[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 124 (Wednesday, September 17, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1780-E1781]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       JUVENILE CRIME PREVENTION: SOUND POLICIES VS. SOUND BITES

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. JULIA CARSON

                               of indiana

                    in the house of representatives

                     Wednesday, September 17, 1997

  Ms. CARSON. Mr. Speaker, the following statement from the 
Indianapolis, IN, deputy chief of police is offered for insertion into 
the Congressional Record. Mr. Turner provides provocative thoughts and 
sensible responses to the challenges we face in ``Juvenile Crime 
Prevention: Sound Policies Vs. Sound Bites.''

       Juvenile Crime: Sound Policies vs. Sound Bite Issues Forum

                         (By Robert B. Turner)

       Ladies and gentleman, members of Congress, and fellow 
     panelists; I am truly honored to be here today, the 
     opportunity to address you and the opportunity to participate 
     in this forum is an opportunity of a lifetime for me. I have 
     been a member of The Indianapolis Police Department for 
     approximately twenty-five years and I have been a licensed 
     attorney for more than twelve years. During these often 
     conflicting and competitive professions, I have always held a 
     sincere and religious commitment to my fellow man; but, I 
     especially love children. I believe that children are the 
     most sincere and genuine people on earth. When I think of 
     children I often think of the biblical passage in the Book of 
     Luke, chapter 8,5. ``A sower went out to sow his seed: and as 
     he sowed, some fell by the way side; and it was trodden down, 
     and the fowls of the air devoured it. Some fell upon rock, 
     and as soon as it was sprung up, it withered away, because it 
     lacked moisture . . . And some fell among thorns; and the 
     thorns sprang up with it, and choked it . . . And some fell 
     on good ground, and sprang up, and bore fruit a 
     hundredfold.'' The topic of this forum is Juvenile Crime: 
     Sound Policies vs. Sound Bite Issues. The real question that 
     we are asking ourselves today is in fact ``Where Are We as a 
     Society, as a Community, Sowing Our Seeds?''
       In the city of Indianapolis we recently arrested a young 
     African-American male for murdering another young African-
     American male for the purpose of taking his tennis shoes. In 
     very similar incidents involving knives, guns, and other 
     deadly weapons, young people have committed homicides and 
     aggravated assaults while stealing items such as ``Starter 
     Jackets,'' ``Cheap gold chains,'' ``designer wheels on 
     cars,'' and other ego based articles.
       A young woman recently gave birth to an infant and 
     abandoned her newborn child inside of a latrine in an Indiana 
     State Park. The young lady left her living child in the 
     latrine; fortunately the child's life was saved by a stranger 
     who happened by.
       Another young mother assaulted and killed her infant child 
     because the child would not stop crying. In all major cities 
     throughout the nation, young people are being abandoned by 
     their parents, communities, schools, and governments and are 
     in fact being raised, educated, and motivated by television, 
     computer networks, nintendo games, violent movies, local 
     gangs, drug organizations, and experienced criminals. These 
     young people being products of their nonconventional 
     environments, are using drugs, selling drugs, resorting to 
     criminal behavior, resorting to violence; and they are being 
     arrested, imprisoned and warehoused at very young ages, and 
     for extended periods of time. So where in fact are we sowing 
     our seeds if more and more of our children are using drugs, 
     using deadly weapons, being murdered, or being arrested?
       There is a popular soft drink in America called the 
     ``Uncola''. It is transparent/clear and you can see right 
     through it. It would be totally invisible if it did not 
     contain the carbonation which creates and bubbles. I often 
     refer to the lost children of our nation, ``our lost seeds'' 
     as the ``the unchildren,'' ``the uns'' for short.
       They are un-cared for, un-supervised, un-supported, un-
     educated, un-employed, un-healthy, un-popular, un-
     cooperative, un-conventional, un-grateful, un-sympathetic, 
     and generally un-wanted. They are invisible in our society, 
     and but for their rebelliousness, ``their carbonation,'' we 
     would see right through them.
       I currently serve as the Deputy Chief of Police in the city 
     of Indianapolis and I supervise the Criminal Investigations 
     Division which includes units such as the Homicide Branch, 
     the Robbery Branch, Metro-Gang Task Force, Narcotics-Metro 
     Drug, Sex Crimes Unit, Domestic Violence Unit, White Collar 
     Crime Unit, the Vice Unit and the Juvenile Branch. When these 
     young people are brought into the criminal justice system 
     after being arrested and incarcerated by our officers, I 
     often ask myself ``What can I do with this child?'' The 
     standard, customary, typical, and conventional responses are 
     incarceration, home detention, probation, rehabilitation, and 
     recirculation. More often than not, it is simply too late; 
     ``Our seeds have fallen by the way side, they have been 
     trodden down, the fowls of the earth have devoured them, they 
     have withered away because they lacked moisture, the thorns 
     of the earth have choked them.''
       We as a society, we as a community, have foreclosed our 
     options because we have been careless, we have failed to do 
     as the Bible

[[Page E1781]]

     suggests, we have failed to sow our seeds on good ground. I 
     admire both the courage and the lasting wisdom of Dr. Martin 
     Luther King, Jr. I often think of and refer to the words of 
     Dr. King, in his famous ``Letter from Birmingham Jail,'' 
     because he spoke of a people ``smothering in an airtight cage 
     of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; of ominous 
     clouds of inferiority beginning to form in the little mental 
     sky of children; of observing the children as they begin to 
     distort their personalities by developing an unconscious 
     bitterness toward people who are different; and, of those 
     children forever fighting a degenerating sense of 
     nobodiness.'' Think about that word, ``Nobodiness.'' Does the 
     term ``Nobodiness'' apply to the young African-American male 
     that killed another young man for a pair of tennis shoes? 
     Does the term ``Nobodiness'' apply to the young woman who 
     delivered a living fetus alone in a secluded place and 
     immediately abandoned it, leaving her living child alone and 
     unloved, to die in a filthy latrine? Does the term 
     ``Nobodiness'' apply to young people all over this nation who 
     take up arms against their neighbors, former friends and 
     school mates in the name of gang honor, colors and 
     territories? Does the term ``Nobodiness'' apply when 
     educational institutions, governmental agencies, prospective 
     employers, and medical service providers treat certain people 
     with disrespect because of their nationality, poverty, color, 
     or ethnicity; or when individual law enforcement officers 
     acting under color of law, use inhumane methods, weapons, or 
     tools such as toilet plungers to ``Break a person down?'' To 
     break a person down to ``Nobodiness.''
       As an attorney and a law enforcement officer, I believe 
     that our society must develop both a desire and a plan that 
     allows us to sow our seeds upon good ground long before our 
     seeds are trodden down; long before our children develop this 
     degenerating sense of nobodiness; long before we invest in 
     the standardize methods of incarceration, probation, or 
     rehabilitation. Our plan, and our duty as leaders and parents 
     is to plant the seeds of ``Somebodiness'' in our children. 
     The seeds of ``justice,'' ``equality,'' ``education,'' 
     ``self-esteem,'' ``love,'' and ``opportunity,'' in ``all'' of 
     our children, not simply as individual parents of our 
     specific children, but as true sowers of all of God's seeds; 
     it truly takes a village to raise a child.
       We must raise our children on a solid foundation of love, 
     self-respect, parental commitment, education, opportunity, 
     family, community, character, and religion. We must plant our 
     seeds and our future on good ground. We must serve as 
     examples for our children, and we must nurture, support and 
     protect our children. We must invest our hearts and our 
     future in them long before the thorns of the earth choke them 
     out.
       Long before the drugs, guns, and gangs act to devour our 
     children's futures. When we act to care for our children as 
     God directed us to do, only then will they ``spring up and 
     bare fruit a hundred fold''; only then may we say that we are 
     truly sowers of God's seeds; only then may we say that we 
     have terminated the evils that drugs, guns, gangs, and crime 
     have visited upon our children, families, and communities. I 
     can proudly tell you that the children, the sick, the 
     elderly, the poor, the weak and the oppressed in the city of 
     Indianapolis and in the Tenth Congressional District, truly 
     have friend, a supporter, a good sower of seeds, and an 
     excellent Congressional Representative in the Honorable Julia 
     Carson, and based upon the history of the Congressional Black 
     Caucus, I know that all of the people in this great nation 
     have support, friendship, understanding, love and very good 
     ground in all of you. Thank you so much for this opportunity 
     to address you.

                          ____________________