Fuck the 'Scared Straight' program!

[Fuckthesystem]

Quote:the 16-year-old Santa Ana boy, Joel, skipped hundreds of days in his first two years of high school, until ditching caught up with him and an Orange County judge gave him another simple choice -- school or jail.

"I didn't want to get locked up," Joel said after a recent court appearance to check on his progress. "Being scared about that made me get over being embarrassed about how I couldn't keep up in school."

The county's 3-year-old truancy court program is one of many launched across the country in the last few years -- "scared-straight" operations in which students can be tossed into juvenile hall for ditching school and parents can be ordered to attend class with their children.

The results, advocates say, have been impressive, yielding dozens of success stories like Joel's.

Students and their parents are referred to the program after they fail to respond to other interventions, including threatening notes from school, group presentations by a county prosecutor and meetings with school administrators.

After making a contract with the judge, promising to go to school to avoid jail, they appear monthly to discuss their progress. After six months to a year of visits, prosecutors can dismiss the case if they feel the students have formed good habits.

The court program emphasizes intervention over punishment, although the latter still comes into play. Some chronic ditchers quickly reform when their parents must miss work and attend classes with them. Others find themselves in juvenile hall.

The man who handles the truancy court program, Presiding Judge of Juvenile Court Robert B. Hutson, has an office stuffed with SpongeBob SquarePants memorabilia but transforms from teddy bear to tyrant in just seconds.

"I'm going to ruin your Christmas," Hutson scolded a 17-year-old boy during a recent morning of progress hearings. School attendance reports showed the teen had attended only one day in four weeks and had been spending the rest of the time with his girlfriend and their two children.

The judge ordered his bailiff to lock the boy up, and the teen spent the next hour sitting in a courtroom chair, wiping away tears with his cuffed hands while Hutson handled other cases.

At one point, the judge pointed at the boy and shook his head. "He came in here acting so tough, looking so cool," the judge said. "Now he's sitting there crying like a big punk."

The "tough love" approach is needed when it comes to students who simply refuse to go to school, the judge said later.

"I do what parents should be doing," he said.

But he recognizes that other issues often contribute to a truant child: learning disabilities, single mothers unable to handle their children or abuse or addiction by family members or by the students themselves. He has called for children to be taken from their parents, for the parents to pay hefty fines or attend parenting skills classes or for students to enroll in drug and alcohol rehabilitation programs.

"This should be called Dysfunctional Family Court, not truancy court," Hutson said. He sympathizes with children in difficult situations but maintains that nothing should keep them from attending school.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Susan Riezman said that pursuing truancy cases differed greatly from typical criminal cases.

"It's definitely a different kind of role for a prosecutor," she said. "The goal is not punishment, it's trying to get the kids back in school."

It took Joel, the Santa Ana boy with the learning disability, a few months to get the message. Like other students interviewed for this story, the name used is not his real first name because he is a juvenile.

Joel came in for his progress hearing wearing baggy clothes, a stud in each ear and a wide grin. He had good reason: He'd been going to school regularly, and even a fight that got him suspended for five days didn't dim Hutson's enthusiasm.

"You're on your way," the judge said. "Don't worry; we'll get you in to those special ed classes you need. I've got your back."

Another student fared the best when Riezman, who handles truancy cases full time, requested that charges be dropped against him. She showed the judge a letter from a teacher who originally wrote that the 17-year-old Yorba Linda boy belonged in custody but now was calling the teen a model student.

"This is not the young man I met at first," Hutson said as the boy's mother cried from happiness. "Case dismissed, and I'm out of your life."

After leaving the hearing, the teen said the judge's tactics had worked. Before truancy court, Robert said, all he cared about was getting drunk or high. Even coming to court didn't faze him at first, not until Hutson ordered him locked up in juvenile hall for three hours.

Then Robert made a deal with the judge, promising to spend a month in rehab then start going to school again. For the last five months, he's been in school nearly every day.

"Being scared turned him around," his mother said. "The judge puts the fear factor out there, but he also gives a lot of praise when it's deserved."

There are lots of second and third chances too. The boy Hutson had locked up that morning was released an hour later, after promising that he would live with his father and attend school.

"You have to do what I tell you to do," Hutson told him. "You have no choice. You are a child. But if I hear you're not going to school, I will come and get you, boy."

The program seems to work. Of the roughly two dozen students Hutson sees each month, nearly all improve their behavior within six months. At least two teens who started the program with dismal attendance records and several failing grades made up the work and were on track to graduate this spring.

Other cities have embraced the approach, with more on the way. There are programs similar to Orange County's in Buffalo, N.Y.; Lansing, Mich.; and Kansas City, Mo. School and court officials in Baltimore and St. Louis hope to launch truancy courts by the time the new school year starts.

Still, Hutson worries that when the state grant that provided seed money to start the Orange County program expires, cash-strapped school districts won't be able to fund it. The judge plans to appeal to school officials to donate the funds, arguing that the program saves the district money by putting students back in the classroom.

Orange County school officials are optimistic that funding will be found.

"I don't know right now where that money would come from, but people are not going to want to give up a program with such positive effects due to lack of funding," said Georgiann Boyd, coordinator of students services for the Orange County Department of Education and a member of the countywide Truancy Response Committee.

Boyd also acknowledged the powerful effect court intervention had on truant children.

"School personnel don't carry the same weight as law enforcement," Boyd said. "Believe me, we try everything at our level to get the kids back in school before going to the courts, but for those egregious cases where we've tried everything, now we have something that has guaranteed impact."

While this kid wasn't the best, it just goes to show what lengths the system will go to to get their money.

Fucking fascists.

[classclown]

if i was the kid id ask what the difference is.

[returnal]

How is it so good to scare the hell out of someone just so you can get your way?

Fucking fascists.

[Sunbourn]

These people are out of there minds! How can you even consider jailing somebody for making their own decisions? Let the kids live their lives. We're much better off without their interference.

[Swift]

This is my county too. 0.o

Doesn't surprise me a bit. My county education system is fucking retarded. We spent millions of dollars to build a Multiple Acre building for the administrators!

[Jackass McAwesome]

... So instead of trying to figure out WHY he's skipping, they're just going to threaten him with jailtime? Dear God, with these idiots around, we're NEVER going to get anything done.

[Fuckthesystem]

This is basically what SARB is.

It's exactly like this. And i'll be damned if i'm going to let them get away with it!

Also, what really caught my attention far into the read was this line right here:

Quote:"You have to do what I tell you to do," Hutson told him. "You have no choice. You are a child. But if I hear you're not going to school, I will come and get you, boy."

That's just plain evil.

This is what makes me want to fight, and it reminds me why I NEED to fight. All of us do.

[Swift]

Fuckthesystem Wrote:This is basically what SARB is.

It's exactly like this. And i'll be damned if i'm going to let them get away with it!

Also, what really caught my attention far into the read was this line right here:

Quote:"You have to do what I tell you to do," Hutson told him. "You have no choice. You are a child. But if I hear you're not going to school, I will come and get you, boy."

That's just plain evil.

This is what makes me want to fight, and it reminds me why I NEED to fight. All of us do.

I can kill him, he's in my county. (To the government worker reading this: j/k, I'm being lulzy.)

Also, QFT.

[SoulRiser]

Link to original article plz? Wanna shove it in News.

[Sociopath]

Fuckthesystem Wrote:This is basically what SARB is.

It's exactly like this. And i'll be damned if i'm going to let them get away with it!

Also, what really caught my attention far into the read was this line right here:

Quote:"You have to do what I tell you to do," Hutson told him. "You have no choice. You are a child. But if I hear you're not going to school, I will come and get you, boy."

That's just plain evil.

This is what makes me want to fight, and it reminds me why I NEED to fight. All of us do.

...and fight them we shall!

[Thought Crimnal]

what a fucking disgrace. What this guy needs is a shotgun in his moth to scare him straight.

Quote:Huston even takes away the children

How in the FUCK is this going to help? If anything it will make it worse by putting the kids in foster homes and everyone knows how great those things are.

Quote:makes he kids take parenting classes or fines the parents

You could be the best parent in the world but you would HAVE to miss school. There is no way in hell that you can parent and to to school at the same time. And WTF is up with fines? Yeah fining the parents who I'm sure are already quite poor, and taking away they're money is very benificial to the kid and the parents. What fucking morons.

The one that really stuck out at me was the "I'm an adult and your a child and you will listen to me" bullshit. Fucking fascists.
I'm going to fight these bastards tooth and nail.

[Sociopath]

Sounds Fun, I'll Join You!

LETS KICK SOME ASS!

[Fuckthesystem]

SoulRiser Wrote:Link to original article plz? Wanna shove it in News.

http://articles.latimes.com/2005/jan/10 ... -truancy10


There you go. Please do so. This is a big on-going issue.

[SoulRiser]

... 2005. It's actually pretty old news. But I'll post it anyway.

[Amortisatie]

Quote:"You have to do what I tell you to do," Hutson told him. "You have no choice. You are a child. But if I hear you're not going to school, I will come and get you, boy."

I would have backslapped him across the face, then tazered him while laughing maniacally

[Elfy]

This guy need a fucking slap.

If he tried to get me I'd almost kill him with my lead pipe <3

"You have to do what I tell you to do," Hutson told him. "You have no choice. You are a child. But if I hear you're not going to school, I will come and get you, boy."

What...The...Fuck?

[Sociopath]

Matty's back!

u hasn't post in forev!

[Trar]

This travesty should not go unpunished.

[NowhereWoman]

WHAT THE FUCK!?!
Okay, I needed to get THAT out.

SHIT!~
Okay, I'm still spurting obscenities...
My junior high went through a whole assembly talking about the truancy program, and how if you didn't go to school and were truant, than they could get the cops to go and get you, and they'd take you to school, regardless of what you were wearing or doing or whatever.
What if you were nekkid?
That would make a statement.

But, seriously I'm sick of people thinking that they can talk to a truant student like they'd talk to a child molester or a murderer.

I mean, I can't think of making a kid cry and saying, 'yeah, you cry, you should be sad and miserable for what you did.'

Can I think of saying that about a murderer, a pedophile, a rapist? Sure!
THose bastards did inhuman things, and if they're going to cry to save their skins then you know what? I'm not showing them any sympathy.

But a truant high schooler who's trying to find himself and deal with the shit at home and not get in trouble and look tough and all the shit we go through?
No way!
and note, there's only one word in that sentence that makes that one kid different from any straight A student in a school. That is the word 'truant' before the title highschooler.
That's what's fucked.

[Trekkie_Aspie]

Of course it stinks:

A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.

[AnonymousDragonkin]

These are the the kind of things that make me go "what the fuck?"

Quote:"You have to do what I tell you to do," Hutson told him. "You have no choice. You are a child. But if I hear you're not going to school, I will come and get you, boy."

Sounds like an abused child who grew up and became a lawyer. What a loser.

[Aya]

Quote:"School personnel don't carry the same weight as law enforcement," Boyd said. "Believe me, we try everything at our level to get the kids back in school before going to the courts, but for those egregious cases where we've tried everything, now we have something that has guaranteed impact."

Until you come across a truant that knows the legal definition of the phrase 'status offence'.

"You better go to school boy, or we'll send you to jail!"
"Oooh 14 months in juvy, I'm so scarred"

[Trar]

Quote:"You have to do what I tell you to do," Hutson told him. "You have no choice. You are a child. But if I hear you're not going to school, I will come and get you, boy."

HEY YOU ASSHOLE! KIDS ARE PEOPLE! YOU HEAR THAT, YOU COCKSUCKING AGEIST ASSHOLE?! KIDS ARE ACTUAL FUCKING PEOPLE! SURE, THEY MIGHT BE SLIGHTLY SMALLER THAN YOU, BUT A PERSON IS A PERSON, NO MATTER HOW MOTHERFUCKING SMALL! YOU OBVIOUSLY DIDN'T FUCKING KNOW THAT! YOU FUCKING GODDAMN PIECE OF MONKEY DIARRHEA! SO THAT MEANS YOU HAVE ABSOLUTELY. NO. FUCKING. RIGHT WHATSOEVER TO ORDER THEM AROUND JUST BECAUSE THEY'RE FUCKING "MINOR" IN YOUR EYES! AND IF YOU FUCKING SO MUCH AS THINK ABOUT LOOKING AT HIM, I WILL FUCKING RAPE YOU WITH A RED-HOT PIECE OF REBAR, THEN SLOWLY DEEP-FRY YOU IN A VAT OF WHITE-HOT OIL, AND CUT YOU OPEN AND FEED YOUR INSIDES TO CANNIBALS, AND LET A PACK OF RABID, STARVING CHIHUAHUAS CHOMP ON YOUR SMELLY DIRTY FUCKING PENIS, AND FEED YOUR BALLS TO A SWEDISH HOMOSEXUAL, AND I WILL VIOLENTLY AND GLEEFULLY YOUR BLACK, EVIL, CORRUPTED FUCKING AGEIST BASTARD HEART TO A FUCKING WOOD-GRINDER WHILE YOU'RE STILL FUCKING ALIVE! THEN I'LL CHOP OFF YOUR HEAD AND SERVE IT TO THE CANNIBALS AS DESSERT, AND THROW YOU INTO A PIT OF SPIKES! YOU HEAR THAT?! FUCK YOU, AND FUCK YOUR FACE, AND FUCK YOUR SHIT, AND FUCK YOUR MOM, AND FUCK YOUR DAD, AND FUCK YOUR BROTHER, AND FUCK YOUR SISTER, AND FUCK YOUR CAT, AND FUCK YOUR DOG, AND FUCK YOUR UNDERFED CHINESE GOLDFISH! OH, AND FUCK YOU!

[Sociopath]

CAPS LOCK IS CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOL!

[Fuckthesystem]

Trar Wrote:

Quote:"You have to do what I tell you to do," Hutson told him. "You have no choice. You are a child. But if I hear you're not going to school, I will come and get you, boy."

HEY YOU ASSHOLE! KIDS ARE PEOPLE! YOU HEAR THAT, YOU COCKSUCKING AGEIST ASSHOLE?! KIDS ARE ACTUAL FUCKING PEOPLE! SURE, THEY MIGHT BE SLIGHTLY SMALLER THAN YOU, BUT A PERSON IS A PERSON, NO MATTER HOW MOTHERFUCKING SMALL! YOU OBVIOUSLY DIDN'T FUCKING KNOW THAT! YOU FUCKING GODDAMN PIECE OF MONKEY DIARRHEA! SO THAT MEANS YOU HAVE ABSOLUTELY. NO. FUCKING. RIGHT WHATSOEVER TO ORDER THEM AROUND JUST BECAUSE THEY'RE FUCKING "MINOR" IN YOUR EYES! AND IF YOU FUCKING SO MUCH AS THINK ABOUT LOOKING AT HIM, I WILL FUCKING RAPE YOU WITH A RED-HOT PIECE OF REBAR, THEN SLOWLY DEEP-FRY YOU IN A VAT OF WHITE-HOT OIL, AND CUT YOU OPEN AND FEED YOUR INSIDES TO CANNIBALS, AND LET A PACK OF RABID, STARVING CHIHUAHUAS CHOMP ON YOUR SMELLY DIRTY FUCKING PENIS, AND FEED YOUR BALLS TO A SWEDISH HOMOSEXUAL, AND I WILL VIOLENTLY AND GLEEFULLY YOUR BLACK, EVIL, CORRUPTED FUCKING AGEIST BASTARD HEART TO A FUCKING WOOD-GRINDER WHILE YOU'RE STILL FUCKING ALIVE! THEN I'LL CHOP OFF YOUR HEAD AND SERVE IT TO THE CANNIBALS AS DESSERT, AND THROW YOU INTO A PIT OF SPIKES! YOU HEAR THAT?! FUCK YOU, AND FUCK YOUR FACE, AND FUCK YOUR SHIT, AND FUCK YOUR MOM, AND FUCK YOUR DAD, AND FUCK YOUR BROTHER, AND FUCK YOUR SISTER, AND FUCK YOUR CAT, AND FUCK YOUR DOG, AND FUCK YOUR UNDERFED CHINESE GOLDFISH! OH, AND FUCK YOU!

Amen.

[returnal]

Trar Wrote:AND I WILL VIOLENTLY AND GLEEFULLY YOUR BLACK, EVIL, CORRUPTED FUCKING AGEIST BASTARD HEART

that's racist

[Sociopath]

Newtown Wrote:

Trar Wrote:AND I WILL VIOLENTLY AND GLEEFULLY YOUR BLACK, EVIL, CORRUPTED FUCKING AGEIST BASTARD HEART

that's racist

he's right, saying 'black' as evil IS racist, but other than that its good

[Jackass McAwesome]

TrueAnarchist Wrote:CAPS LOCK IS CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOL!

Ah-hah~

For once, TA, I agree with you.

If you were being sarcastic.

[AWOL]

Quote:Until you come across a truant that knows the legal definition of the phrase 'status offence'.

Hey! I truant and I have a larger vocabulary then most of the teachers in my district! So stop generalizing, it's one of the reasons this is happening in the first place, don't you realize that that kind of behavior merely traps us in a cycle!?

Anyway, the scared straight program is apparently easy to avoid if you know how...

[Sociopath]

Oni-Chiisu Wrote:

TrueAnarchist Wrote:CAPS LOCK IS CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOL!

Ah-hah~

For once, TA, I agree with you.

If you were being sarcastic.

No, I are serious