told me what i should do and where should go to that night. he said, if you ever have a problem again and it is after hours, go straight to the commissioner's office at the courthouse. at least i knew where to go the second time. the first time, i do not believe the first time, it was not that long ago. the second time is much more fresh in my mind. i do not remember having such a problem getting it. >> [inaudible] how could we, how could the task force encourage the faith community to recognize the voice in critiquing the most common

perpetrators as this type of violence that we are seeing and that children are exposed to? >> this was not in the context of religion. it was community-based. our group, is african-american religious institutes, it was a myriad of men from different faiths persuasions and limited. they understood the need. the other thing was, i do not want to eliminate the ladies. my wife just happens to be the head of the girls to woodbridge a girl's juvenile service in baltimore city. we are seeing an assortment that have been perpetrators and recipients of violence. >> we a cop -- we apologize.

we are covering the u.s. house. with his neighbor, with his environment and with his creator. in doing so, mankind forms the essential values that define not just a nation but civilization. inspire us today, o lord, through your holy spirit. the men and women that serve this nation in this house of representatives that they may recognize and promote the most noble and authentic of human values. give this governing body the proper vision of the human person so that all the deliberations today and always may elevate the culture of this great nation and inspire its citizens to moral excellence. we ask this in your most holy and eternal name. amen. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to section 3-a of house resolution 493, the journal of the last day's proceedings is approved.

the chair will lead the house in the pledge of allegiance. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives, sir, pursuant to the permission granted in clause 2-h of rule 2 of the rules of the u.s. house of representatives, the clerk received the following message from the secretary of the senate on december 23, 2011, at 11:16 a.m. that the senate agreed to without amendment h.r. 3765. appointment, the united states economic security review commission. with best wishes i am signed sincerely, karen l. haas. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to clause 4 of rule 1,

the following enrolled bill was signed by the speaker on friday, december 23, 2011. the clerk: h.r. 3765, to extend the payroll tax holiday, unemployment compensation, medicare physician payment, provided for the consideration of the keystone x.l. pipeline and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to section 3-b of house resolution 493, the house stands adjourned until 1:00 p.m. on friday, december 30,

who have bought into what we are doing and going to your own pockets. a lot of these programs are being run by people who are committed to doing what they're doing. they see that what they sacrifice on the front end and the back and will be productive for them. i guess it is a matter of, and in many cases it is something else.

in many instances, a lot of these people have the desire to work in community. the barriers that are there for them to receive this type of funding, it is so difficult for them to receive the funding. they do not have an accountant. they do not have a grant writer. they do not have these things. consequently, many of the programs being funded are not necessarily the best, they just have the best grant writing and the best account. the people that are really sincere about what they're doing, they're not getting their opportunity with enough resources to really, really make a profound impact. they're doing great stuff. it is the fact that they're given this opportunity and have the expertise to help them work

through this process when they're trying to acquire these funds for the justice department. when you open up a package, that is it. it is dedicated individuals saying that we cannot do this. things like the violence prevention program, they have been very supportive with these types of situations. going through what they were going through, they put their trust in god. >> if i could follow up on that concerned, the gentleman behind you, the acting administrator of the office -- [laughter] he is the one that sends out the rfp. [laughter]

i just want to say that one of the things they focus on, they look at programs in search of models. they look at promising approaches and best practices. eventually there is a model or a blueprint that can be developed and used across the nation. getting to the point where there is a model in the social sciences the come in, the rites of passage is program sounds like the kind of program that would be useful across the nation. of course, that would happen if there was anyone so far who had an opportunity to evaluate the program and the process and whether it works overtime. we heard the attorney general's speech earlier, saying that they were looking for what worked. channeling the money into what does work. we have the opportunity to have the programs evaluated.

if you are shaking your head, i assume? >> there was a rights of passage collected over the years. we started in 1987. baltimore city, it mushroomed throughout the country. they have had folks come in and look at it to review the program. over time i know that some of them were highlighted from the work that they were able to do. the urban leadership institute here in baltimore city and some other groups, i know that -- is the doctor so here? he could provide you with a list -- still here? he could provide you with a list of the good work. a rite of passage. it just does not have to be an ethnic model. it is a model that takes a boy and a girl from boyhood to

manhood and a girl from girlhood to womanhood. i think that we would really benefit from that knowledge. >> [inaudible] thank you to all of you for what you have shared with us today. it is incredibly brave and heart wrenching at the same time. i have a question for the imam. you were just speaking in generalizations about the rites 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, i have about 50 sons.

there is a young man who started with us when he was 8 years old. a grown man. he is married. he is a responsible citizen. he is on one of the boards of the community college in baltimore city. he is an attorney. part of his right of passage was that we had a teak -- two way talk-show at morgan state university. part of a rite of passage was he had to do the program once from month. and he had his own program. that is someone who, at that level -- we had many young men that were doing very well in the community. a president and a neighborhood association. when i imagine that type of progress, to me, you know,

progress. it does not necessarily mean that he is a schoolteacher or a lawyer, but he is a responsible teacher in the neighborhood. it is the ultimate. he is the model of manhood and fatherhood. to me, that is the ultimate. >> [inaudible] 1 of you presented eloquently and present -- touched our hearts. we have a program called cellphone dad's in l.a. you may have heard of it? kids without a father can call one of these men on their cell phone and it is a program that they can use 24/7. have you implemented that? >> we have not. i've never researched it. but i think it would be a good

measure. [laughter] i heard you twice the first time. [laughter] >> the question that i have for rosa and jacqueline is this -- what about the kids? have they received any kind of grief counseling? in particular, rosie, you are pretty raw out of your situation. it has not been that long. maybe a year. do you receive that kind of support? is your counseling a group kind of counseling where you have peers? other women who have been in similar situations that you can call on at any point of time, day or night? when you are feeling these incredible reverberations 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 do not think you have had time to heal, totally. you look great, you sound great, but i know that in the middle of the night there must be times when you are terrified. i am wondering if you have that kind of support? people that you can call on any time of day or night? >> i have -- i was referred to [unintelligible] located in towns and. it is for victims of domestic violence. right after our attack last year, my kids and i started going. eventually, after a few months, they released us -- discharged us -- because we reducing good. -- because we were doing good. my son, i think it is affecting him. i had to take him back.

in the past, his father said -- like, right before we have been to court -- how many times? postponement. one time my extoled my son that he might be going to jail. -- ex told my son that he might be going to jail. my son was mad about something and he said he would kill himself. i would rush in there. they would work with each of us to help us get through it. right now, it is tough for him. i have started going again. i felt like i was sort of breaking down. late at night, if it was not for my sleeping pills, i would never sleep. my sleeping pills, i cannot be without them. it 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 was not for her, i do not know. i probably would have had a mental breakdown. thank you. >> thank you. i have a question. being in the sports business, and you mentioned the opening up over the hardest hit and the loudest slammed, it gets all of the glory. it is a conflicting message. i do not think that there is a question. high school kids on friday night, coaches telling them to attack and attack. they go out on a friday evening and all of a sudden the rules do not apply. i do not think that they know

that. do you have a suggestion? the thing about the baseball stuff, or the football stuff, it is happening on television. the one that yells the loudest gets to talk. i know that it drives me nuts. it is not that long of a drive for me. do you have a suggestion? [laughter] >> we live in a society where you will find, if you look at it, we will find that when the economy is at its lowest point, sports are pushed a little harder to the society. it gives some ease. this is a spectator society. america is a spectator society. it gives us a lot of the ease

to watch these athletes. i think we have put too much emphasis expressly in the lower income neighborhoods. my father graduated from college in the 1940's. he told me that the avenues for african-american men were very small. it was athletics and entertainment, at one period of time. it seems as though we are back there again, for men of color. our boys, all that they aspire to be is an athlete or entertainer again. we have to put an emphasis on what it is to be a good human being. a good man. a good father. it sounds corny, but it is real. as you very well know, as someone who has been in

professional sports for so long, some of these guys visualize. that is why they are ready to go back and play basketball. that is the bottom line. we have to put an emphasis on men who are just good men and good fathers. i do not know how we are going to be able to do that. the media rules supreme right now. the media highlights those people that sell. i understand that. we have to find a way that we can highlight these so-called ordinary men and women that are doing things day in and day out. in the neighborhoods, all the time, we highlight them. 20, 30, 40, 50 years, we tell our young people. you see? those types of things have to happen.

that is the real community. real substantive neighborhoods. our children have to know that if you do not make it as an athlete, you can make it as a banker. as a lawyer. you see? as a schoolteacher. all of this stuff is interrelated. i do not know. athletics is big. i looked at a commercial last night. there was a baltimore national team promoting under armor. it has trickled down. it is big business and i do not know how to break through other than just being good people, being good human beings. >> amen to me. you are right. the stuff that is glorified is not necessarily stuff that you want to teach in your home. you hit it again. i do not understand it, but you

certainly said you did, and it is what sells that seems to be driving. i would like one question -- one more question? >> go ahead. >> thank you for sharing your personal experience with us. it is very valuable in the task we have before us. all of you, just briefly, on the things that you have experienced, you often learn more from the things that you could have done differently. what is your take on that? in the context of the report that we are looking to prepare, based on your own experiences, what would you like to see that would have implications on a national basis? >> i guess i will start. i would like to see in your report more support for places like the baltimore center being

a non-profit center helping children in the baltimore area who have allegedly been sexually abused. those kinds of support services are very important, if you can imagine for a child. having to talk about that, it is jury difficult. but if they have to go to 14 different places, the story might change. they feel that if they are still being asked, they must be telling a wrong. it causes a lot of problems. having won, a central place that is non-threatening for children is important. we need more places like that in our community. when they do not receive the funding that they need, they can not do all the work that they need to. so, it is very important. >> this is very powerful. i would like to thank our panelists for the informative, powerful, and brave testimony.

i want to thank you very much. we are going to take a 15 minute break. >> in just a few moments, more from the national task force on children's exposure to violence. first, we will look at how the problem affects society in local communities. then, high unemployment and what it means for children and violence. later, the importance of mentoring kids and prosecuting adults. ♪ >> with the iowa caucuses next week, and the new hampshire, south carolina, and florida primaries later in the month,

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>> now through friday on c-span 3, american history tv at 8:00 p.m. eastern each night. we will hear from white house photographers from the clinton and ford administrations, as well as both bush presidents. also, the unveiling at the -- of the ronald reagan statue outside of washington. a discussion of the lbj television ad showing a girl picking petals from a daisy followed by a nuclear explosion. and a tour of the watergate exhibit at the nuclear -- richard nixon presidential library. >> the iowa presidential caucuses are one week from tonight. we have live coverage from two caucus sites. one of them on c-span, the other on c-span 2. leading up to that, live coverage from across the state.

in this morning's the moines register, and op-ed from joe biden, who said that mitt romney appeared satisfied for an economy where fewer people succeed and the majority of americans are left to tread water and fall behind." that is vice president biden in this morning's "de moines register." >> tomorrow, on "washington journal," bob vander platts. and we take a look at the newsweek -- "newsweek," cover story, about margaret thatcher and her time as the british prime minister. "washington general," with today's headlines every morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern.

>> according to the justice department, 10% of american children have suffered some form of american abuse or neglect -- have suffered some form of abuse or neglect. a forum was held in baltimore last month. one session look at the effects on children in the community. this is just over one hour. >> thank you. we have had the benefit of hearing from several individuals on the firsthand experience of the impact of violence on them, and done children. we have the pleasure of hearing from several national leaders on how various agencies are looking to address the issue of children's exposure to violence.

the first is the chairman of a youth advisory board for students against violence everywhere. a student driven organization that provides opportunities for youth along with conflict management skills, civility, and nonviolence. dr. patrick mccarthy, president and ceo of the annie e. casey foundation, dedicated to building better futures for disadvantaged children in the united states. he is a trustee of the foundation, the chairman of the jim casey youth opportunity initiative, and a director of the casey family service board of advisors. sonja sohn started rewire for

change. she was inspired to do so through 40 life journey, growing up in an under-served community in newport news, va., eventually leading to her role as a premiere cast member of the hbo series, "the wire." doctor? >> we run a nonprofit striving to decrease the violence running through our community by promoting students with education service opportunities. a student, and gary ward, a teacher, started by them in 1989. started in the memory of alice,

a student at a school. she tried to break up a fight at the party. the color purple comes from the color of peace. we tried to promote -- we try to promote nonviolence in all forms. reckless driving, gang violence, child abuse, and cyber-bullying, just to name a few. we do this by the four e's. by educating, -- by engaging, we engage students in the school and community. we in our youth with knowledge and skills necessary to provide service to their community. will encourage positive influence within the schools and communities through violence prevention efforts.

we educate students about the consequences of violence, as well as faith activities for the community and parents. our two main components are conflict management and service projects. with conflict management, kids are taught that [unintelligible] we all know that conflicts will not always be resolved, but we try to resolve them in a non- violent way, mediation, just talking about. we have another one, which is service projects. that is how we learn to give back to the community with other people. dispatching and giving back, you should feel like you are doing something to help the problem. the reason that i got involved, i got involved in my sixth grade year.

by the time i got my seventh straight year, i was told -- "i see something in you." i am glad that she did, i really did not. if just one person can stand up to take the stand and say -- not here, not today," that is something that will catch on. i hope that we can encourage someone. they were to do this by going out and promoting the word, nonviolence. i want to tell you a story about the sense that i reached out. there was a time when i was speaking in raleigh, n.c., and a young lady came to me and was like -- i have a personal story.

i felt it in my heart. i had the same experience at one point in time, in my life. i could see her expression getting brighter. she knew someone was on her side, who had been through the same things i had been through. she felt that i could help. i am really glad that i did. that i was able to come to her rescue and held. in my closing statement, it is not about the tie vote -- title. it is not about being a chair person. it is about getting the message across, from the young people up to the older people. violence is not tolerated and should not be tolerated. i mentioned wrong people because some people have abusive relationships and that is another kind of violence.

they grow up to do the same thing, which i do not think is right. as you say, that is the situation now. if there was some organization that could help them, that is one type of violence that we would not have to worry about sunday. if you are not part of the solution, it means you are part of the problem. the national youth advisory board thanks you for having me today. thank you. >> thank you. mr. mccarthy? >> i am glad to speak to the task force this morning to share how we can work together to reduce the negative effects of violence on kids. i have to start by saying that it is a little bit daunting and tumbling, this idea of me attempting to provide guidance through a simple expertise that

i heard introduced this morning. i will do my best. the foundation's work is guided by data and evidence and research that we have looked at, suggesting that there are three factors that predict the most rotten outcomes for kids across the board. first, whether they grow up in poverty, with it -- limited hope and opportunities to develop talent. second, a stable and nurturing connection to a family that will be there for life. third, if they lived in a community that offers role models, safe streets, and connections to success. all three of these factors are critical to preventing alliant -- preventing violence and reducing the impact exposure. my written testimony attempts to make the case for these remarks -- for these factors. i will take the bulk of my time discussing the importance of

reforming our reform schools. briefly, the impact of poverty. we know that the calls for kids are property and lack of opportunity. we also know that poverty and violence are closely linked. kids in poverty are far more likely to experience violence in their homes and communities. what do we know about building up opportunity for children? we know that the pathway to opportunity requires a two- generation family economic success strategy. we must guard by investing in opportunities for young parents to build the skills and find a stable job, taking full advantage of income and other supports to make ends meet. we have got to start with today's parents to build a future for children. at the same time, we must work to ensure that every child is on the path will opportunity for educational success in using the important benchmark of reading

proficiency by third grade, going on to secure a post- secondary certificate or diploma for skills certification. i need to say that it is especially disturbing, when you look at the data, and you realize that over 80% of poor children of color reach the 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. in addition to the foundation's work on reducing poverty, we have also looked at various approaches in new england and maryland, where we provide foster care to young people with needs, helping them find permanent families for life. we also work to promote healthy marriages, teen prevention

programs, and assistances throughout the country, finally devoting more effective early intervention programs. the community rests on the belief that the family relies on strong neighborhood supports to raise their kids. to have places where there are straight streets, quality how -- safe streets, quality housing, and access to employment. engaged, thriving community knows to work together with law enforcement to provide policing and positive news and anti- violence activities to promote pro-social norms of behavior for adults and kids. i would like to highlight the negative consequences of this country's approach to the challenge of juvenile delinquency. an approach that i believe is singularly effective, hugely wasteful, and a contributor to violence, rather than an

effective response to violence. whether we call them training schools, reform schools, or do prisons, these large security institutions have too often 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 for treatment are rampant -- poor treatment are rampant, as evidenced by the violence in patient rights, going back decades and sadly still relevant today. we still rely on these institutions as a response to delinquency. the united states locks up kids at approximately seven times the rate of great britain. 18 times the rate of france.

states with relatively low incarceration rates do not suffer from high juvenile crime. their rates are lower than the states that lock up more kids. states like louisiana, alabama, and texas, which have greatly reduced incarcerated children by 50% have not experienced a rise in youth crime. the sad irony is that as many as 3/4 of the young people incarcerated in these often brutal facilities have themselves often been victims of trauma and violence in their own lives. they are more likely, rather than less likely, to commit violent acts. you would be hard pressed if you tried to design and less effective response to a child's exposure to violence. locking them up in an overcrowded, depressing, frightening condition with other children, who have similar

problems, and have little to no privacy, then they should provide a decent education rather than neglect to address the trauma and family issues that contribute to this behavior. releasing him or her to the streets, with little hope for the future of promise or possibility. this is not a recipe for success. the report was published one month ago, no place for kids -- it provides considerable detail on the flaws of these systems and recommends replacing them with evidence test based -- evidence-based prevention programs. these can much more effectively address the trauma and loss that contribute to kids' behavior problems. and we intend to promote -- devote our time and money to those locked up in this country and reducing those numbers by least half.

especially for those of you that require a sir pitt -- a sure pair for sub -- for public safety. we can close the last door on the last public training school in this country. foundations and non-profits can help to demonstrate effective intervention at the program level, taking the most effective to make a difference for a whole population of kids requires public investment, which means redirecting resources from the failed development in the past. we need to find the public will and courage to abandon these strategies for so much of our limited resources and the things that work. the chance to change the future depends on them. thank you. >> thank you, doctor. >> good morning, everyone. i would like to thank the childhood task force for asking me to participate in this panel.

i would like to say that by no means do i consider myself an expert on the subject of violence against children. however, i have lived the experiences 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 common, you may see things that though you may heal from them, you will never forget them. i remember lying in bed as i heard an argument brewing in my parents' bedroom, 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 counter as my father held a knife to her throat and she begged to be put out of her misery. my mother tells the story of me telling my father to stop it, not to make mommy crying.

i was two-years old. it kicked off a series of beliefs that i had some responsibility and control over the situation. for years, i tried to fix the family problem. from the age of seven, i tried to convince my mother that i could read and write for her, and i kept her checkbook whenever she considered stashing away something to leave with. inevitably, my hopes were dashed by her belief that we needed a father, and i could not override that belief. i knew that the only thing that kept my mother alive was the fact that she had children to care for. i knew that i was too young to get a work permit. i saw coming to new york as my only option.

on the day that i was to leave, i could not. and not because i could not -- not because i was afraid for myself, but because of was afraid for my mother. i knew that if i left, she would consider herself a failed mother. i was the only one who called the hollow-eyed cops, who were good for nothing at that time except for interrupting the madness of the moment. eventually i gave up on believing that there was a sensible solution to my problems. i began to obsess over the only solution that i felt was available to me. that i had to kill my father. i spent weeks trying to figure out how to get my hands on the gun, with no success. i read a magazine about a popular r&b singer who had been scalded by hot pot of grits. i watch myself, take the biggest pot that we had, filled with water, and said it to boiling

while i did the dishes. i know that when i began to watch myself as though i were outside of my body, i have disassociated. once the water boiled, i walked over to my father and stood over him on the sofa. all of the scenes of violence i had witnessed flashed before my mind's eye. and i sauce without him. i saw myself happy and free in my home. laughter on the faces of the rest of our family. just as i was about to throw the water on him, my heart return to consciousness. this pot of water was not going to kill my father. it suddenly seemed to shrink in my hands. so did i.. i began to see myself as the tiny child that i was. a wave of grief and sadness brushed over me. i became smaller and smaller until i felt completely insignificant and useless.

within a couple of years, my contempt for the family created a situation where i saw the only thing that brought me validation, doing well in school. 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. my childhood is playing out in the homes of many communities here in baltimore. they live here every day and when they walk out, they often face still more violence. growing up with physical and verbal abuse all around means much more of this violence at the playground, the school, the streets of your neighborhoods. another threat to your safety that you have to begin to handle. living with this type of

violence becomes a way of creating safety. if you can understand how daring you are, fighting and winning your way through physical and verbal assault, no one will challenge you. for a while, at least. there will come a time when your act is forgotten. someone else will challenge you and the cycle begins again. you fight every time for that brief period of what feels like safety. these kids, of course, only know the shadow of safety. when you live in a world that is never safe, you can -- you feel abandoned, and finding support is an essential survival scope -- skill. many children today become easy prey for pedophiles through this game. this is why they create and nurture that they need by forming and finding gangs. this is why the sex trade begins to seem like a viable option.

this is how we lose our nation's future. the pain of drugs and sex creates an illusion a family on the street that is a coping mechanism. you will take it easily and freely. often these children wind up in the pattern of discomfort, never regaining the proper ability to handle the simple stresses of everyday life. finding emotional support, they become very young parents -- finding no emotional support, they become very young parents and they are buried, sometimes literally. we have generations of people living in this country, not some third-world country or disease, but this one right here, suffering from the effects of trauma, abuse, and violence. we wonder what we can do. particularly for you, who have already edged into a life of violence.

there are so many challenges that these young people face. they face obstacles inside of their own minds, as well as outside. a high-risk use have -- high- risk youth involved in the criminal justice system, the object is to make personal transformation for individual success and using the arts as a tool for healing. some of the young people who have gone through the program have changed their life's goals and are working, or have gone back to school, making the decision to leave the life of drug dealing and excel at a life of employment. less money, less prestige in their neighborhoods, but they are safer and have gained more self-respect. we are here to ask ourselves what we can do to contribute to the change that must take place as adults, professionals, and

human beings. kids in this environment must have easy access to tools other than drugs and unhealthy associations, in order to keep them out of survival mode. affectively addressing children's exposure to violence, we must address the need of the families and communities that they live in as well. i would like to close by saying that my family of origin and, to a much smaller degree, i children have suffered from the aftereffects of the environment i grew up in. although we lost my brother to homicide some years ago, my family has come a long way, including my father, who has realized over the long years the causes of his past behavior. today i am thrilled to tell you that we enjoy a healthy family life. from me to you, i know what it takes for a family to hate you. i know what is possible.

i know that there are many paths to inner peace and healing and it is an individual process of a lifelong journey. no matter who you are or where you come from, although the path may be more difficult for some and others. i know that no one can find that half on their own. we as a society come together as a cornerstone for each other. especially for those who are living a life that is always in a constant state of crisis. i appreciate the efforts of those that were here today to share the testimony for the work they're doing to stop this vicious cycle of violence that has affected our entire society. i'm grateful to testify before the task force to help to change the lives of our nation's children. thank you. >> thank you. i would like to thank each panelist for their testimony. at this time, let's open up for

questions from the task force. >> i would like to thank you all for sharing your personal and powerful stories, as well as your commitment to this issue. i am very impressed with your leadership, often times talking about how we will address gang and youth violence without actually asking the youth. as adults we often take it upon ourselves to said that we know best about include -- including youth as equal partners. i think it is essential. how can adults, or from people, better support organizations like yours? >> turning your child to the way that they should go, training can give them some kind of support and backbone to leave them from going to that gang direction or the path that a

parent would not want a child to go into. you can always talk to them and show them the worst case scenario. talking to a child can make a huge difference in their life. >> thank you to all the panelists. i wanted to arrest dr. mccarthy, what are you seeing in the rural areas? we tend to focus on youth and violence in an urban setting. what do you see as the biggest gaps in the research right now?

if you were to design a new research plan to address these gaps, what would it look like? >> you will have to remind me of the second question we do a fair amount of work in rural communities. and what we found in rural areas was a combination between poverty, which is higher, proportionally, then it is in urban areas. that combination can lead to the chalk -- the kinds of challenges that lead to violence, like substance abuse and the general sense of disconnection from the labour force. we have supported travel varieties in a variety of ways, raising up general issues that

are affecting tribal nations and child where foot -- child welfare issues as they take that on themselves. i have to say, although the particular pattern and values that we have seen in different groups is going to vary, of course my own family is different from my wife's. it is always interesting, at thanksgiving, watching this cultural clash. there are differences. i actually believe that if you're talking about rural families, urban families, our families of native american or european origin, or african origin, this notion of families working together to raise their children and relying on themselves as a group outside the immediate family is the pathway for kids to be successful.

the differences are real, but at the same time let's not lose touch with the fact that we all grow up in the context of family. u.s. about the gaps in research. that is one of the interesting things, from my point of view. i think that we know a lot more than we use. there are huge gaps in understanding all of the dynamics and we have no where close to a magic bullet -- probably a bad analogy -- to resolving the issues of violence. but we are not using anywhere near what we know. it seems to me that one of the biggest gaps in research is how you go from effective program intervention, and there are many, how do you go from that to

scaling them up large enough to help whole populations of families and kids? a huge investment that we must make, because of what we know remains on the shelf and if the bulk of resources goes to what does not work and thus harm, that is not smart. >> dr ran? >> i want to thank all of the panelists. and wanted to thank you, in particular, for making our work harder. you have given us such a brilliant, personal, but one that can be generalized, in terms of the complexities of what we mean when we talk about exposure to violence. you remind those of us in the

behavioral health fields that the issue of what for whom is a major issue. i want to focus on one issue. i have a question for you and dr. mccarthy. you -- you describe this incredible sense of being small, growing back and forth between planning and plotting and being defeated, as well as the subsequent feeling of helplessness and being small. he made the link to the kids you are working with now, who had similar experiences and found the antidote to the smallness. and all of the things that you so beautifully listed. i will not list them again. the what for whom also goes to how and who can reach those

kids. especially, as you pointed out, the older kids. it makes a difference, does it not? i wonder if you can experience -- share some of your experiences in that regard. >> from my experience, the older kids need to know that the adults who are reaching out to them really understand where they come from. 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, and they see there are some similarities. initially, during our pilot session, the co-facilitator was a gentleman who had spent 20 years in prison, and after a

couple of weeks, the gunmen in the class began to -- younger men in the class began to open up. i had conversations. they would quickly from defending the young people, defending their actions on the streets, -- for the brilliance of this facilitator, using his own life -- the young people then starting to question their for action. i would say, with the older kids, if folks can find adults that have lived the kind of lives that they can live, it makes for a much quicker transition. >> thank you. a question for dr. mccarthy. we all know one of the issues, one of the hardest things is to

tolerate and acknowledge that we were helpless and small. dr. mccarthy, in your disturbing and dismal account of our current system of reform, training schools -- whatever -- you point out the real underlying paver health issues, along with the opportunities are not addressed. are you aware of any programs where the combination of unnecessary, external controls, for example, court orders, behavioral health interventions, have been blended in a ways that address a particular group of kids, who ms. sohn also has experience? >> if you ask the average person on the street where the youth crime has gotten better or

worse, the answer is worse. much worse than it was 20 years ago. you look at the data and it is absolutely untrue. in fact, it has gone down by one-third in the past 15 years. that is a fact that people did not pay attention to as they plan to build more prisons, less prisons. what do we know that is effective that blends addressing mental health, substance abuse, trauma problems, with the necessary controls, response to adolescent behavior? 20 years ago, we have the combination of a series of articles but warned us about a coming wave of super predators. remember that? predators board of the crack epidemic, collapse of the family in urban areas. they were going to overwhelm us with delinquency. as i said, not true.

a company that notion was a very wide spread belief, backed up by some data, "nothing works." lots of studies on intervention and criminal an adult behavior showed in the not make a difference if we did these programs are not. to protect the community, let's let these kids up. 20 years later, that is a different scene. we now know at least four very strong evidence-based intervention that do exactly what you asked about. three of them have terrible names, i think. apologies to the developers of these wonderful programs, but one is multis estimate their peak, functional family therapy, and the third is multi dimensional treatment foster care model. all of these build and run the fundamental notion that to help

kids, you have to strengthen the family's ability to work with them, and to provide these young people with a path to 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 alone, which is one alternative, and much better than just locking them up. these programs have worked with young people with felony level and violent offenses. this research is not just anecdotal, not just stories. this is controlled, scientific research replicated multiple times. when i say we are not using a lot of what we know, that is an example of what i mean. for those young people -- and i am not as pollyannas as they may come off. those young people need a period of secured care, for the protection of the community, and there are approaches to provide

that care that lead to better results. probably the best known is the missouri model, where 30 years ago, mark stewart began the process of moving from these large, hard security institutions, to smaller, still secure, but treatment-focused, norm-changing focused, using a lot of the approaches that are used with gang members, to change their perception about their future while holding them accountable. whether you look at recidivism rates for young people coming through there missouri marble -- the missouri model, are much better than people going through much more expensive, other interventions. we just do not have any excuse anymore. we do not have a super predator excuse. total malarkey.

we do not have the excuse of a juvenile crime going up. it has gone down to commit -- consistently for the past 16 years. and we do not have the excuse and nothing works. the only excuse we have is the lack of courage and political will, as the adults in this society, to stick up for our kids and do better by them. >> thank you all for your courage on this issue. dr. mccarthy, an issue you raised that i do not think get enough attention in our society, the issue of literacy by the time a kid late said the third grade. i have seen that in the course of my career, kids that go down the wrong path. it seems, at nine, 10, kids come to a crossroads, particularly in urban america. they are encouraged about their ability to do well in school and continue on that path, or they

are not getting attention and become disillusioned and start to look for it elsewhere. all too often, that is gangs or crime. in looking at that issue, what recommendations would you make to see this panel address as a remedy to start moving in the right direction to start dealing with those issues at that age group? >> this is another area where we have lots of evidence. we know a lot more than we are using. think of it, not just as is the child reading by the end of third grade, but what needs to happen for the child to read well by the end of third grade? we have to start prenatally. preventing teenage pregnancy. that is a huge impact. once parents have conceived, having the child received the kind of prenatal care necessary so that 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, that takes place over the lifetime gets six children in those first three years. a critical period of time. we know about affected home visiting programs, early childhood intervention that start children on the right path, especially those growing up in families that cannot have the opportunity to provide them with the kind of cognitive stimulation, emotional and psychological support to the children in well-to-do families have the opportunity to experience. we know that high-quality early childhood and preschool makes a big difference. there is ample research, not all programs -- let's be clear, there are a lot of things that do not work. but we know what works. if we can take that to a larger scale, we can put them on a better path. we have preschool, and then all of a sudden they are in the school.

if we recognize that from a zeroto 8 is a critical period, where those early childhood programs, into preschool, kindergarten, elementary years, need to be lined up. at each step in the path, we need to be able to provide the most effective intervention, and not only for children. parents are their first teachers. that is the pathway to success. just a quick story. i have four kids. one of my kids has a severe learning disabilities that we did not discover until fourth grade. we are a well-to-do family living in a suburb, we are white, have all sorts of support, people expect us to do well. 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. somehow, the synapses connected

and he made it. he could have easily gone down a different path, especially if we were in an urban area, treated differently because the color of our skin, or did not have the resources to provide him with the support he needed. my son had it, most kids do not. >> thank you all for being here. this question is for sonja. it is the emphasis here, because children are so vulnerable, how do we protect them from the affects of violence? i am curious, give us a window on your father. even in earlier testimony, you start to get hopeless about the ability of an anger management class -- what would you have delivered, now, given your retrospective, perspective on what was his profile?

you mentioned he was a veteran. what could have helped him, and shield you in the process, but what would we have delivered as a society to him, to prevent this from happening? >> a great question. that is the question in so many ways. i have to tell you, the first answer that comes to my mind is there is hardly anything you could have done. there is only one thing that could have really surmounted the insurmountable problems i faced as a kid. my father was mentally ill. i later found out he was paranoid schizophrenic. he was on lots of medication. my father is a brilliant man. he had moments of brilliance as a parent. there were phases and our live where we tried to have sunday dinner. it may have been a tyrannical

nightmare at times, but there were times when there was laughter at the table. my father thought that we should all know how to play chess. he had these moments of brilliance. but he had -- there came a time where he just turned into a monster and i could no longer justify loving him. the only thing that i think -- and this may seem very pauley and--- pauly and--- pollyannish. these young people do not simply respond to people that come from the same background. that is helpful, for sure. that will knock the door down quickly, but they are all so very moved by people who continue to show up when they

disappoint them. they are moved at consistency of presence in their lives. a lot of times, they will discount your history, because it was so long ago. sometimes that happens. i do believe -- father boyle, i am sure you knew this. all of us have the ability to affect these children's lives, whether it is through policy, being a part of this task force or not. mentoring, having a young person in your life, showing up on a regular basis, despite whatever challenges that come, despite the fact and they may get locked up again, your heart is broken, they disappoint -- continue to show up.

consistency, that kind of support, that is a nurturing. those are the components of love. we should not forget the power of the human spirit and human heart here when we are doing our jobs, when we are interacting with people in general, children especially. >> at the sake of repeating everyone else, thank you to all three of you for sharing your stories. i want to ask ms. sohn a question, only because i share your same story. i come from an immigrant family. my father is a very rigid man, disciplined, also an army soldier. he was brought up in that particular segment, was also absent at the time, abusive to the family. in terms of your project -- i

know we will be hearing similar organizations that deal with domestic violence and youth programs, and resources are at a premium today, and i know you are not getting federal or state funding. have you thought about partner in with other organizations that have a similar mission, similar objectives, a similar target population that you are dealing with? >> we do come in small ways. our organization has a mission of helping the young people affected by violence and who live in these underserved communities. the other mission is to raise awareness with the media. right now, our efforts in baltimore are focused -- they are out of our community house that we started in east baltimore. we could not do what we are

doing without the help of the zion baptist church, the pastor, who give us a place, continues to give us a place to operate out of. we are working with the oliver community center, which is just around the corner from where we are located. they are providing space for intergenerational programming. it is of small operation right now. we do have our partners, we work with the police department. there is the eastern district commander, an amazing man, who actually has his own nonprofit called the transformation team. he, and neighborhood services unit, that is a part of the police department, had been particularly helpful to us, helping us to renovate, provide security for events. some of the officers have come

and facilitated the dare program for smaller children. that is how we are partnering with the community right now. i will leave it there. i am still thinking about father boyle's question period may i revisit that? -- question. may i revisit that? i know it sounded hopeless when i said that there was nothing that anybody -- anything that any one could have done. there were times when i thought about going into foster care, but with the situation with my mom, feeling like i had to protect her, that would have given me a lot of stress. i thought i could survive that way. when i was 12 years old, i wanted so bad to be sent to a boarding school. but when all of my teachers sat me down, because i intentionally failed my glasses -- i was an

honor student, president of student government. i could read. most of my friends could read. i was a pretty smart kid. but when all my teachers sat down and said, what is going on? i was trying to get somebody's attention. i could not speak, and i was thinking, can you see a want to go to a boarding school? i shrank in that chair and cried. i wanted them to ask more questions. i could not find a voice for it. let me tell you what kept me afloat, why i am here. besides my decision at the age of 27 to stop doing drugs and get help. what kept me it afloat was, there were some families in that

neighborhood. most of my friends were sexually abused. most of them witnessed violence in the neighborhood. the whole neighborhood was traumatized. that is why we were fighting all the time. what kept me afloat -- this is the inspiration for the village house, actually. across from where i live, there was mr. and mrs. cooke. she had a glass eye and a lint. she was physically challenged. they would come by in the evenings but they were always happy. they adopted a son. they were always home. in the summer, they had a u- haul full of bicycles, and for a quarter, you could rent them. she ran a candy store and snow cone shop out of her kitchen. they were the cub scouts, girl

scout, brownie leaders. this couple, who had challenges themselves, and who some would have thought were dysfunctional in their own right -- but they were the bright spot of the neighborhood. they kept us going. there was one fully functional buell hall family in my block. they moved into our neighborhood when i was 10. i became friends with their daughter. ms. brac stand was a stay at home mom, mr. ruxton worked at the shipyard. they always had food on the table at the right time during the day. there was always a parent's home. they took me on family trips. i would go to their house as a respite because it felt warm and fuzzy. i had bright spots like that that kept me going. i happened to be a kid. what we are also leaving out

here is emotional intelligence. regardless of how smart you are, how well you can read, or how little you can read, if your emotional intelligence quotient is very high, the likelihood that you are going to make it out alive and somewhat functional is higher, despite your challenges. although i think we have a genetic predisposition bore the sort of thing, considering where my father came from -- and my mother had a tragic story. i happened to be born -- i knew i had a purpose. i spent my life looking for that, even with all of the darkness and pain. when i decided to start using drugs, i was going, i cannot be miserable. i need something that is going to bookmark me and told me here.

those drugs were not a great idea, but they were all i had. people could not figure out what was going on and immediately service me. but i also had the ability to say, where is the light? where is the positivity? i am going to find that. we need to find a way to nurture that in our children, the ability to find positivity in your life. despite your circumstances, where can you be grateful? where do you have resources? let us not just crowd at them with all this information of what they do not have, and let's not totally treat them as victims. but to treat them as champions, people who can and will overcome uncertainty. >> ms. sohn, as a task force, how do we translate that needed to policy recommendations? it is clear, those are the saving graces, the tools that children need in order to

survive difficult circumstances, but how do we translate that into a policy? >> that is a good question. i am sure i will have a lot more to say once i leave here and process all of this. time to think about it. [laughter] i have to say what i think is often on spiegel in four runs like this. -- unspeakable in four runs like this. one of the reasons why we use the arts in rewired for life is because of you want to nurture a child's ability to create. i know what creativity can do. i know what can happen, when i started acting at the age of 30. some of my healing tools came through the methods i learned in acting. my fellow co-founders of the organization come from similar backgrounds.

we understand the power of creativity. creativity is closely linked to spirit. if we can find programming that fosters creativity and opens up the window inside a young person to their own heart, the power of their own spirit, then i can say we will be adding to that track. in terms of policy, that is something i would have to think about. i would like to talk to you about that on the side. i would like to hear your ideas, considering what i said, in terms of policy. policy is a tough one, all round, the matter what subject we are addressing. >> we are nearing the end of time on this panel. dr. mccarthy, there is a great deal of emphasis on the issue of money. costs $170,000 a year to send

one child to secure confinement in the state of pennsylvania for one year. why is it that states find it so hard to listen to the evidence that has been developed on why many of these places are not successful, with the kind of costs that are involved, when they could be shifted to a program like the ones that mr. cox, ms. sohn are talking about, that are viable and effective? >> let me start by saying, thank you for not asking me as tough a of a question as you asked sonja. i think there are a number of answers to the question. if we're just talking about the huge investments in juvenile

correctional facilities, let's start with that. you have got the problem essentially of sunk cost. i used to run a juvenile correctional system. i ran these facilities. i have 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. when you say something cost $150,000 a year, it is not that every time a young person gets on the conveyor belt towards the institution, that if you take them off, you would have $150,000 to send him to harvard for a doctoral degree over the course of time. that is not how it works. that is a challenge. fortunately, we are starting to see, again, in places like new york, california, alabama, to a

certain extent, pa., texas, louisiana, drawn out of the fiscal crisis, partially out of the common sense crisis, in other words, and the conservative, progressive point of you coming together to say, this does not make any sense. we cannot afford it. people are finally taking steps in these states. in places like california, they changed the incentives. it used to be, if you were in one of the counties and you had a young person was a felon, you could send them off to the state and it did not cost you a dime. if you kept them in the county, you had to provide services. but change the incentives. it is going to cost you more to send them to the state rather than keeping them in your own county. low and behold, all these children who could not survive any place else except behind

bars, all of a sudden, that was not an attractive option for the counties. we are expired in to the ways where you can figure out -- experimenting ways where you can tear out how you can finance and put these -- figure out how you can finance and flip the systems. we can use these endowments to read to bridge funding, so in the time were you still have to invest in your high cost enterprise, wheat and bridge to more effective interventions, and thereby, close the pipeline down. at that point, states and cities can close or downsize the institutions, freeing up money. that is another piece. at the end of the day, this is only a little bit about money and technical stuff appeared at the end of the day, it is about political will. the reality is, the political

will emerged in these states. people rose up and said, this is wrong. it is too expensive and is not working. we have to do something different. that is when it changed. >> thank you. we would like to thank our panelists for their insight will testimony. we are going to recess until 1:00 for lunch. thank you very much. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> more coming up from the national task force on

children's exposure to violence. next, a discussion on what a weak economy and high unemployment means for children and violence. then, and look at the importance of mentoring kids, prosecuting children as adults. >> with the iowa caucuses next week in iowa, new hampshire and south carolina primary later, " the contenders" looks at 14 candidates who ran for president but what but had a long-lasting impact on politics. tonight, at least the vinson. wednesday, barry goldwater. thursday, hubert humphrey. friday, george wallace. on saturday, congressman from south dakota and george mcgovern. fallen by ross perot. every night at 10:00 eastern on c-span.

>> on c-span2 tonight, "book tv" with three members of the bush administration talking about their autobiographies. donald rumsfeld and his memoir. then former vice-president dick cheney. then, condoleezza rice, author of "no higher honor." and watch american history tv in prime time this week on c-span 3. tonight, the presidency. hear from photographers who covered presidents. for the watergate exhibit at the nixon presidential library. i will pause presidential caucuses are one week from tonight. live coverage next tuesday. lots of coverage in between, too, on the c-span networks, c-

span.org. mitt romney campaigning in new hampshire today, but making his way to iowa. rick perry and michele bachmann also campaigning through the state by bus. rick santorum has already visited. newt gingrich has several events in dubuque today. ron paul speaks add a rally for service veterans. in nebraska, ben nelson set to announce that he is retiring from the senate. he is scheduled to hold a press conference as early as today from nebraska. now about that ron paul rally tomorrow and other coverage, at 11:30 eastern, we will bring you newt gingrich from mason city, iowa. also, at 1:20 eastern, mitt romney in the clinton, iowa.

ron pollack from des moines, at 8:00. the justice department reports that children exposed to violence are more likely to engage in criminal behavior, to suffer from depression, and to abuse drugs and alcohol. the attorney general's national task force on violence looked at the evidence and begin hearing testimony in baltimore. the task force heard about how a weak economy and high unemployment can exacerbate the problem. >> staggering numbers of children are exposed to violence in a multitude of ways every day. the next panel we will introduce a broad framework of understanding the complex and pervasive nature of children's exposure to violence. children's exposure to violence occurs across all races and socio-economic situations. it affects children of all ages. it can be direct and acute, can

be a daily reality for children to witness violence in their communities. many bridges 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, law enforcement, and research. children who experience violence are all often kept secret. this panel will help to open up a conversation about the widespread and insidious nature of counted exposure to violence. -- childhood exposure to violence. i want to introduce our panel, the head of the division of child protection, 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

childhood sexual abuse. dr. jeffrey adelson is a professor and director of research at the university of minnesota school of social work, director of the center of violence and abuse. he has authored a best practices guide for addressing domestic violence that is utilized for around the country. chief marshal goodwin has been chief of police for baltimore city schools since 2007. prior to his appointment, he retired from the baltimore city sheriff's office at the rank of major, and has served in the maryland house of delegates. sheila brady leads the southern poverty law center's on behalf of children in mississippi and louisiana. ms. beattie directed efforts to close a notoriously abusive girls present that continues to represent imprisoned children

in suits challenging unconstitutional prison conditions. dr. dubois itwitz. >> good afternoon. i am grateful to share my thoughts with you this afternoon. listening to the attorney general earlier today, i was struck by how much we know and what can i possibly say that is going to be new? often, i feel the problem, perhaps the tragedy, is not what we do not know, but how we ignore what we do know. 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 abuse and neglect for

over 6 million children. that is the tip of the tip of the iceberg. we also know that this is a problem that often happens behind closed doors, and is kept secret. studies have steadily shown, for example, that as many as one in five girls, and perhaps as many as 1 in 10 boys, experience sexual abuse. as you will hear from other panelists, many kids are exposed to violence between their parents, adults in the home, as well as other forms of violence. the attorney general said it perfectly. we have a national epidemic. it is important how we decide -- define violence.

some forms are obvious. others are less so. for example, corporal punishment, hitting kids, remains a widely accepted. some believe it is even necessary. however, we have lots of evidence of how hitting children can harm them and make them more aggressive. it is reasonable to conclude, corporal punishment, hitting kids, really is a four of -- not a form of treatment, it is a form of violence. another interesting issue concerns child neglect. 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. i should add, this is seldom parents intentionally not giving them food. rather, it is in the context of poverty and not enough to go around. perhaps we can think of this as a form of societal neglect on violence. we know we are paying a very high price, literally and figuratively, for kids' exposure to violence. there is enormous evidence of both the short and long term serious harm, and the costs. more than three kids are killed due to child abuse neglect in an average day.

for example, studies have shown, abused and neglected kids are at risk for juvenile delinquency, and then the 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 are paying over $100 billion a year related to this problem. very clearly, the suffering and the cost of this are enormous. we have also learned a great deal about what contributes to violence and child maltreatment. it is not simply bad parents.

rather, there are usually multiple contributors, including aspects of our culture, society. for example, despite plenty of rhetoric about our children being our nation's most of valuable research -- resource -- i am sorry, but the research says otherwise. how else do we explain 9 million children without health insurance? it is hard to hear, sorry. is this on? how do we explain the lousy public schools in so much of the country? thinking of many families struggling with unemployment, housing affections, the many burdens of poverty, it is not a secret on how abuse or neglect may occur. in fact, thinking of families

living a few blocks from where we are sitting in dangerous neighborhoods, infested with violence, crime, drugs, the very few supports, the mystery for me actually is how families managed to do well. i am not sure how well i would do under those circumstances. understanding what is the underpinning violence and child neglect should guide us as we tackle this problem. like in london police chiefs to understand, we need to be smarter, more strategic, and make prevention a priority. here are six ideas how we could help to 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. having good officers within the agency's is not good enough -- agencies is not good enough. number two, developing a sustained public education campaign to create a culture that really values kids. if we could harness the geniuses of marketing, the folks to convince americans in suburbs that they need a cheap, if we could -- jeep, if we could harness those practices to help

their children, as well as their families, would be wonderful. leaders in the entertainment industry, religious institutions should be important allies. number three, if we would banned corporal punishment in the home, as 29 other countries have done. i realize it is a complex issue. but at minimum, this would send a powerful statement on how we think children deserve to be treated. the fourth idea is our need to address the underlying contributors, the circumstances are at the root of the problem. it is not enough to simply treat the symptoms. let us hope the proposed changes in health care system will ensure access to those 9 million children. proposals to add jobs, help for

those at risk for 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. having felt the effect of lowering the abuse and neglect. 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 helped to 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, support programs. a second idea. so much time and money goes to 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. number three, abused and neglected children themselves

often need services. this trickle-down approach of only attending to the parents, trusting that the children, too, will benefit, is not enough. finally, in general, there is of great need to strengthen the family court system, with its high case load, low status, and often revolving masters of judges. the quality of decision making often leaves much to be desired. a nice example of having a clinic attached to the court, developed by a judge in florida, is an idea that is worth replicating. is to urge you

to strongly recommend that the incentive to ratify the rights of the child. this is a wonderful blueprint for what a decent society would aim to ensure for its children. it should be a bipartisan no- brainer. as you likely no, only somalia and the united states have not yet ratified this convention. i hope these few thoughts are helpful as you consider how to improve our response to the many children exposed to many forms of violence. >> thank you. >> thank you for inviting me today. it is an honor to be here. i will focus primarily on the issue of children's exposure to

domestic violence. i want to start by speaking to the definition of exposure. under many state laws, it is within sight or sound of the violence. there is probably a much broader experience that children have without domestic violence that calls for a broader definition. i think, in social science literature, that definition has expanded in the last 20 years, from being an eyewitness, speaking about domestic violence, to children exposed we're experiencing domestic violence. that exposure includes events leading up to the violent incident, the incident itself, and many cascading events that follow that single incident. so i do not think we should be focused in our definition of exposure. i am talking about the indirect exposure to violence of children being exposed to domestic violence between adults in their

homes. i do not think we should focus on the terms of witnessing, eyewitness, sight or sound, but think about the broad experience that kids have come even living in a shelter in the aftermath of violence. many different instances that are part of that exposure experience to domestic violence. i have written about this. i question whether our response to a childhood violence should be defined as childhood maltreatment. i think of it as a child maltreatment, but i do not think our systems are sufficiently supported in order to respond to children exposed to domestic violence. the one instance i can tell you about is minnesota's experience, when we redefine how exposure to family violence probably as a form of child neglect under our state statutes, and ended up

overwhelming our child welfare system with a 50% increase protection screenings, investigations. that led to fewer services for abused children because there were no new funds for the changes in law and resources needed to be moved from services to screening an investigation. during the nine month that that was in place in minnesota, we had an increase in screenings, decrease in services. together, the child welfare system, administrators, domestic violence that work in the state got together quickly and unanimously for the first time in their history, lobbied for the repeal of that law under minnesota statutes, and it was repealed. sadly, upon repeal, 50% fewer children are being reported to child protection. on the one hand, we had more reporting, but no new resources.

on the other hand, we know about these children but are not reporting them. i think there is a third way we need support, a community-based -- outside of the child welfare system -- more of a voluntary support for children and their families who have been exposed to domestic violence in the community. i will talk about that more in a minute. i was asked to talk about the scope. on the next panel, david will be speaking. he did work on this subject. they continue to publish a number of papers on that. as howard said, 75 million children in the u.s.. when you think about that under the national survey, 6.6% of american children were exposed to physical fault between their parents in the last year.

6.6% of all children between 0 and under 18. 7.9% of students exposed to violence between parents since birth. one key factor in that survey is, they directly interviewed 14 year-old to 17 year olds. they also interviewed the caregivers. that is the first time that i have seen the them directly survey. those children -- 27.7% of them said that they had been exposed to parents physically fighting in their lifetime. that is more than one in four children in the u.s.. you can extrapolate that to the 75 million figure that howard gave. they also found a third of children who had been exposed to parents fighting in their home were also directly maltreated in their home.

a third in the past year, compared to 8.6% of kids that were not exposed to violence between their parents. when they looked over a lifetime, 56.8% of children exposed to domestic violence in their homes were also maltreated sometime in their lifetime. so there is a huge code- occurrence of these issues in families. other studies -- nearby at the university of pennsylvania -- studied five different cities -- police report from five different cities. when police arrived on domestic assault calls, 0 to 5 year old children were present, which raises a red flag for the job protection systems around the country. those children, because they are not in school, not able to leave the house on their own, often

playing in the house, supervised by a parent, they are more likely to stay there during the best -- adult domestic assaults. there is also data on children's exposure to homicides, attempted homicide. that is in my written testimony. one issue that a lot of people are not aware of is, more than half of the residents in women's battered shelters are children. i often took people by asking, what percentage are battered women? even the shelter advocates say 100%. in fact, more than half of the residence in the american shelters are children. the impact of this violence has been found to have similar impact of direct maltreatment. the impact of indirect exposure to direct violence has -- can have similar impact on children,

as being a direct victim of child physical or sexual abuse. a recent meta analysis of 60 studies found that boys in particular showed much greater likelihood of abusing, antisocial behavior, and overall, showed much greater symptoms of trauma, associated with being exposed to domestic violence. we also know children physically intervene and take action during adult to adult domestic violence events. a recent study found that 49.9% of children yelled at their parents had to stop during a domestic assault. almost a quarter called for help. half reported trying to get away from the violence at least once. in a study that i did in four cities across the country, 30%

of children were reported to be accidentally hurt in an adult to adult domestic assault, often, when they tried to intervene to protect their mothers. a quarter were intentionally hurt when they did intervene in those events. long term, we have a number of longitudinal studies that have started to add questions about domestic violence exposure, and that those studies have found, in two teenage an adult relationships, early exposure to domestic violence is highly associated with the use of violence and problems in teenage years and young adulthood. in particular, the adverse child experiences study in southern california found that children exposed to domestic violence, over 50% of them had five or more other adverse experiences occurring with that exposure to violence. so there was many instances of

multiple victimization. one bright spot, significant numbers of children exposed to domestic violence were shown to have no greater problems than children not exposed. so between the group exposed and that not exposed, you find significant differences. but when you look within that group of exposed children, up to half of those children do not show a great degree of problem. it could be that we are measuring poorly, that we are not following up long enough, but variation is an important factor to keep in mind. children have -- each child comes to a situation with a different set of protective and risk factors to their lives, and will therefore, respond to different -- the same events in different ways. one major take-home message that

i hope you would take from me today is, children have buried exposure to domestic violence. that often leads to buried in packs on them. we need varied responses to that. we cannot just have child protection as the single response in most communities to children exposed to domestic violence. we need muchwe need much more os on what are the protector factors in their lives. we had a woman talk about what happens on her block, and it is very interesting to listen to that. i would like to argue that battered mothers can be a very significant protective factor for children. even when many of them are beaten, many of them are taking steps to protect their children. for example, had a social worker in st. paul, minn. tell me she

had gotten three orders of protection and on to the shelter twice with her children. she could not keep her children say. i would turn that around and say, that is just five relatively difficult steps she is taking to protect her children. there were probably hundreds of others not even seen recorded. to turn that around and say she cannot keep those kids safe is a network -- a-attribution to what i see as protective steps -- a negative attribution to what i see as protective steps by moms. the child-parent psychotherapy of groups from los angeles to boston, project support by rene

mcdonald and others at down in texas, and then the fourth that comes out of ontario, canada. there are a number of other great practices, and as howard alluded to, -- and i want to stress his fifth and six. . we do not have a structure for developing a development based practice. there's a huge pressure on social services to use evidence- based practices, but a few that are out there have garter maybe a 10-15 year -- have gone through, maybe a 10-15 your development time for in with public funding to support that. testing, randomized clinical trials -- as in the case with child-parent psychotherapy in san francisco.

it is then followed by a translation in the field that is an intense process. and i've heard some talk about the process that they have engaged through the national traumatic stress network. not only after the randomized clinical trial, but they have spent years trying to translate that into the field. i think that infrastructure -- and that is howard's fifth and sixth the statements, that we need an infrastructure based on evidence-based practices that are out there and great, but do not have evidence behind them, but are out there and we need to test them and use them in the field. there is very low evidence for that right now when the field. i will close with that. >> good afternoon. it is my pleasure and honor to speak before you today to talk about children exposed to violence from a school perspective.

i know i have some comments that have already been written and submitted, but i want to speak from my heart, because i believe that through the lens that i see young people, it is different from others. i am always under the belief that children are raised to be respectful and responsible in society. 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 our position -- my position that oftentimes i'm speaking to young people as the chief of police. some people think i have lost my mind because i put so much time into this job, but i believe young people need to hear from adults and adults need to hear from young people. in order for us to change our community, right now, as we live in a society with urban cities and the destruction of drugs and gangs in our communities, we

need to rebuild the family. we need to give the family support and services that are needed to rebuild the family, because oftentimes, we find that young people are being raised by their siblings because the parent is either working two or three jobs to support their home, or deceased, or the grandparents are stepping up to take over that guardian responsibility. we need to look at the family through an open land to understand that in order for young people to achieve academic success, they must come from positive learning environment. oftentimes, we have a disruptive behavior and we call on our partners in the school system, one of which you will hear from the next session. it is called community conferencing. what do we do with community conferencing? if we bring families together. when you have the, or city to talk to families, you find out the core issue of why young people are behaving so negatively in our community.

with community conferencing, it helps us to bridge the gap of what is going on and why we are in the position we are in today in terms of destructive behavior. the young people today, for some reason, do not want to use conflict resolution in terms of altercations. i believe that the biggest focus involved today in our community is focusing on the family. but what can we do to change the family to change a young person? to change a community, your hard to change families one by one. as one person said earlier, in her committee there were two families that she grabbed a hold of. i was raised by a single mom working three jobs, but i had a grandmother and an uncle who lived in the home with me. they taught me the benefits of working hard and succeeding. in the position of chief of police, i try to talk to young

people about my upbringing and where i came from to let them know that my road was not easy i had some stumbling blocks along the way. if we take some time to give young people a voice in society today, we can change some of the violent behavior going on a. as we all know, of violence in the committee ultimately ends up back at the school. we have reached out to many ners withinthe city of baltimore to address the violent behavior, the disruptive behavior, to bring some calm to the storm before it erupts in our school system. i can tell you that our students have taken -- excuse me. our students have taken a survey and said that the school is the safest place to be. that tells me we have a problem

between school and home and, in school. -- and home and school. we have limited resources to address the issues between school and home, limited resources for after-school programs, limited resources for athletic events. what is left for a young person to encounter but violence, because we then go from because of a structure, which is the school, back to negativity between the school and home. they want to be part of a family. i remember my first case dealing with gangs in the city of baltimore, and a young person said, i want to be a part of something. i said, why not be part of an educational system where you can succeed academically and achieve growth? he said, well, i have some issues. offline, i took a walk with him and he said, sir, you have to understand where i'm coming from. i said, where are you coming from? he said, my mother is deceased and my father is incarcerated.

what do i do? it is tough to respond to young people if you do not have the resources to guide them in the right direction, to overcome that which has impeded their bodies and their minds and their hearts. i believe the educational system is the right place for any young person to achieve, but i think resources are badly needed, and they need to be put into the elementary school level where we can grab young people at an early age. starting in middle school and high school is not the answer today. we need to be starting with pre- k straight on through 12th grade. i can tell you that our programs that my officers are conducting in the elementary schools, we are attempting a difference in young people's lives. it is not about locking up every young person that violates the student code of conduct or the law, but about finding the resources to help the young person.

i am asking my officers all the time what is going on with that student. have you talked with that student today? do you know what happened last night in their home? oftentimes, what is happening in the home is having an adverse reaction on that young person when they come to school. i saw a young lady sleeping in class a lot. her teacher said, she is taking care of family. i said, what do you mean? she said, her mother works at midnight, so she is responsible for clothing and feeding the students and by the time she gets done with her homework, she is extremely tired. by the time she gets up the next day and gets her siblings ready and off to school, she is late for school and she is tired, so she is sleeping through school. and i don't need to realize when a student needs help. -- an adult needs to realize when this to denise hopyard -- the student needs help.

otherwise, they will be on the streets either in prostitution or gangs or robbing or being totally disruptive in our community. i would say to this panel, to the task force, the necessary resources -- i think we can make the difference as adults in their lives, but we have to put the necessary resources in place. and we have to give them a voice. we try to do that in our school system by reaching out through various prevention programs to have young people be a part of that. i truly believe that in order for -- in order to overcome violence in our community, we need to put the resources in place where young people can achieve and grow in our communities. thank you. >> good afternoon. thank you for the opportunity to be here to share some thoughts about violence in our nation's juvenile justice system precautio.

i have had the incredible honor, but also experienced a tremendous heartbreak of representing children throughout the deep south. these children are like children who are imprisoned throughout the country. the vast majority of them have committed very low-level offenses. and that is a very disturbing fact when you think about the fact that we spend millions of dollars in prison in children for very minor offenses. what is even more disturbing is the violence and the abuse and the trauma that these children often experience behind bars. there is no dollar amount that we can put on the number of young lives that have been destroyed by violence experienced in our juvenile justice system. i would like to share a few stories of the children that i have worked with. in may, 2007, a 16-year-old girl was left alone with a staff member who was under investigation for sexually

abusing another resident in that facility. she was brutally sexually abused. 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 sharky oushackled foa month because there were an elected run away threat. in october, 2009, our detention center implemented a policy of keeping the children locked down for 23 hours a day. if children would come to the front of their cell to request water, to go to the bathroom, the staff with spray them in their face with mace and tell them to get to the back of their cells. in one particularly brutal and corrupt private prison that house's young men ages 13-22 who are tried and convicted as adults, in the last three years there have been three suicides, a number of breaks, and staff instigated abuse and assault

that has resulted in a number of permanent injuries, including permanent brain damage and other very serious injuries. these are examples occurring in the deep south. and prison abuse for children is not in just one region of the country. according to a report, since 1957, there have been 57 lawsuits in 33 states with reports of remedies by detention centers to address unconstitutional and abusive conditions. who are the children who are experiencing this abuse? the data suggest that state's juvenile justice systems are targeting black and brown youths. african-american youths represent 49% of our nation, but 69% of children detained. the children that i just spoke

about, then they are released back into their communities. this is why the violence suffered by our children caught up in the juvenile justice system affects us all. evidence suggests that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans gesture -- and transgendered youths are also disproportionately caught up in the juvenile justice system, often because of their sexual preference. they are often forced onto the street. other times, they are defending themselves against pervasive bullying that happens in the community and on the street. a report by the juvenile justice project of louisiana suggest that these youths are very vulnerable to sexual abuse while imprisoned. a number of them talked about being sexually assaulted, forced to perform sexual acts, or experienced physical violence. children living with mental

illness, and girls are also particularly vulnerable to abuse while in prison. there is another population that has grown tremendously over the past few years that is also vulnerable to abuse. that is children who are imprisoned in our adult correctional facilities. the juvenile justice system was initially created to protect children from the harsh, punitive environment from the adult correctional facility. in the 1990's in a wave of "tough on crime" policies, this was reversed and use were again -- give the house were again allowed to be tried and convicted as adults. this is where -- and juveniles were again allowed to be tried and convicted as adults. this is in an effort to reduce violence in our community, but in reality, it can create more violence and more crime than it actually solves. based on recidivism rates, one

thing we know is that secure confinement is the one proven ineffective way to address juvenile crime. and we also know that's abuse and violence is often systemic in these facilities. martin testament contains a number of detailed shrek -- my written testimony contains a number of detailed recommendations. i will briefly summarize here. i hope the task force will consider urging congress to reauthorize and strengthen the juvenile justice and the liquid to prevention act. i also hope the task force will ensure that the elimination act will address the detainee used. both of these statutes should have provisions on housing children and adult facilities. i hope the task force will consider recommendations to state level officials, that they reform their system and systemically reduce the number of children imprisoned by

developing alternatives to incarceration better data driven and can save money. like many other panelists have noted, a critical component of these alternatives will be to engage families and communities in the rehabilitative system. investing in families is one of the surest ways we can reduce our societies reliance on incarceration. it is critical that we do whatever we can to protect these youths from violence. we should encourage strong independent oversight for all prisons and jails or any facility that houses children. in conclusion, i would like to commend the task force for recognizing the silent epidemic of -- silent epidemic of violence against children who are incarcerated. and also for recognizing that it goes far beyond those walls into

our committee. thank you. >> questions? >> on the question of children in the tensions facilities, and placement facilities -- placement in facilities within goal -- adult confinement, do you have a recommendation on children in isolation, eager for the length of time or the circumstances -- eager for the length of time or the circumstances? >> my recommendation is that children should never be housed with adults. it is detrimental to be housed in a cell alone without contact with staff. what we have seen with the stories that we are working with, severe behavior issues can be dealt with when there is adequate staffing. kids will break rules. but there needs to be consequences that will not affect their developmental

process. >> is there any research that could support your opinion? but there certainly is. there is a significant amount of research on the developmental the effects of isolation on children. >> is there a place you can site within the united states that as a best practice would be a model? >> on the issue of isolation? >> yes. >> the missouri juvenile justice system has a model behavior management program that does not rely on isolation. >> i want to thank all of you for your powerful testimony. i do have a question for all of you that can answer this. you all provide a wealth of information specifically in your individual fields. i want to know if you have worked comprehensively with other experts in the field, and if -- and how that information gets transferred to the

community residents themselves. since we know that awareness is one of the main things that we need to tackle, how was that information being shared? ... >> i think -- >> i think the first part is the extent to which we work with other experts or folks in other disciplines. right here, i am at the medical school across the street. i would say everything we do is interdisciplinary. and it involves usually, 4, 5, disciplines. i could not be here for part of the morning because we had trained for law-enforcement officers about investigating child abuse and neglect, and i had to go to that meeting. i think the nature of this problem requires the different disciplines and fields to work together. it is not just a nice idea.

is a necessity. in terms of your second question about how we do in conveying the information to the public, let me first say i think we could do a lot better. i will include myself and our projects. it often does not get enough attention. 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 is a lot of information that would be useful to parents as well. it is one small example, but much to be done. >> thank you, each and everyone, for your excellent testimonies. doctor, let me start with you. as you know, i agree with

everything you say. [laughter] i have a question. at first, are there 39 or 29 nations that have ratified? >> 29. sorry for the typo. >> rich -- which treaty? >> the international treaty on the rights of the child. >> two separate issues. the 29 refers to the number of countries that have banned in kids at all. -- hitting kids at all. totally separate from the rights of the child. all but two, somalia and us, have ratified that. >> i have a question about each of them. of the 29 countries that have banned corporal punishment, do we have any data that shows the reduction in the amount of injury to children or child abuse in those countries?

but there are some data -- >> there are some data, perhaps the best is from sweden. it is true, though, that at the time that the swedes passed the law, there already was a majority public sentiment against hitting kids. but the rate of parents approving corporal punishment, were having kids, did continue to decline after -- or hitting kids, did continue to decline after the law was passed. it is a great question. it is often difficult to pinpoint to adjust the law making the difference. but that is the best example, in sweden, where increasing numbers of parents agree that hitting kids should not be allowed. >> so it is really a 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. we probably will soon see movement in banning capital punishment rather than corporal punishment. and both of those will be the -- in ratifying the treaty on the rights of the child, i can't remember being at a meeting 15 years ago and basically -- i can remember being at a meeting 15 years ago and basically being told that we have to abide by it, whereas all of the other countries can just sign it and not abide by the requirements of it. then it was a state department issued. you are saying congress. are we not thinking anymore that the state department would be able to -- do we need the

entire congress to ratify it? or can the state department do it? >> 67 senators. >> 67 senators on the recommendation of the state department, right? >> right. >> ok, thank you. i have one more question. go ahead. >> 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 a child to write is within the child protection system -- what a child's right is within the job protection system, which is a different perspective than what you see among american policy makers. i do think it brings a different perspective, and when applied well, if release speaks to our children's rights. voiceswe hear children's within the child protective system?

are we concerned with their rights and their voices? >> and there is a link with capital punishment because it would ban on capital punishment for minors. i am sorry to take so much time, but there is a huge issue with respect to incarcerated, were detained in use. and that is, of the women, a large percentage of them are pregnant or have children, very small children, usually outside the jail. have you taken a look at what is done with a pregnant girls, what kind of treatment, and once the young woman gives birth, what the practice is in terms of keeping the baby and mother to get there, separating them, -- keeping the baby and mother together, separating them, is there any achieving of a positive parenting with these young women? >> one of the issues is that

once they are in prison, it is a one size fits all thing. a lot of these girls are expected to fit into a model that was created for the majority, which is male spirit the largest number -- is males. at the largest number of use that are in prison are male. we have worked with a number of these young women who are in prison and it creates a lot of complications both for the young woman and for the staff at the facility. we have had to work on things such as getting nutritious foods, that they are not being served cold lunch meat sandwiches, which permit women cannot eat. a lot of these facilities are used to dealing with young men and are not equipped with dealing with young women who are pregnant. wendy's and young women have their children, most of them and

up going into the -- when these with young woman have their children, most of them going into the foster care system. >> thank you very much for your excellent comment. in particular, i paid attention to your statement that our children today do not want to use conflict resolution, but combat solutions. in keeping with that, i would like to ask you about the perspective of violence in schools. do you feel that since the american academy of pediatrics and others have stated that now children spend more time in front of media then they do in school, seven hours a day is average, do you believe the role of violent video games is a contributor to some of the behavior we are seeing in school children? >> i would agree with you. it goes in line with the social networking. young people use that mechanism for violence as well.

you oftentimes here -- is at 360? i am trying to remember the gains that kids use. >> xbox 360. >> the kids are using those things to perform violence. there mimicking what they see on tv. i would say media, games, things of that type have an impact on certain behavior as well. >> on going to resist getting into the controversial findings about the impact of media. but as i said -- but suffice it to say, there are far more kids play in what i might find as fox's -- toxic and obnoxious videogames and do not do well in school.

first of all, thank you to all of the palace. it was wonderful to listen to -- to all of the panelists. it was wonderful to listen to all of my colleagues. chief, i thought you described beautifully the idea of kids who do not have the families that we wish they had, they still need something from somewhere, right? if he were to put into a few words, and maybe it is a long list, but it can be as long as you want to -- but if you were to make some suggestions to this task force about what you would like your officers to have on their utility bills 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? >> first and foremost, i try to give my officers the opportunity to be trained across the lines, in terms of student behavior,

mental health issues and services. when we encountered a young people we are then able to address the issues and even provide them with a referral, or the guidance of an adult in that building who is assigned to handle that type of issue. resources, with respect to employment opportunities, sometimes if you can just leave a young people got -- a young person in a direction it can change the behavior. with mental health and social services, training with young people, i think if they have the opportunity to train alongside officers, as we do in certain programs, that, to me, has made a tremendous impact on young people in our school system. i'm constantly pushing to get volunteers within my police force to do this. sometimes it is amazing what can happen when you get an officer

trained to present to young people how the hidden treasures can come out when young people are provided with an opportunity. it can help kids to extend their day with officers input. it would play a major role in some constructive programming to be a part of every school. we are starting this weekend with several of our local schools throughout the district. i believe if young people are retained to engage in additional academic learning, then those possibilities of going down the wrong side of their road, we will have -- be more effective in having the resources to support those students. >> there is something special,

isn't there, about the use of authority for a kid who does not have it now? it can be a pretty cool things suddenly to have a friend who is a cop. of those resources, do you have enough of them right now? >> no, i do not. i will be very honest with you, sir. if i could get more resources to help my staff and have more resources to have more officers, i would have an officer in every school. and at this point, i do not. we have 142 personnel for 203 schools. additional resources would certainly help me to manage the system better. but i believe, if every kid is shown some love, we can change this whole process. not ... >> society draws lines

-- >> the society draws lines. this is a question for sheila. we will say 16-year-old should not drink or smoke or server the military. but the minute that 16-year-old commits an act that we find a egregious or bad, then suddenly this kid is an adult. we are still the only country on the planet that sentences children to die or to prison. i could not agree with you more when you recommend that legislatively, or however people do this, that we end the practice of trying to children as adults. but in your own experience, how do you do that? how do you create the tipping point? it shifted, and i think it did because of the super predator myth, and because of the scare that it was on the rise, as we heard earlier. what would you recommend?

how would we get out it? >> let me tell you about one of the successes we have in mississippi with some legislative reform on this issue. when i first started working in mississippi in 2003, the juvenile justice facility, but 80% of the children in their work in their for things like truancy, running away, skipping school. the justice department documented this number. if we had 80% of the jewels -- juvenile justice facilities, these low-level kids, it is no wonder we had in the adult facility kids committing actual crimes. when we were able to make the case that it had made no financial sense to lockup kids -- essentially, these are non- criminal offenses.

we were able to get first-time offenders, status offenders out of the system. we were then able to create space and there was a sense that, oh, my goodness, we have all of these kids in the adult system and we have all of these empty beds in the juvenile justice system. it is about looking at the entirety. so many jurisdictions are locking up kids who, frankly, do not need to be there. and as a result, other kids are getting bumped up into the adult system. the research has evolved significantly. we know so much about the recidivism rates of kids going into the adult system. it does not work. it is worse than what happens for the kids in the juvenile justice system. and the data is pretty compelling, even for lawmakers to are very concerned about being tough on crime. -- lawmakers who are very concerned about being tough on crime.

>> thank you all for your commitment to your work, and your commitment to be invisible today and telling the truth about some hard facts -- to being visible today and telling the truth about some hard facts going back decades. i think we have made some improvement, but around the edges. i want to ask a question for the whole panel. in different ways, you all mentioned this, but howard, to put you on the spot -- or maybe you can all help them out. howard mentioned the underpinnings of violence a number of times. what would you consider the top three underpinnings of violence? help our task force understand the way you look at issues of violence, i think this will help us as we move forward. in other words, is there something underneath this that causes of violence? or is violence of behavior? -- or is violence the root behavior?

>> the top three reasons for the violence, is that the question? >> yes. >> how to order them? let me suggest coming back to the point about the extent to which our culture excess hitting children is no small part of this. it sends a powerful message that when i am mad at you i can hit you. that is okay. and when i disagree, how do we resolve it? by hitting. from an early, early age this is very powerful. i remember as a pediatrician seen a 10-month old swapped his mom -- swat his mom sitting in my office. and i ask, where did he learn this? and sure enough, not that there is always cause and effect in

this way, she had already been swatting him. i think we need to start early. i think that is one. i think the panel several times has emphasized the extent to which families are struggling to cope with their kids in a variety of ways, and are unable to protect them, to nurture them in the ways that would allow them ia good beginning. just a few blocks from here, if folks have not read it, it is called "the corner." the corner is about six blocks from here. for folks like me, it is an amazing description of what breeds violence what i refer to is a neighborhood that is stuck with crime, with drugs, and kids

with lousy opportunities. obviously, these are 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 do not know if i have three, but i would like to put it in the context of protective and risk factors. certainly, exposure of a child to direct victimization, or indirect exposure to violence in their home, community, and school is clearly identified in the research literature as a predictor, aura these highly associated statistical -- or at least highly associated statistical predictor for putting you at risk later in life. that with a variety of other risk factors in the child's life, and the absence of other protective factors, like the adults that have been talked

about combining to create a canvas in which it is highly likely that a child will become violent. i do think a parcel -- partial solution to that that we have not really addressed, one, prevention. we have not done a good job of primary prevention of social norms -- the advertising that howard was talking about -- developing social norms in this country. engaging men and boys in violence prevention. i also think we have done very little to engage in formal supporters of children. adults and others in their lives who are the first basket children and other -- the first that children and other adult victims turned to, it is going to be family and friends. and we do very little to support family and friends ability to respond in a

positive and supportive way and somehow connected children to those communities services that are important. and this is more to the solutions than the three risks that you ask about, but i also think we need greater capacity to respond to children outside the child welfare system, and that will be on a community basis. there may be some that exist already, but they need to expand their capacity to children exposed to violence, and some that could be created if they do not already exist. >> the issue that has been talked about over the years is redeveloping the family. without the family, it brings on violence, because young people need that love and nurturing in home. if that is not there, they will ultimately go to the street. if services and resources were made available to redirect and redefine the family, as well as more positive activities after

school and on saturdays, i think that will play a major role in changing the system. >> i think the violence often happens in the juvenile justice system because of this sense among many juvenile justice stakeholders that there are some kids it is okay to throw away. there are some kids that are just not worth investing in. in many systems across the country, that is the pervasive culture of the system. i also think there's 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. when you take over 100 teenagers, many of klum have been living with trauma out their whole lives -- many of whom have been living with trauma their whole lives, put them together with four or five staff people, violence is almost inevitable. there is a way that we structure the system that breeds violence.

>> i want to thank our panel for their very informative and impact false testimony. we will take a five-minute break while we seek our next panel. -- seat our next panel. thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> more from the attorney general's national tax -- a task force on children exposed to violence in a few moments. a discussion on mentoring kids

and prosecuting children as adults. this is a meeting in baltimore. >> with the iowa caucuses next week, and the new hampshire, south carolina, and florida primaries later in the month, c- span series "the contenders" looks back at 14 candidates who ran for president and lost, but had a lasting impact on politics. tonight, at least stevenson. -- adlai stephenson. "the contenders" every night at 10:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> over on c-span2 tonight, "book tv" with members of the

bush administration talking about their autobiographies. then former vice president dick cheney after donald rumsfeld. and at 10:25 p.m., former secretary of state condoleezza rice. and now through friday on c- span3, american history tv star each night at 8:00 p.m. eastern.

>> have you tried the free c- span radio app? here is what users are saying. >> it is fast and the visually appealing. >> anytime, anywhere, it streaming audio of c-span radio, as well as coverage of all three c-span networks, including live coverage account -- of congress. c-span, is available where you are. find it at c-span.org/radioapp. are a week caucuses from today on -- baidoa's caucuses are a week from today caucusesry 3 -- iowa's are week from today on january 3.

we will also take a look at margaret thatcher's time as british prime minister. our guest is the author of the article. "washington journal" with today's headlines and of your phone calls every morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern. and a live look at the white house coverage tomorrow on c- span. newt gingrich at 1130 am holding a town hall in mason city. then at 1:20 p.m. eastern, mitt romney talking about jobs and the economy at a deli in clinton. and at 8:00 p.m. eastern, ron paul and a salute rally in des moines, iowa. justice department statistics show that 60% of american children have been exposed to crime, violence, or abuse. and 40% are direct victims of violence.

the attorneys general's national tax force on exposure to violence is looking at the problem. at this forum in baltimore, the task force heard about the issue of mentoring kids and the impact of prosecuting children as adults. this is just over an hour. >> thank you. the impact on people and communities of children's exposure to violence, that is what this panel will be focused on. this panel will explore the effects of cev on the bodies and

minds of young people, and on the social fabric they live within. panelists will discuss a wide range of questions about the impact of cev from brain development to juvenile justice contact. the panel will also explore collaborative approach to protecting and killing young people exposed to violence. the hon. patricia martin is president of the family court judges. she is a former lead judge and child victims act model, and promote alternative processes for children, such as court appointed special advocate. dr. steven berkowitz is a child and adolescent psychiatrist and an associate professor of clinical psychiatry at the

university of pennsylvania department of psychiatry. dr. berkowitz is the director of at pen center for uandyouth the center of recovery. dr. abramsohn has examined how childhood exposure to violence correlates to juvenile offending, and how alternatives to the attention -- detention reduce recidivism. dr. alan rosenberg is executive director of the baltimore child abuse center, and prior to directing the center, he served as the prosecutor in the domestic violence unit and a sex offense unit of the baltimore office.te attorney's we will start with the honorable patricia martin.

>> thank you so much, mr. chair, ladies and gentlemen of the task force. i am honored and privileged to be here and have a conversation with you this afternoon. i have written my oral testimony five times before today. i hope that my written testimony does provide some insight. what i would like to do is address some of the questions that were posed earlier today. i do have the names of persons who asked a person's -- i do hope the names -- have the names of persons to ask the questions. i would like to go through a couple of things that i hope will address some of the issues you raised this morning. i think that there was a question posed as to how we take the creativity of individuals and families and from the lake that into a recommendation for the attorney general. i would submit to you that the creativity and caring adult is

what you would like to pull together and somehow formulate. in cook county, for instance, -- don't tell legislature down in springfield, but i changed the goals of every child protection division in cook county. i am also the presiding judge for the child protection division in cook county, illinois. just as a way of background through the international juvenile court and family justice, los angeles, new york, edgecomb are the largest trout protection jurisdictions -- and chicago are the largest child protection jurisdictions in our country. we have been able to reduce our caseloads safely through the system of 40-80%. the rate of recidivism has not increased. i will give you some of what we have done all over the last decade. and this is not just cook

county, but i would suggest to you, new york, l.a., and chicago. the members of the national council serve on the board of trustees, and i served as the president of that organization. i would strongly suggest that you are looking for innovative course, the national council is the laboratory where we take programs, figure them out, work through them, and come back and all sides have a meeting where we share this information. we are heavily supported by ojj dp. my benchmark is specifically designed for older kids in foster care. no child leaves foster care without what i call an aunt kiddy. i am a member of a family with three children. our parents died more than 26 years ago. i was the oldest. i could not figure out how we

were going to get up the next morning after my mother died because my father had been bedridden for 10 years. my mother had closed her practice years ago. my mother would seen through the house, and that is how we got up precautions when she died, i could not figure out how we were going to -- that is how we got up. when she died, i could not figure of how we were going to get the next morning, literally. my aunt kiddy, she called and will be up the day my mother died and every day until the day she died a year-and-a-half ago. that was the one rock that got me and ultimately, my brother and sister, to a point where we feel as if we are providing some benefit and some protective measures to our society in general. if it were my world, the recommendation would be that every child in foster care has

to have a caring adult. i am not suggesting a safe and appropriate placement. that is my legal standard. i do not care if it is a drama called -- drunk uncle. if he calls on christmas and says "mayra christmas," or if he calls on the birthday and says of " happy birthday," that is a caring adult. but i am looking for someone who loves my child. too much of my work is involved in safety and placement, and not enough focus on appropriateness or love. that is the new goal in cook county. i would suggest that as a recommendation. we also talked about improving the practice in court, especially proactive course. i have already mentioned the national council of juvenile court judges. i have already mentioned the lead judges in the court -- the model court project. one thing that we do, we collaborate.

i have medical schools working with cook county child protection division. i have children's memorial hospital, residents rotating through my court for a day trying to understand what we mean by child protection. my judges go to their grand rounds and listen to what happens in grand rounds about broken arms and fractures and taking in the totality of the circumstances before making a determination of how a child has been injured, or whether it is abuse or not. there is a lot of collaboration in the model courts. a big collaboration for us is the chicago public schools. you are speaking with a judge who has gotten off the bench and gone to an iet at a school, and i will readily admit i had no idea why an iet was or what was supposed to happen there, but someone had to go.

one thing i learned when i walk to the door, we speak two different languages. i do not understand what they are talking about in chicago public schools. but through that effort, we had a member of the chicago public schools, in local principal, house in my court house. she has a computer for the chicago public schools, and a core computer. when my judges are trying to figure out where this child's academic history as, what grades they failed, why they failed, how many more credit they need to graduate, i do not have to wait 30 days to have a worker go to the chicago public schools and figure out their system. i call her up to my court room and give her an hour to figure it out and come back down and tell me. things like that, even though we do not have status systems that communicate together, at least we can figure out ways short of trying to change a whole system around to get the information. i would suggest demanding that courts be collaborative, similar

to the model course, is a requirement, because we cannot do this work alone. we have to rely on others. all of us in this room today know that states do not raise children well, no matter how good our core system is, no matter how good our foster care system is. families raise children, and we have to figure out ways to treat our families and children more holistic play. i would is one way to do that. talking about domestic violence. i would admit to you, this is kind of a duh, as my nephew says. we were taking the perpetrators out of the home in domestic violence situations and charging the custodial parent with failure to provide adequate support or supervision. then taking the perpetrator out of the home. one day, we realized that trauma is affecting all of our children. whether we have to remove a child for life preservation, it

still produces, for the child. we started taking the perpetrator out of the home and leaving the child and a home. even to the point where it is a financial burden for the family, we still take the perpetrator out of the home and move the mother to a relative's home. we keep the child with the family unit, as opposed to isolating the child. things that we learned. somehow, we could not figure it out in the beginning. it came from a suggestion from one of our other model courts. we go back to those jurisdictions and share the information. i would suggest that each jurisdiction should charge on domestic violence and figure out ways to address that as well. we talked about a lot of the court rooms across the city. juvenile justice, child protection, divorce, or child support. we focus on providing services

for parents. i would agree that even though my charge is to provide the best interests of children, in cook county all that we focus on is the older adolescents. to the point that, for instance, if i terminated the parental rights of a parent when the child was 3, the risk factors and support factors for a child are vastly different. what i have done, even though the mother is no longer the legal mother, i have invited her back to my benchmark hearing and put in a lead -- legal relationships of the the department has a way to funnel funds. gymnastics, maybe, but funneling funds back to that relationship. at 13, i am not asking mom to get off drugs. if she does, great, but what i am doing, looking at what you do

if mom is ok or if mom is drugging. it is no different than my children in foster care. we have to teach them how to navigate the bad parts or not so positive parts of their family. i would hope that we could find a home and a family. but if i cannot, at least give them the tools that they need to be able to find their way through. the talk about the gaps. i would suggest cross training as an absolute answer. it is no longer sufficient for me to learn how to make determinations from the bench. when i first came to the bench, they told me that the only way you could get a spiral fracture is from abuse. ladies and gentleman, when

doctors tell us that, we believe that, until doctors come in and actually tell us what we need to do and actually trained us. one of the things that i do once a month, i invite a doctor, a psychiatrist, someone from the substance abuse community. that is where we found out the substance abuse providers are starting to use madison. we had no idea about that stuff until we brought them into a court building and started asking them to talk to us directly. we worked with the police department in chicago, as well as our sheriff's department. trying to find kids the run away from placement. i found numerous opportunities to help me to figure out how to find our kids. my kids go home. when they run from institutions, they go home. we were able to execute those warrants a little better.

i want to say just one other thing. that is this. in cook county, the national council of juvenile court judges, we would not have been able to do certain numbers, from over 38,000 down to 7000 children in foster care, without raising our rate of recidivism if we did not reach out to the medical field, the education field, or juvenile justice. i would encourage you that when you look at recommendations for court, you do not just look at juvenile justice, you have to look at child support and even paternity court when we talk about siblings. >> thank you. for the record, we did not want you to stop. [laughter] >> typically speaking, i do not. but i just wanted to be mindful and respectful.

>> the attorney did not ask you to stop. >> that is a first. [laughter] >> thank you very much, dr. berkowitz. it is an honor to be here. it should not be a surprise that everything i thought i was going to say has been said. maybe that is part of the good thing and part of the bad thing of being in the last panel. as many that testified on the task force are friends, colleagues, and mentors, and as many of you know i was at yale with the doctor for 15 years. so, i have to really a knowledge that over the years. one of the things i was asked to talk about is the neuroscience of trauma. i am going to do that briefly. but i also want to do -- i did a

lot of good writing. in we really have, in terms of neuroscience, probably learned more about the effects of trauma and stress in the last 10 years than by any other psychiatric or neurologic disorder. i think that that is quite remarkable. and so, now we know that experience changes the genome. we know how it does that, through the methods of genetics, changing methylation on specific parts of the gene. we changed gene products, which has an impact on brain structure and body structure. we have to remember that the brain is in charge of everything. anything that affects the brain will affect the body.

and that is why, as you have heard time and again, that exposure to violence and trauma early in life, and throughout life, has such negative effects. not only on psychological health, but on physical health and functioning in general. if you look at the data of unemployment and homelessness, 100% of men on death row were abused. so, i think that we really need to understand that very carefully. it is a biological mechanism. we are biological machines. that is how we operate. everything that happens is through a biological process. it is not a surprise that the most exquisitely sensitive aspect of that process is about survival. trauma is about an attempt to survive. that is what has changed and is

regulated when children and adults are exposed to traumatic situations. particularly chronically. i think it is very important to keep in mind that this completely regulated system, we have a brain scan the has brain sizes decreasing. we know about cardiovascular disease, cancer increase in all of these situations. what is interesting to me is when we look at expenditures in terms of treatment and research. for all of the money spent on the diseases that i've talked about, 5 cents is spent on research, it comes to child,. i think that that is startling, when we talk about costs. sitting next to the judge and hearing about what she is doing

in chicago reminds me of what i do not have. in philadelphia today, i sit with children on a daily basis. 50% are in foster care. they have been abused, neglected, shot. most of the kids in foster care have not only been traumatized in multiple ways, but they have been exposed to substances like alcohol and other such things. they already come into the world with two strikes against them. my job, and i see our job, as being too and still hope. trauma and traumatized individuals are helpless and hopeless. our guilt -- our goal is to instill hope. i spend more time on the phone with attorneys, child welfare

workers -- i wish that the judges would return my calls -- child welfare workers, foster care workers, and i do see patients, because it takes that many people. i can tell you that one of the greatest dilemma is is that we do not speak the same language. we do not have a child as the focus of our language. i would argue that if you want to make a system change, if you really want to change what we are doing, we are all taking a short view. the long view is that we need a new language among all of the child serving agencies. courts, judges, etc., that have the child, human development and trauma-formed understanding at the center of that language. that is what is going to change things in the long view. when we recognize that child

maltreatment, trauma, and abuse is the number one public health issue in this country, i think that that is clear. you have heard it time and again. $100 billion was the statement. that does not even include the rates of incarceration, court hearings, so on and so forth as the number one public issue in this country. we need to change the paradigm across the board. one of the dilemmas with this panel is that only the doj is sponsoring this. where is everyone else's sponsorship? should they not be here? should we not talking about how to create that common goal and common language? we know how to intervene. we have a lot of effective interventions. we have heard about some of them. a wonderful way of thinking about things in the court system, but we do not do it

across the country. we do not have that comment, shared language that everyone agrees with. the public defender was wrong. i called her to task on that. and then was asked, after calling her to task, to give a talk about what it means to provide trauma treatment. it winds up that none of the attorneys in the setting actually knew when they were requesting treatment, what it was. i had to teach them what it was. and what really to ask for. to ask for evaluation, not for treatment. they thought they saw a terrible thing happened, they must have

trauma. it does not work that way. this is the language that does not exist amongst all of our various agencies and facilities and what not. it needs to be imbued to change the paradigm. i would argue that that needs to be, throughout the secretarial posts and agencies, at every level of government and community, that we need to be talking about children and families, development from the same perspective. schering and creating a language to allow intervention to grow and be effective. then the money will come. these things need to be adapted. we have many interventions that are affected the weekend news, and we should not shy away from them. what keeps us from using them is the funding that goes into all

sorts of different directions, rather than thinking about the primary issue a hand. if anything that i would ask them to do, it is to talk about that, the cornerstone of the foundation of the change required in this country, changing our number one. thank you. >> dr. abramson? >> thank you for the privilege of being here with you. what i would like to talk about and address is why we need to change our response to violence and how we can do that. so, why do we need to change our responses? " we are currently doing is now working. currently, we separate victims and offenders, and we punish offenders, and we do not give them a chance to learn how to do things differently or better. in fact, when they go into

detention, what they learn how to do is be better criminals. research shows that over and over again. what do we do with victims? we do not include them in the justice process. they are isolated. if they happen to have symptoms of post-traumatic stress, which many do, research shows that they do not seek treatment for it. victims are often stuck in their sense of victimhood. they are stocked with this identity of being a victim. how can we do it differently? in baltimore, for 15 years we have been at the community conference center. we have been using our restorative justice intervention, which we do is bring together the victims and the offenders, and their respective family members and

supporters, and anyone else who has been involved or impacted by the incident -- the person that clean up the graffiti -- it could be a pastor to support them, a coach, anyone. there is a facilitator. everyone sits in a circle and has a chance to do very radical things. they get to talk to each other. those that caused the harm get a chance to say what happened and describe what happened. everyone in the circle it's a chance to say how they have been affected by what happened in a very emotional way. at fact is fundamental to why this process is so powerful. -- at fact -- a fact -- affect is fundamental to why this process is so powerful. offenders get a chance to take accountability. victims get to put to the extra what they have been carrying on

the inside. as everyone does that, they get a chance to learn different things about each other. once everyone is focused, we asked a group, what do you want to do to make this better and repair of a farm to prevent it from happening again? we follow through to see if there is compliance. we have used this as an alternative to rest and record incarceration. the more serious, the better. when i tell you about the outcome, that will help to explain why. we have been doing this in the baltimore city schools as an alternative to school suspension and the rest. to help them build a school to prison pipeline, which many of you are likely familiar with. 100 students are arrested out of baltimore city schools every month. we know that it works.

there is a lot of research that shows that victims feel much more satisfied when they go through conference in than if they went to court. there is even research that shows the victim's experience pst, who went through conferencing, have significantly reduced symptoms if they have gone through community conferencing. let me just give you one example of how would have worked. there was a case that started on facebook -- very often -- i wish that facebook -- they should fund half of these programs. [laughter] >> or google. >> yes. [laughter] someone made a comment about someone else's boyfriend, and before we knew it, three girls had jumped two girls and one of the girls had a broken ice hockey. we had a community conference.

what happened there is what happened in 10 out of 10 incidents that we handle this way. the girls that believe the other girls ended up in tears talking about the times that earlier in their lives, they were bullied. so, we get this snapshot of how violence begets violence. whether you are a victim or a perpetrator. it becomes a cycle. parents agree to pay for the medical bills. what all the girls agreed to do and decide to do, figuring out that they would do it there and then, they decided that they would get together after the community conference and create a presentation about their experience of bullying. they were going to give the presentation of not just in their school, but i and four other schools. each of the mothers and parents agree that they would provide transportation when the girls

made these presentations. so, there are no longer victims and offenders. there are young people who have made bad choices that learned how to do it differently. 10,000 people in baltimore have participated in community conferences. 95% of the time the camera with an agreement that they abide by -- they come up with an agreement that they abide by. there is 60% lower real offending. all at one-tenth the cost of going to court. the maryland department of juvenile services, with its $270 million budget, cannot find one penny for this program, which they refer cases to year after year. we know what works. we know what does not work. the jerry springer model of dealing with each other does not work. right? we need to change our culture.

we seriously need to shift funding to programs like restorative justice programs that give better outcomes than the antiquated, costly, and effective -- do you get how i feel about our current system? the ways of responding to harm. we need to give our young people experience opportunities. this is experiencing ways to learn how to deal with conflict constructively. conflict is a part of being human. we need to learn how to have healthy relationships. if i can borrow from my sailing buddy, when something breaks on the boat, we have the technology. we do not have is the political will to use it. >> thank you, doctor. >> the afternoon, chairman. my mother sent me a text message, so i had to share that.

[laughter] members of the task force, those that care about reducing violence to children, welcome to baltimore. every child that we see decorates a butterfly. we have collected over 850 every year, and that number continues to grow. this is a very real manifestation of the scale. hanging from the ceilings of the center, we recognize that every butterfly is different, with a unique story. today i believe that we have all had the privilege to hear many stories from victims and survivors. we hear those everyday at the child abuse center. at the child advocacy center,

there is more -- much more material in a written testimony, but this provides a single point of contact for every reported case of sexual child abuse in baltimore city. watching and participating in these interviews, our child protective interviewers and prosecutors. for some it results in a child protective services intervention of some sort. for many, this is the start of a connection to therapy and treatment for the child and non- offending family members, who are also reporting that they have been victims of abuse. multi-generational victims and many of them are getting help for the first time. we are one of 700 centers nationally. third in the country. centers of our urban, rural,

suburban, and governed by standards set by the national child advocacy alliance center in alabama. they came about by a unique set of circumstances. but kramer, formerly with the district attorney had received his first case at dna. whether it was my states, or the office was making his life difficult, it became a child abuse case. in his own words, he said -- ask another question, i will kill myself. i realized a child had been spoken to 14 different times. he had a radical idea. he broke the file to bring in police officers and social workers. everyone said that he was crazy, but 25 years later and it still works. the amazing part, and maybe this is the disadvantage of ipad

culture, i was sent this disturbing report of the clinical director just this morning. a 6-year-old had come home and asked the parents if you was going to jail. two police officers came to school with a gun and another office worker was also there. he was reportedly crying and scared. apparently a report of abuse had occurred. the police, rather than bringing the child to us, brought the child to the school. doing what they meant to do best, but they showed up with guns and ask questions. the child displayed anxiety. the mother indicated -- she actually followed a formal complaint about the process, stating that what she experienced did not fit her child's needs first. our process was able to share the failings of the system, as well as successes.

we can take this instance and send it to the leadership of different agencies. when reports are different, cases are different. reports of abuse have to be handled differently. often they need unlearn their basic skills. we all live in a world where inconsistency is normal, impressions change, and people that harm than do not know why they were harmed. those factors are taken into consideration in every interview. our center reduces trauma by providing a single point of contact at the facility. this multi disciplinary team works weekly to make sure that no case falls through the cracks. we provide that training as well. we also educate the community on a very tight shoestring budget, urging adults to take

responsibility for protecting kids. as we have learned, unfortunately in these last few weeks, adults have to report these cases of abuse. it is not just for the child. we have to be on the lookout. there is a great need for community collaboration. running a nonprofit, i said it was the last thing you wanted to do. but i encourage her to work with us. she was a model volunteer. we need to encourage more community collaboration. i believe that that is one of the recommendations that the task force can make. programs working together for successful and interesting efforts. we operate a big tent. we do more than just helping in cases of child sex abuse. many law enforcement agencies here today recognize the fact that we can help them make their

investigations better. but just in child sex abuse cases, but in other forms of child maltreatment. breaking the silence, helping with the investigation. however, there are still other systems that need to be a part of this. those systems need to be added as well. three things have happened. i would defer to my colleagues, distinctly outline the next steps. one, funding for defense of childhood must be made a priority. there are insufficient funds for the understanding of these critical programs. nationally, they are simply cobbled together. here in baltimore, we barely get funded. less than 10% by the city that we strive to serve, despite the fact that we have a translation of almost $1 million saved per

year. meant to cover 700 sites, it is money that is appreciated, but woefully insufficient for making significant change. we are the best practice. i often cite david's study that we help those who have been abused. we can make readily available for centers like ours, multi- collaborative support for communities. no. 2 -- i have to agree with what many people have said, we need public awareness education brought to the highest level. this is the crisis going on right now in the country. this is a disease. a process to bring everyone together to find a cure, like a mission to the moon, is what we need. it dwarfs everything else and we are doing. those become the root causes for

the other elements right now. truancy, child obesity -- not to minimize those, but if we could affect this change on abuse, as there are many great models that exist in the hands of parents and schools. the chief is correct, we must find ways and find ways to have this in there. vermont, illinois, texas, north carolina, they are beginning to of mandatory education in the school systems. every state, every state must have some form of child abuse for -- prevention education available to them. the doctor is absolutely right, we need to have the advantage of this great amount of data out there. i love the justices suggest in the you have -- suggestion that you have a system in the courthouse where you can look

at both sets of data. often, the school system does not know that the child they are about to put up is the one that is a be used. and for taking a first step at reducing child abuse and exposure to violence, no that we are here to help. >> thank you. i just want to open it up for questions. we have about 15 minutes for questions. >> thank you very much. i have learned a lot in a short amount of time. i have a question about the areas for judge martin and dr. abramson. are there any cases the would screen out of the work that you do? cases that are so egregious that sitting in a circle could potentially create more problems

than it solves? >> first of all, i wanted to mention earlier that the models include tribal court and that the national levels i spoke with was an invitation on the hill for trap -- tribal court funding. the answer is no. we do child protection mediation in cook county. the way we do it may be different, and i have teamed mediators. i never do it with a single mediator. if the person is in custody, i have extra protection for the staff and mediators. i will not preclude any case from going to mediation. i might make it go more than once. in my jurisdiction it talks about those locked legal issues and who is going to help on the

drop off visits or the parenting time with the dad and mom and a new relationship where dad cannot stand the new partner? those kinds of issues of how to get along with the family, where they will get out one day, i have to make certain that they will learn how to communicate on behalf of my child. i demand mediation. the more serious the case, the more serious the felony, the more violence involved, the more i require mediation. >> and if the victim of the violence does not want to participate? >> i have an advocate for the victim. they have to figure out how to communicate. families have to communicate from my kids. >> i would say the same thing, except we maintain the process as voluntary. if any of the key participants

decide not to, we will not to one. >> thank you for asking the question. i have the same one. at the end of the last panel i was asked a question of leverage told that this panel should respond to. over and over again we have heard about public sector collaboration and sharing of information. my question is, what the impediments that we should address to multiple agency sharing information on the case by case basis or overall planning levels? thank you to each of you. you were excellent. late in the day. >> one of the impediments is territory and the need that there is a lack of willpower, sometimes, or even a lack of understanding that we can share

that information. it takes a lot of time. as an executive director, i go with the principle administration on the top level and the bottom level, we are here to help. it may even be a confusion of the laws, people are so desperately afraid of violating hit of -- hippa, we have that training that the police can share with social services and health practitioners. sitting on a committee to talk about how we bring in primary health care practitioners, we can bring that in as well. it is remarkable that in 2011 we are so intricately wired and connected in every other way, in one sense, but in another i have no ability to tie these to the various portals of information the survey child or a family.

it is a waste of money, a waste of child -- of time and resources. we could streamline that. i think the recommendation -- there needs to be a recommendation that they need to work better. opening up greater exceptions so that information can be shared and incentives put in place. these other programs that may be about -- available from the federal government down. similar to the incentives on the highways, why can we not do the same thing with federal justice? >> this was linked to a common language issues? >> absolutely. there are regulations that

forbid certain information sharing. schools and others in particular often do not want to share the information that they can because of turf issues and other such things. i agree that it should be incentivized. the federal government incentivized electronic records. why not incentivize appropriate information sharing at that level? i think it would make a difference. >> on a very local level, all you need is a judge's order. [laughter] we have the same problem in cook county when all i have done is issued medical records from a hospital. no one questioned my jurisdiction, so i kept going. going to chicago public schools, likewise. i had no jurisdiction to be there, but i was issuing orders. i guess the appellate court has

to tell me that i am wrong. >> i will file the order today. >> quickly, you are all -- you all are wonderful. in the country there are lots of reasons that things do not work, but we keep hearing the same story anyway the you go run the country. at the risk of getting you going, dr., could you please briefly say something that how come, out of $240 million, your program does not get any money? lastly, how come we are not talking from the child's perspective as a guide to addressing? what is going on here? >> we are not very smart? [laughter]

>> [inaudible] [laughter] >> sure. 90% of the juvenile justice budget is going toward the kind of detention interventions that dr. mccarthy said not only do not work, but often the people worse. i would love an answer to that question. >> some of it is due to priority settings. children do not vote. they are not the taxpayers and it is easy to shuffle the lawn to the side. in baltimore specifically we are obsessed with the homicide number. we look at the count every year. it is in the paper every day. when you look at the other crimes that are occurring, it blows away a homicide number. your impression of baltimore is,

unfortunately, "the wire." we are focused on the wrong thing. we want to prevent the child from becoming that homicide statistics later in life. >> our science and knowledge is way ahead of our political will. the more complicated the issues are, and we are talking about the complex issue, as we discovered today, that is one of our great dilemmas. people do not really want to delve into and think about the most complicated issues. child development is very complicated. the impact of trauma on children functioning and development into adulthood is very complicated. that is something that takes time and effort. as i said, it is not a sound

bite or something that people readily or easily pay attention to. >> i have a question for you. i was pleased to hear you say that in addition to the mainstream cases that we are so accustomed to having sent to a center, you are also starting to provide services for sex trafficking victims. can you explain to the task force, first of all, i think the task force is already aware that these are victims the already experience exposure to violence. so, could you explain how you're able to get your cac to embrace that? as many are not willing, yet? >> it is a complicated issue. in one sense, victims of human trafficking, and this is domestic human trafficking that, for a long time, we learned about on the eastern seaboard.

but it also is from florida and rochester, n.y.. kids that ran away from one situation, abused at home, and they wound up being traffic. i lament the fact we are not funded, but it does give us the ability to do these tags. we have set up these locally. saying look, i have got this great program, so use it. all programs run in contribution -- contradiction to the governmentally focused. this is what we shall do, this is what we shall not do. even neighboring counties. to do this they need to have

their back in the department of justice. i am eager to do these interviews and we do put them together, and i can theunring the bell -- i cannot unring the bell at this point. >> first of all, i want to thank you all for sharing your personal stories, expertise, time, and commitment. you all ran excellent programs. i wanted to see if there was any opportunity for you to become leaders and step out of the shadows of being victims or in need of being services to be seen as someone who is powerful in the real-estate holding community. when they say things like going to team lounges and who are you

to tell me -- you know what i mean -- who are you to tell me what services are best for me? i am stock. i want to know if there is any program or component to your program the kids the opportunity. >> there are two that to that very well. the first is benchmark hearing. all of my kids are older. most of my kids coming into foster care are newborn infants. 13, lebron, teenagers. this program is designed for older use. the entire hearing is a two hour hearing. the idea is that prior to the hearing with a social worker, we

talk about the forms that are developed. a kid came in and told me that they wanted to be a lawyer and a social worker said they wanted to be a cosmetologist. i said -- that is different. she said that she is reading so far below grade, she will never be a lawyer. i told her i knew a lot of people about degrees that could not read. [laughter] the point is for the child to be focused on entirely in the need by the adult. this is one of the first time throughout system that they feel that their work has been heard. they have of privilege of hearing what they need out of these hearings. those are just two in cook county that work very well.

>> we have actually just started a program with team members who have come out to be pure mentors to the younger children. actually, everyone that we have asked has agreed to do it. we will see how the coast. doctor? >> i wanted to thank all of you for speaking. particularly for speaking from your hearts. rewrites at the end of the day, it was not all just from your intellect. those were profound experiences from your heart. a think that this is an opera, not a downer. getting a quick reaction from each of you, helping us out over the next 12 months to get this report done. as we think about child development and what we would

call child-centric language and how difficult it becomes when there is disrupt the attachment. there is trans-generational enslavement. at this point in time in america there is not earth equity or employment equity. in my view, it is a large fetor into the cycle of trauma. would you have any comments with relation to the structural racism the continues to unfortunately get a large portion of our population and the attachment to this? >> i think that if we look at what is often called deep poverty, if it is used as a sort

of wide ranging turn, there is something called deep poverty. all two-generational and impoverished, if you look at those families, the studies have shown that the fis 3 in 1992, if you made under $50,000 per year, rates of maltreatment or 22 times over $33,000 per year. that is the cycle of violence and cycle of poverty. those same kids that could not learn, they wound up unemployed and homeless. they perpetuate the cycle.

one of the issues that we will never addressed, unfortunately, in this country, is wage. we know that it makes a huge difference in breaking the cycle. that said, i think we can intervene with families and communities to interrupt cycles of maltreatment and abuse, as well as trauma. every time that we identify a child, we identify a family. that is the opportunity that we have. i see it as the outcome, but it requires the population, not the village. >> two things. nis studies are based on reports

of abuse and neglect, not actual abuse and neglect. i would suggest that there are very rich, white families with abuse and neglect in their houses as well. i do not see many of these. my office is on the eighth floor, when those people do come out in, i hear about it before i see them. in cook county, they are all black. to the point that i have no babies from cook county hospital. they are all from northwestern. white, childbearing age women do not use drugs in chicago? possible, not probable. i called the ama, and they have not returned my call yet.

institutions are developed by people. there is an implicit bias that we overlook constantly. i have it as well. when i grew up, and let me use a black example -- black women have back. my sister runs marathon, so she did not have back. you know what i'm talking about, right? [laughter] i apologize. bias and racism in court, there was a gentleman that got be read in the front row and i figured i had to get out of this. we all have implicit bias is that have been developed over a number of years, for a number of reasons. i have to teach my judges how to

understand the they have implicit bias as, going out into their court room to make choices that are devoid of their implicit bias. i would suggest that the medical residents coming in have to learn that too. judges are not the answer. but they are part of the answer. meaning that there is something that we can do about it. contrary to what you said, this is something we can change. we have to be willing. the national council has developed a bench card so that we can start looking at this issue. i hope that there is opportunity to provide additional oral testimony. these are issues that we are working at and towards coordinating.

i would like to refer to a short book called "the next american revolution." she is an activist that offers the the next american revolution will not be about equality, but who we are as human beings. she speaks cogently about what we need to do. all of these jobs that are lost or not coming back. we need to restructure the education system and learn how to take care of each other. in the process, be healthy as a community. i feel like the restorative justice work that we are doing is about bringing together human beings in a circle. not ignoring the fact that there is racism and all sorts of bias and oppression, letting people

be human and figuring out different ways to be with each other so that those biases get broken down and recreated in. people re-establishing relationships in a very different way. >> thank you. thank you very much to our panel. very informative. what can i say? thank you very much. time for public testimony right now. five minutes? you have a big hand there, will. closer to 10? ♪ caller [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> the c-span series, "contenders," looks back at 14 candidates that ran for president and lost. tonight, at least the vinson, who lost to dwight house and our -- dwight eisenhower.

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