for your excellent testimony.

dr. dubowitz, let me start with you. as you know i agree with everything you say. [laughter] i have a question. first of all, are there 39 or 29 nations who have ratified speak was 29. sorry for the typo. >> okay. avec. >> the treaty on the rights of the telecom international. >> itar, and they are two separate issues. the 39 which is really 29 refers to the number of countries that have banned heating kids, carried. totally separate from the conventional rights of the child where all but two, somalia and others, have ratified it okay. i have a question about each of them. of the 29 who have banned corporate punishment, 29 countries, do we have any data

that shows a reduction in the amount of injury to children or child abuse in those countries, from those countries? >> so, there is, there are some data. perhaps the best from sweden. it's true though that at the time that the swedes passed their law they are already was a majority public sentiment against beating kids. but that, the rates of children passionate of parents approving, the decline, continue to decline after the law was passed. so, it's a great question. it's often tricky to pinpoint to just the law making that difference. but that's perhaps the best example in sweden where increasing numbers of parents

agreed that beating kids should not be allowed. so it is really a public information, public affairs challenge as well as a legal one. the general message, that corporal punishment is not effective and can result in injury is probably the message that needs to get out there. i think we were probably sooner see banning capital punishment and corporal punishment, and both of those will be sooner than ratified the treaty on the international treaty on the rights of the child. i can remain with the state department 15 years ago, and basically being told well, we can't really ratified is because we have to abide by it, whereas all the other countries can just sign it and then not abide by the requirements of it. now, then it was a state department issue. you're saying congress. are we not thinking anymore that

the state department would be able to at least, do we need the entire congress to ratify it, or can the state department do that? >> sixty-seven senators the next 67 senators on the recommendation of the state department? >> right, you have. >> so that's what we have to look forward to. thank you very much. i have one more question. what you cannot just add, i spoke in northern europe last year, and what struck me was that with the convention on the rights of the child in place, people were talking about what is the child's right within the child protection system. which was a really different perspective than you see among american researchers, and even an american policymakers. i do think that the convention does bring a different perspective, and when applied well, really speaks to what our children's rights, how do we hear children's voices in the

child protection system, are we concerned about the child's rights? i do think it brings a different outcome. there is a link with capital punishment because it would then capital punishment for minors. i have a question, i'm sorry to take so much time, but there is a huge issue with respect to incarcerated or detained youth. and that is that of the window at large percentage of them are pregnant or have children, very small children can use outside the jail. so, have you taken a look at what is done with the pregnant girls, what kind of treatment, and once the young woman gives birth, but the practice is in terms of keeping the baby and the mother together, separating them, kind of parenting? is there any effort to achieve a level of positive parenting with these young people?

>> one of the issues with young women who are imprisoned is that present a sort of a one size fits all, and that for a lot of these girls, they are sort of expected to fit into a model that was created for the majority, which is mailed to the largest number of young people are imprisoned our young men. so when we have worked with young women who are pregnant while imprisoned, that creates a whole lot of complications for both the young woman and the facility staff. and we tried to advocate for them for things a simple as assuring that they're not getting, that they are getting nutritious food, they are not being served cold lunchmeat sandwiches which pregnant women can't eat. so i do feel like a lot of these facilities that are used to being with, number one, young men, and number two, children, are not equipped to deal with the needs of young women who are pregnant. when these young women have

their children, most of them end up going into the foster care system, unless they're sort of a strong and stable family unit. >> i have a question to marshall goodwin. thank you very much for your excellent comment, and i paid attention to statement that our children today don't want to use conflict resolution, but combat and resolutions. in keeping with that, i would like to ask you from a perspective of violence in schools. do you feel that since the american academy of pediatrics and others have stated now that children spend more time in front of media than they do in school, seven hours a day, is the average, d. believe that the role of violent video gaming is a contributor to some of the violent resolutions that we are seeing in schoolchildren? >> i would agree with you. it goes in line with the social networking, young people use

that mechanism as a mechanism of violence as well. you hear often times with 360, i'm trying to remember what the kids use. oftentimes we find xbox 360. tell you, i don't know. the kids are using those instruments to perform acts of violence. they are also mimicking what they see on tv. so yes, i would say the media and instance of games of that type have an impact on students behavior as well. [inaudible] >> the impact of media, suffice it to say that there are far more kids who are playing what i might find toxic and noxious video games, who don't do anything but well in school and

socially, et cetera to achieve, i had a specific question. first of all, thank you to all the panelists. it's really quite wonderful being able to listen to my colleagues and people who i've just been. but chief, you mentioned many times that you use the word resources. and i that you described dutifully the idea of kids who don't have the families that we wished they had. they still need something from somewhere, right? so if you were to put into a few words, maybe it is a long list but it can be as long as you want, if you were to make some suggestions to this task force about what you would like your officers to have on their utility belts in terms of helping kids, and if you would like to be able to think about what preparation you would like your officers to have, and the concrete resources, what would be a few of them? >> well, first and foremost, i

try to get my officers the opportunity to be trained across the lines in terms of student behavior, mental health issues, so when we encounter young people we are able to address their issues, and even provide them with a referral or the guidance or the adult in the building he was assigned to handle that type of issue. resources with respect to employment opportunities, sometimes if you can just lead a young person in a direction, that can change the behavior pattern. with mental health, social services. training with young people, i think if young people have an opportunity to train alongside officers, as we do in the great program, the dare program, that can has made a tremendous impact on young people in our school system. and i am constantly pushing to get volunteers with the my

police forced to do this. sometimes it's amazing what can happen when you get an officer trained to present to young people how the hidden treasures of them can come out to provide young people with an opportunity. but more important, i think having the necessary resources to help kids extend their day with officers i think would play a major role in some constructive program in to be a part of every school. we are starting this weekend with saturday school. i believe we need that throughout the district, because i believe if young people are retained to engage in additional academic learning, then those possibilities of going down the wrong side of the road will be more effective in having those resources and support teams.

>> of those resources and there is something special in their about authority for a kid who doesn't have it now, you know, it could be a cool thing to have a friend who's a cop. a quick question, of those resources, yes or no, or you can go on, do you have enough of them right now? >> no. i would would be very honest with you, if i could get more resources to help our staff and have more resources have more officers than i would like to the officer in every school. at this point i do not. we have 142 personnel for 230 schools. some of our schools with multiple officers who are a sign around. think additional resources will certainly help me to manage the system, but i believe every kid is showing some love we can change this whole process.

>> the society draws a line. this is a question for sheila, we will say a 15 year-old, shouldn't drink or vote or serve in the military. but the minute and 15 year-old commits egregious crime that we'll all agree is bad, then suddenly the goalpost moves and the kid is an adult. and we're still the only country on the planet earth that since his children to die in prison. and i couldn't agree with you more when you recommend that legislatively or however people do this, that would end up practicing trying to do as adults. but in your own experience how do we do that? how do you create a movement? how do you create a tipping point, because it shifted and i think issued to because of the predator myths and the scare and general crime is on the rise as we heard earlier.

at what point do you recommend, how do you get at this? >> let's tell you a little bit about one of the successes we had in this with some legislative reform on this issue. when i first started working in mississippi in 2003, the juvenile justice facilities, 80% of the children who were in their were in there like truancy, running away, skipping school. these were pure status offenders. the department of justice documented. so if we had 80% in the juvenile justice facilities, these low-level kids, it's no wonder that any adult facility we had the kids were committed actual crimes for hydraulic of the system work is important to think about when we're considering. when we were able to make the case that made no financial sense for a state like mississippi to lock up kids who were essentially the abusers

come in on criminal offenses. we were able to get first time offenders, status offenders out of the system we're able to create the space. and it was then the sense that we have all these kids in the adult system and we have all these empty beds in the juvenile justice system. so it's not looking at the system, so many jurisdictions are locking up in the juvenile justice system, kids who frankly don't need to be there. and as a result, other kids are being bumped up into the adult system. and the other thing i will say on this is if research has evolved significantly. we know so much about the recidivism rates for kid to go into the adult system. it doesn't work. that dave is pretty compelling, even for comedy in common even for lawmakers who are very concerned about being tough on crime.

>> thank you, all of you, for you can for your work. and i think you for being visible today and telling the truth. about some hard facts. and foresight the facts go back decades and decades. i think we've made some improvements, around the edges. so i wanted to ask a more general is question to the whole panel on the different ways you have all mentioned this, but made we can start with howard, to put you on the spot. or you all can help him out. maybe you have an answer. howard mentioned the underpinning of us. and which would consider consider the top three underpinnings of violence. to help our task force how you look at files but i think there are some definition issues we have to grapple with to move forward. >> in other words, you might say what is the face of violence. is there something underneath that causes the violence, or is violence the rude behavior of?

>> so, the top three contributors to violence, is that the question? okay. boy, how to order that? i think that, let me suggest come back to the point about the extent to which our culture except hitting kids is no small part of this. it sends a powerful message, a powerful message that we are not matter to you when i met you, i can hit you, that's okay. and when i disagree, how do we resolve it? by heating. so i think from an early, early age, this is very powerful. i remember as a pediatrician seen a 10 month old swat his mom, sitting in front of me in the office. and i asked, i was curious, where did this come from?

where did the 10 month old learned this? and sure enough, not that there's always cause and effect in this way, she had been already swatting him. so i think we need -- i think that is one. i think the panel several times has emphasized the extent to which the families are struggling to cope with their kids in a variety of ways, and are unable to protect them, to nurture them come in the ways that would allow them a good beginning. and so just a few blocks from here, if folks haven't read it, it's called the corner to corner is about six blocks from here, and for folks like me it's an amazing description of what breeds violence. what i refer to is that

neighborhood that is stuck with crime, drugs, and where the kids have lousy opportunities. so i think it's, you know, obviously the big daunting challenges, but if we could help many more families do a lot better, at nurturing their kids, we would be in much better shape. >> i don't know that i have three, but i would like to put it in the context of protective and risk factors, and that certainly exposure of the child to direct victimization or indirect exposure to violence in the home and their community and school is clearly identified in the research literature, predict or at least highly associated statistical predictor, put your risk for greater violence later in your life. i think that co-occurring with the right of other risk factors in a child's life and in the

absence of those other protective factors like the adults that was talked about, combine to create the canvas in which the highly likely that a child will commit violence. i do think a partial solution of that is that we haven't really addressed, well, one is prevention. we really haven't done a good job primary prevention of social norms, advertising that howard was talking about, develop the social norms against violence in this country. engaging communities in violence prevention come in gauging men and boys in violence prevention. i also think we have done very little to engage in formal supporters of children here so adults and others in our lives who are the first that children and other, and adult victims turn to, it's going to be family and friends. and we do very little to support family and friends ability to

respond in a positive supportive way, and some have been connect children to community services that are important. and then i think, this is more to solutions than the three risks you asked about, but i also think we need greater capacity to respond to children outside the child welfare system, and that's going to be a community-based service. maybe some that exist already but expand their capacity to respond to children exposed to violence, and some that don't could be created. >> so i will venture to say the issue then i costly spoke about over the years, and that is redeveloping the family. i think without the family it brings on violence, because young people need that love and nurturing in home, and if that's not there, they ultimately go to the street. and i think if services and resources were made available to

redirect, redefine as well as positive activities, i think that would play a major role in changes for the system. >> i think that violence often happened in the juvenile justice system because of the sense among juvenile justice stakeholders, that there are some kids that it's okay to throw away some kids, that there's some kids that are just not worth investing in. and i think in many systems across the country, that is sort of the pervasive culture of the system. i also think there's a something that is more fundamental when it comes to violence in the juvenile justice system, and that is the very structure of the facilities themselves. you take over 100 teenagers, many of whom have been living with trauma for the whole lives, some of whom are prone to make bad decisions, to put them in a facility with four or five staff people. violence is almost inevitable, that there's something about the

very way we structure the system that breeds violence but i want to thank our panels for the very informative and impactful testimony. we will take a five minute break while the seat our next panel. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> coming up shortly we'll bring you live coverage of the u.s. senate. expected to be in a brief pro forma session. they will officially turn monday, january 23. a quick reminder that our life iowa caucus coverage gets underway at about 70 integral brings the latest on today's campaign events and look at how

republican presidential candidates are lining up. that coverage begins on c-span at around 7 p.m. eastern. c-span2 will be light here at 7:45 p.m. with a western iowa caucus. >> president obama has returned to washington after 10 day vacation in hawaii for the holidays. during the day to present me with vice president biden and tonight he'll be hosting a web chat with iowa democrats. the republican counterparts will be focusing on the iowa caucuses. we will also get white house reaction to recent local events today. i will be live 12:30 p.m. eastern on c-span.