Growing Up Baltimore – Town Hall Essay 12-3-09
A panel of state and city youth service and criminal justice authorities may have reached a consensus last night at the Enoch Pratt Free Library. They submitted to questioning eagerly and energetically, it seemed, at this radio station’s invitation. They came for a town hall meeting to talk about challenges facing kids growing up in Baltimore.
They agreed on several things: Despite their efforts, it’s not easy to grow up safely in the city. The “system” – however defined – doesn’t always work like a system. Individual parts may function well enough. Good things are happening.
But, I suggest, given the extent of the problems, the sum of their efforts is insufficient. They have not united. They are missing the synergy that might come from working more closely together. If they did, their individual efforts might be potentiated – magnified, that is. There was no opportunity to explore the matter further, but there was no sense that overcoming the so-called “silo effect” was under way.
Young questioners wanted to know why so much of the scarce state dollar is spent on prison construction. Many of the facilities are antiquated and must be replaced, they were told.
Donald DeVore, Maryland’s juvenile services chief, said many of the state’s infamously inefficient youth detention facilities have been sharply downsized. The expert panel vouched for him. The students continued to press their case. Nor were they impressed with reports of the state’s dire budget crunch. For them, the future is now.
A young man urged the panel to consider the issue of hunger. Child hunger in Maryland, one of the richest states in the union, continues. Mr. DeVore said there was a plan to solve the problem … in time.
The problem, of course, is immediate: people are hungry now. A young man said there must certainly be a link between hunger and violence.
Dr. Jacquelyn Duval-Harvey offered a convincing description of what leads to violence. When people decide they are devalued and disrespected, when they are made to feel expendable and worth little they see others as worthless, too. When all of that falls into place, deadly violence can be the result. Nevertheless, she said, people do resist violent behavior in the most trying circumstances – and they must.
As for the hunger issue, Dr. Duval-Harvey said poor families often don’t know about nutrition and food assistance programs that could help them. Programs open, she said, and no one shows.
Sounded very much like a point at which a problem, hunger, could be addressed.
Advertise. Flood the airwaves. Demand space for public service announcements. Spread the word as if you were a politician in need of name recognition.
The panel and the radio station promise to stay on the case.
This is an essay from WYPR’s Senior News Analyst Fraser Smith. Feel free to drop Fraser a line at fsmith@wypr.org.
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