All day conference brings together diverse fields in look at youth in trouble. 

"I made a mistake," Brenda Olive stated. "I made a wrong choice, I know. I tried to sell drugs to make money." She paused to wipe tears from her cheeks. "I was not a drug user. Most people think that people who go to prison are bad people. I'm one of those people they call bad people."  

Speaking to an audience of over eighty people, Ms. Olive related her story as part of a day long conference sponsored by the Drug Policy Education Group, Inc. Featuring a host of speakers who addressed a wide variety of topics related to at-risk youth in the state, "Arkansas Youth in Trouble: What Works, What's Needed, and Where's the Money?" brought together school counselors, social workers, educators, medical professionals, and youth advocates for interactive sessions all day Saturday November 18 at the Riverfront Hilton in North Little Rock. 

"I always thought families were something that happened," Brenda Olive continued. "I never found one of those. I've been on a journey, looking for family. I was given away at two months to a lady who was very abusive. I married, had children, divorced and remarried and had another set of children. With the second set of children, my husband was an alcoholic and became very ill. A few months after became ill, I found out my nine year old child had cancer. 

"So I went along on this journey, looking for family. In 1982 they told me there was nothing else they could do for either one. I took a leave of absence from my job and took care of my daughter at home. My husband died and my daughter died a month later. I was about to lose the house and everything was sold.  

"I made a wrong choice. I sold some drugs and went to prison. I was there seven months... I had a 17-year-old who went to Central. She stood in for me. Six years later, after we were in counseling, I found out what had happened while I was gone. One had been sexually abused. One had had an abortion. One had been beaten. All this came out when I was already feeling bad that I had made wrong choices.  

"So what do I do? I tried apologizing, I tried everything, still my son continued to get into trouble. I feel like he was seeking some kind of help which at that time I didn't understand.  The journey continued. Now I'm raising one of his children. He's incarcerated.  

"I feel like there is a breakdown in the system -- when you've been to prison, when you've been what society calls a bad person, you can't work -- Right now, I have not made wrong choices. I became disabled. I've lost another house. But this time, I've just lost.  

"I've had people call me who've been free and had no crime since the 70s, and a background check is done and they lose their job. I think there should be some type of cut off point that if you get out of prison and stay crime free five to ten years, something should be done when you have proved yourself.  

"Where society has bad people right now is, you can't get work, you can't get welfare, you can't get housing. What do we do?"  

Citing Arkansas' welfare reform as one of the harshest in the nation, the following speaker, Dee Ann Newell, commented on the "outrageous" treatment of the state's disenfranchised populations. 

"Two million people incarcerated in this country, making us history's greatest jailer ever for mankind... In 1991 when we started our prison programs through the Centers (the Centers for Families and Children), we had about 200 women in the Pine Bluff unit. Then in 1994, they moved the women to Tucker because there were too many, over 400. In 1998, we moved the women to Newport, to the first for-profit prison in our state.  And there are 685 beds at that unit. Then there are another 250 women backed up in our jails waiting for openings at the prison. 

Ms. Newell makes weekly visits to three prisons in the state, working under a Rockefeller grant which supports her work with incarcerated parents and their children. She stated that part of the problem is the failed war on drugs.

"Eighty percent of all women in prison are mothers of minor children. In the state of Arkansas, the average age of these children is six years. The average age of the mothers is 29. Seventy percent of women in prison are there on either direct drug charges or drug related crimes like hot checks," Newell said.

"We stiffened the penalties for these crimes so much that some of these women are serving an average of 49 months. Right now there's a woman -- first time offender -- hot check charge -- and she got five years. 

"In the name of the public, we have harshened these sentences. At the same time, the public is going to pay. It costs money to house people in prison, but beyond that there is a hidden cost, which is the cost these children are paying.  

"The children of incarcerated parents -- these are the children who are most vulnerable to get into trouble, to go to prison -- they carry a five times greater risk factor than all other groups of children. 

"When we look at incarcerated women, we see women who are disproportionately women of color, women of poverty with an average household income of less than $500. We see women of addiction. These are women of low educational attainment. Most of these women report a childhood history of sexual and physical abuse, and an adult history of being a victim of domestic violence." 

Ms. Newell's comments ended with a call to action for citizens and legislators to impose a moratorium on new prison construction in the state, a theme picked up during the luncheon address by guest speaker Wendell Griffen, Justice of the Arkansas Court of Appeals and Pastor at Emmanuel Baptist Church of Little Rock. 

"When you send a woman to prison who has children," Judge Griffen stated, "you are increasing the problem exponentially."  "Let's be honest. Prevailing views on drug policy are based in denial... focused on the dismal. Our policies are disjointed, drug users versus the rest of us. And our thinking leads to defeatism, using language such as "war on drugs." If you define the war by how much drugs you're keeping out and drugs are still coming in, you lose the war. Defeat. If you talk about how many people you stop from using drugs and people are still using drugs, that's defeat. Everybody's thinking about drug policy is what hasn't work, what isn't working, and how bad off things are.  

"I would like us to think outside the box, do some hopeful thinking about drug policy. I would suggest that we begin thinking about drug policy wholistically -- or holistically if you want.  People have issues about income, education, fulfillment...  

"We've treated  symptoms with our policies. We've treated drug addiction with incarceration. We haven't cured addicts.  

"Hopeful thinking needs to be redemptive. Much of our thinking has been punitive. We empower enforcement instead of rehabilitation. Surely we have learned by now that punitive approaches are not working.  

"Current overcrowding in our prisons gives us the opportunity to think that maybe we don't need to build any more prisons to house drug users. It's not stopping anything... If prison solved the situation we wouldn't have to keep building new ones, bigger ones, and making people pay for them. 

"I feel that as a judge I have an obligation to tell you what works. I tell you that longer prison sentences don't keep people from using drugs. We can liberate ourselves from the notion that longer prison sentences are going to solve this problem. 

"We need to insist on public policy that invests in what we want or we will get public policy that invests in what we don't want. I we want people to be treated and delivered from substance abuse and addiction, then we need to invest our time and money in those areas.  

"Building prisons to solve drug problem is like building cemeteries as an answer to cancer."  

Judge Griffen suggested a "tithe" of the prison budget be dedicated to pro-active programs such as youth intervention and family building.  "We've bought into a big bad lie," Judge Griffen concluded. In describing how jobs have moved from agriculture to industry and now to the new information age, he observed that Arkansas needed to replace jobs that had moved offshore. But instead of changing the educational system to prepare people for jobs in the new information age, "we decided to get new factories called prisons." 

Now, Judge Griffen continued, there are white communities that would never tolerate black or brown people moving in who will pay to build prisons that are populated with black and brown people. And this is because running a prison provides employment to the local white community.  

Speakers also addressed the importance of appropriate child care that stimulates emotional bonding and mental development (Sue Martin) and the implementation of effective interactions between teachers, counselors and other providers for troubled kids in elementary school (Tonya Childress). For children in teen years, there are effective intervention materials developed by Dr. Irene Lee at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, available through each county's cooperative extensive service office.  

Discussion included an overview of juvenile justice processes and shortcomings (April Rye and Juanita Jackson), and one panel was devoted to special problems that increase risk for kids, such as improper nutrition (Marilou Brodie), brain disorders (Joyce Soularie), and over-reaction to teenage behavior with "zero tolerance" policies (Rita Sklar). Of special concern are situations where young black males are singled out for disciplinary action at a much higher rate than young white males, even though the offending act may be the same (Dr. Wynona Bryant-Williams). 

One panel of speakers focused on new ideas for funding pro-active youth programs. Don Crary of New Futures for Youth described a Little Rock tax-based program that targets entire neighborhoods with facilities and programs that provide opportunities for young people to learn and contribute back to their communities. Since the implementation of the New Futures programs, crime rates among youth have dropped significantly. 

Geoff Oelsner described innovative intervention techniques for treating addiction that involve advanced types of meditation and other Buddhist methods. Denele Campbell explained  that money seized in drug arrests could provide an important new source of funding for pro-active programs and youth substance abuse treatment. Mike Huddleston discussed the correlation between lack of available substance abuse treatment programs and an increase in substance abuse. 

Question and answer periods and a concluding discussion were facilitated by Anne Murphy, who helped participants define specific objectives for future action, which included the creation of a resource guide that would help parents and service providers in each community be informed of programs and funding that are available.  

Many participants volunteered to network on activities that would include reform of state laws, such as alternative sentencing for nonviolent offenders and dedicating a percentage of the criminal justice budget to support prevention programs. 

Panelists

Panel I: Focus on the Early Years 

• Brenda Olive, formerly incarcerated mother

• Dee Ann Newell, M.A. Program Coordinator, Winthrop Rockefeller Public Education Program for Children of Incarcerated Parents, Centers for Families and Children, P. O. Box 251970, Little Rock AR 72225-1970; lujo@aristotle.net; 501-666-8686. 

• Sue Martin, PhD, ECE, MSHE, Child Development Center, P. O. Box 4106, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR 72702-4106; 501-575-4578.

• Tonya Childress, LSW, Social Worker, Jefferson Elementary School, Fayetteville, AR 72701; 501-444-3087. 

Panel II: Focus on the Teen Years

• Irene Lee, PhD., Extension Family and Child Development Specialist, University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, 1200 N. University Slot 4966, Pine Bluff AR 71601; 870-543-8530. 

• Juanita Jackson, LSW, Certified Juvenile Probation Officer, Southwest Arkansas Counseling and Mental Health Services, P. O. Box 234, Mineral Springs, AR 71851; 870-287-4878. 

• April Rye, Attorney Ad Litem, Washington County Juvenile Court, 41 E. Center, Fayetteville, AR 72701; 501-444-1739.  

Panel III: Special Problems

• Marilou Brodie, MS, RD, LD, Pediatric Nutrition Consultant, Arkansas Department of Health, 4815 W. Markham, Slot 23, Little Rock, AR 72205-3867; mbrodie@healthyarkansas.com; 501-661-2914.

• Joyce Soularie, Education Director, National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI-Arkansas), 712 W. 3rd, Suite 200, Little Rock AR 72201; nami-ar@nami.org; 1-800-844-0381. 

• Rita Sklar, Executive Director, Arkansas Chapter-ACLU, 904 W. 2nd, Suite 1, Little Rock AR 72201; 501-374-2842.

• Dr. Wynona Bryant-Williams, Director, Black Family Studies Program, Philander Smith College, 812 W. 13th Street, Little Rock 72202; 501-370-5243. 

Panel IV: Exploring Solutions

• Geoff Oelsner, LCSW, Clinical Social Workers and founder of Buddhist Meditation and Spiritual Support Group, 1451 Canterbury Road, Fayetteville AR 72701; 501-521-2395. 

• Denele Campbell, Executive Director, Drug Policy Education Group, 541 West Meadow, Fayetteville AR 72701; 479-839-2475.

• Don Crary, Executive Director, New Futures for Youth, 400 W. Markham, Suite 702, Little Rock AR 72201; 501-374-1011.

• Mike  Huddleston, formerly clinical director at Youth Bridge, 1702 Dick Smith, Springdale, AR 72764; hud@arkansas.net; 501-521-1532. 

Honored Guest, luncheon address: 

Wendell Griffen, Pastor Emmanuel Baptist Church and Justice, Arkansas Court of Appeals, 3323 W. 12th Street, Little Rock AR 72204; 501-666-6252. 

Facilitator:

Anne Murphy, MEd, LAC, in private practice at Sunbridge Counseling Associates, 65 E. Sunbridge Drive, Fayetteville AR 72703; 501-443-9707.