Thaddeus Johnson

Just like it's unfair to also throw it all on the parents.

Right.

You know, these kids are our kids.

And so, first of all, I will work to try to change that thinking.

So you need to have things like the safe passage program, which is some of our preliminary work.

What we found is that it shows that it appears to keep juveniles safer.

Particularly, we know that juvenile crime doesn't happen in their whole neighborhoods.

And so, first of all,

all, we have to stop treating it like it's just a home community thing or where they live.

It's about where they go.

It's also providing activities for them and not things like midnight basketball because there's selection effect.

The kids that were not going to get in trouble anyway are going to be the kids that are going to be in midnight basketball.

The troublemakers are going to come there and make trouble or go somewhere else.

So we can't just lean on it.

But things like jobs and maybe expanding juvenile jobs beyond the summer, right?

This is a capitalistic society and it really sucks that

not to have an economic identity.

You have to help them get on a path in that way and treat them like people, but also understand that you all are still developing and need guidance.

And so we have to make sure that we provide a village around these kids.

And you have carrots and sticks.