Our Kids Need Guidance
What the hell is going on with our children?
In one high school in Palo Alto, California four teenagers, acting separately, killed themselves recently by stepping in front of a train.
And who wasn’t stunned by the recent reports, also from California, about a group of 20 high school kids either participating in or standing around watching the brutal 2 hour long gang rape of one of their female classmates? The attack took place outside Richmond High School during the homecoming dance. Not one person bothered to call 911. Police are still struggling to identify those involved.
Who is responsible for that ghastly crime? The rapists, of course, but also responsible are those who watched, and by some reports cheered on, the attack.
Shameful Actions in Richmond, California
Legally, nothing can be done to them because the law there only mandates eyewitnesses report a crime against a child under the age of 14. This unfortunate victim is 15.
I blame faulty parenting for failing to instill the basic idea that if you see a crime in progress you call the cops! To paraphrase the old saying, evil triumphs when good men (and women) do nothing.
As a nation we fail our kids in many ways. We continue to look past all sorts of troubled children. A recent FBI sweep arrested 700 people suspected of trafficking American children into prostitution. 52 kids were saved, the youngest just 10 years old.
We’ve got to try harder to keep kids from being pulled into this desperate, criminal world in the first place.
Numbers are difficult to come by but it’s believed police get reports of about 1.6 million children running away from home every year. Many return, voluntarily, within a short period of time but there are countless others who are chronic run-aways, children whose home life is so horrific they’d rather take their chances on the streets.
A Helping Hand or an Iron Fist?
We often know who these kids are but communities haven’t made it a priority to protect those minors whose parents have fallen down on the job due to drug abuse, mental illness or other of life’s maladies. These kids didn’t wake up one morning and decide, “Gee, I think I’ll run away.” Children who are loved and cared for do not leave home.
Once on the street the most popular way of earning a living is prostitution.
Kidnapped at 11, Kruzan Dies in Prison
Case in point: 11 year old Sara Kruzan. She was raised in Riverside, California by a drug addicted, abusive mother. When a 31 year old neighborhood man named G.G. befriended Sara, plied her with attention and gifts and began grooming her for a life of prostitution she was too young to realize what was happening. By the age of 13 this honor roll student and aspiring writer had lost her virginity to G.G. and he had turned her out onto the streets. No one stopped him. Ultimately, things got so abusive Sara killed her pimp, was convicted of 1st degree murder and sentenced to life without possibility of parole. This 11 year old victim had been transformed into hard-core criminal status in just 5 short years. She’s condemned to die behind bars.
This is not an isolated case. In the United States there are nearly 2300 boys and girls convicted of crimes and serving “life without” as they call it. Amnesty International reports in the rest of the world combined there are just 12 children serving such sentences. A disproportionate number of these juvenile offenders are members of a minority group.
In other words, America seems okay with condemning children, many who were victimized first, to die in prison with absolutely no chance of ever having a full, free life.
I’m not okay with that.
Kids Here For Life - Okay With You?
Currently, 42 states allow children to be sentenced to prison without the possibility of ever being released. Judges have no discretion in these states; they must sentence these kids to the max. Only eight states – New Mexico, New York, West Virginia, Maine, Kentucky, Kansas, Colorado and Alaska – and the District of Columbia have banned “life without” for juveniles. There’s a bill pending in California, which imprisons 227 of these unfortunate convicts, but it’s not clear it will pass.
For Sara Kruzan, who is now 29 years old, the change would be welcome but it means she’d still have to serve at least a dozen more years before it would apply to her. She’s expressed true remorse for her crime, she’s dedicated her time behind bars to further. ing her education and she’s reported to be a model prisoner. Doesn’t she deserve some sort of break in her life?
If we don’t deal with the needs of kids like Sara from the get-go we’ll likely have to deal with them later in their scarred lives. If they are, indeed, part of our future we’re all in deep trouble.
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
Creators Syndicate Reader David H. writes:
“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other. ~ John Adams
It has been over 40 years since the government banned The 10 Commandments from being displayed in schools. The assault on the Christian values has now led to a valueless society. And yet, we still wonder, “Why are our children (fill in the blank).”
When we initiate a law or program that penalizes parents for the crimes committed by their children, we will begin to see a change. Parents will pay more attention to what their children are involved in. If it is clear that the parent contributed to the crime thought negligence then perhaps both of them should serve the time behind bars together. Unfortunately in the case of Sara Kruzan our judicial system seemingly did not do enough research to understand that it is the pimp that should be placed behind bars…not the children who are used by the pimp.
Dear David,
The 10 Commandments are good – but certainly not unique. Not even the first. Hammurabi did a pretty good job of creating a legal code before Moses – and came up with the stone table idea as well – about 1,800 BC. The 10 Commandments belong in a church. Children belong in school.
Right now around the world, there are about 100 minors serving prison sentences of life without parole for crimes other than murder. All them in the United States. About 70 of them in Florida.
I knew after you researched this case, you would have a loud “Voice for Justice!” Great column, you up for going LIVE on “Voices for Justice?” Check e-mail, going to send you a note.
Kudos Diane!
Facebook Friend Annie H. writes:
“Diane, this is great. reminds me of the study I worked on years ago that resulted in a paper that I authored/w George Chrousos. Definately one of my hot buttons..rather than throwing money at our societal problems and building bigger prisons, we should be ‘treating the issues at the source’ effectively, at the root, at childhood. it’s tragic. so … Read Moreterrible. heartbreaking area to venture in…spent eighteen months doing nothing but constant immersion to fully understand how crime, abuse, fatal battery, sexual crime, psychosocial issues, battery – how they’re actually related to early trauma – it’s shocking to piece it together and even more shocking to learn WHY the US refuses to deal with it. it comes down to kids and how they don’t produce for the economy.
nice job, Diane. always enjoy your material.”
Sara killed her pimp to get away from that kind of life and back to what she remembered? Good for her! The idiot judges and do-gooders that sentenced her because of a pimp that was no good whatsoever to society are the problem. I know how to spell rehabilitation…..how come they forgot?
Diane
We have spoke about this over the years I’ve known you. Nothing has changed , it just seems to get worse with our youth being victims or being the ones who are victimizing. I told you about a local reporter asking a 3rd grade class in inner city Baltimore ” how many kids know someone who’s been shot”, 28 out of 32 of that group raised their hands. I wonder what life have in store for these babies whom the scars of there neighborhood will linger for a lifetime. I also wonder is there a Sara in that 3rd grade class.
I transcribe notes for a psychiatric facility. We get our share of addicts, alcoholics and mental illness. With the young who have anger issues, it is often because of divorce, with mom and dad having new families with other people. A lot of rage happens around this type of separation. However, when I hear the story of people who began abusing drugs at a ridiculously young age, or has made several attempts at suicide beginning at a young age, the worse the story is, the less surprised I am to find that they have a history of being sexual abused. The worse the story, invariably there is a history of abuse or molestation. In one case, baby girl was molested by dad until 3, mom divorced, then hooked up with the new boyfriend who molests the 6 year old child, Boyfriend is arrested, serves time, gets out and mom marries molester. Girl attempts from the age of 9 on to commit suicide or succumb to the numbness of drugs. In her early 20s, she is an addict, a prostitute, and all-around wreck who has no clue that she was the victim here. When very young people try to commit suicide, I can pretty much predict they were molested. When a 9-year-old tries to hang themselves, that tells you the level of their despair. These stories are disturbingly not that rare in my psychiatric world. It is a terrible indictment on parents, sometimes of caretakers including priests, and society at large, with the sexualization of children on TV, in advertisements. Children are all too often objectified and it is happening more these days in very outrageous ways, such as A&F or Lauren or Klein ads. They kill the soul of childhood for what, to sell a pair of skin tight jeans?
Nancy,
I am so grateful that you wrote. You said it better than I ever could. We have to start tending to our children better than we do. ~DD
Diane, Whats wrong with our kids? When the F word becomes a vital part of their conversation…just about every film on the big screen or somewhere on cable and violence is also a vital part of everything they go to see….what do you expect? I can’t look at a young girl…anywhere from 11 on up….with a nice or emerging figure without wondering what her moral compass looks like. What do they do to please the boys? What do the boys expect? A teacher has sex with a 14 year old? Didn’t have any teachers like that back in the 40s and 50s did they? Take away the F word and Kathy Griffin is mute…no act. And, of course, her fans thinks she is hilarious. I think she is pure garbage…as is Springer and Povich…the slime, scumbags of TV. The kids watch. What do you expect them to do? Act out what they see…what is pounded into them. Springer lives nearby in Sarasota. I’m ashamed to admit it.
Even the great Jeff Dunham has hit little stuffed friends going with the cuss words now and then. He has thrown in the towel too. Just imagine if they were stupid enough to remake Gone With The Wind…what Rhett would say now to Scarlett at the end. He doesn’t give a what? But I do give a damn, dammit. Don Blair, NBC News, retired.
Greetings, all
As was mentioned above, the removal of God from schools is clearly one of the main sources of this abominable situation. But it seem clear that there are other factors like the parents, the media, the peers, etc.
I also concur entirely with “Nancy”, as I believe this is a far larger problem than most are aware of.
Ms. Cruzan may have committed a “crime”, but what about the “mitigating circumstances?” If I’m on that jury, she doesn’t do one day in jail, because I rate pimps just above child molesters, and this fellow allegedly was both. Let’s not just have a death sentence for these monsters, but let all appeals be fast tracked – as in, all done within one year or less.
May Ms. Kruzan be given another chance by the very same powers that put her in prison in the first place. Seems “just” to me …
I, too, work in a psychiatric facility but am an RN. I have worked in the psychiatric field for some time now with adults and I can agree with the writer above on one count.Many young adults come to us addicts of Meth which is relatively new to long term drug use and we cannot yet predict the long term effect on the addicts brain . they go into a different kind of psychosis than a biopsychosis such as bi-polar or schtizophrenia. This illness completely eliminates impulse control and the person is in such a fixed manic phase it is nearly impossible to remove.They are all very violent and they strike without provocation even frightening their own kind.I can tell you one other thing yes they all have a history of abuse in the family that lead to their drug use.
As useful as the Ten Commandments are they are of no help in these situations. A return to God is impossible for those that have never known Him to begin with. Most child molesters report being molested by the most pious of molesters using God to frighten the child further. I can only tell you that from my observation nothing can stop most of what is happening and all we can do is treat it when it does. I know it sounds almost hopeless but that is a direct observation from someone in those trenches