One MST supervisor’s call for treating our youth with empathy
When I tell new people what I do, I inevitably get “the face.” You know which one I’m talking about, the one that comes right before someone is going to disclose their disapproval of something. The face is most commonly followed by some version of “Well, they did a bad thing, and they need to be punished for their actions, right?”
Since starting to work in this field, I have learned so much. The biggest lesson for me has been about privilege, justice and how the environment impacts our youth. Sure, I read the books in college and graduate school, but being in this job, I have seen this play out in front of my eyes. A few days ago, I was covering a case for one of the therapists on the team I supervise. The case took me to a low-income neighborhood in New York City. As I strolled down the street, I was thinking about the session I had just had with the exasperated parent. She had shared her own history of trauma so severe it is hard to imagine how anyone manages to function afterward. People were standing on street corners catching up with neighbors, and the sun made their smiles a little extra contagious. Three boys were throwing a basketball back and forth, while a little girl, maybe 3 years old, was running after the ball trying to catch it before it reached the next boy, giggling all the while.
Suddenly, four loud, rippling bangs pierced the spring air, and for a second, everything stopped. I turned toward the sound, wondering if fireworks were going off. Two seconds later, I realized that the group of people around me had a very different reaction. One man darted through the door of the corner store, which he had casually leaned against two seconds earlier. One of the boys grabbed the little girl’s hand. A woman slid behind the man she was just speaking to, pulling her child with her. He, on the other hand, had instinctively positioned his entire arm in front of the child, the same way you do when you suddenly have to make a sharp stop in your car and your child is in the passenger seat next to you.
Kids are caught in the quagmire of their environment
In the lottery of life, I was fortunate enough to grow up under circumstances where my interpretation of the world allows my instincts to be curious about loud noises. Those around me that day had probably been shaped by other circumstances where sudden sharp noises could mean danger. I am relating all this to say that juvenile justice cannot be a dichotomy between guilt or innocence, punishment or “leniency.” I am calling for empathy for the youth out there who live in a world where there are a lot more threats than most of us experience in a lifetime, and the odds are stacked up against them from the get-go.
Take a look at sociologist Alice Goffman’s TEDTalk on how two institutions shape young people’s lives: college and prison.
Listen to Chuck and Tim’s story, and for a minute, attempt to put yourself in their shoes and take Alice’s challenge to think a little more broadly.
“Right now, we’re asking kids who live in the most disadvantaged neighborhood, who have the least amount of family resources, who are attending the country’s worst schools, who are facing the toughest time in the labor market, who are living in neighborhoods where violence is an everyday problem—we’re asking these kids to walk the thinnest possible line. To basically never do anything wrong. Why are we not providing support to young kids facing these challenges? Why are we only offering handcuffs, jail time and this fugitive existence? Can we imagine something better? Can we imagine a criminal-justice system that prioritizes recovery, prevention, inclusion, rather than punishment?”
Can we? Can we imagine offering these kids and their families the opportunity to participate in programs like Multisystemic Therapy or other evidence-based practices to give them a chance? To try youth as juveniles and not adults?
Can we take this beyond imagining to reality? Let’s hope so.
Sarah Johansson is an MST Supervisor at Little Flower Children and Family Services in New York.
To learn how MST is combatting racial disparity in the juvenile justice system, download this white paper.
