Published: November 15, 2009 12:20 am      

Juvenile offenses on rise

Parents wrestle with issue

DANVILLE — Ten years ago, a listener monitoring a police scanner might hear few calls relating to adolescent domestic problems.

These days, it’s a different story, according to an area child psychologist.

Most evenings, area law enforcement is handling at least one juvenile offense per night — sometimes involving violent domestic disputes.

“Now, it’s a pretty routine part of (police work),” said Dr. Richard Elghammer, a Danville clinical psychologist for children and teens. “There’s no question this is happening all over. You’ve got something real. What’s going on is a lot of adolescents are in real need of psychiatric care.”

When police receive a call involving an out-of-control teen, they go to the scene to make sure no one has broken the law, Elghammer said. But the police simply showing up can’t be called a “successful intervention,” he added.

“The majority of these kids are not arrested. They’re not taken out of the home. They’re left there. This problem will mount and grow until something really bad happens.”

Elghammer calls the issue a “thermometer” measuring something very severe: a lack of psychiatric and mental health resources for a population desperately in need of it. He said the escalating number of incidents comes from several societal factors.

“We have a large group of adolescents who are very, very angry. The way they’re living on a daily basis is not working for them,” he said.

Some have drug or alcohol problems and others have negligent parents. Most have parents who don’t know what to do with them.

Elghammer described an example of a mother who has a 17-year-old son who outweighs her by 100 pounds or more. He threatens her with extreme violence if she doesn’t let him take the car. What is the mom supposed to do when she’s afraid of her own son?

Many of these problems start out like normal issues all parents deal with: kids staying out late, going out with friends they don’t approve of; not taking schoolwork seriously, etc. The kids escalate these everyday issues with threats of violence. Many of these suffer from disorders like clinical depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, oppositional disorder, to name a few, and there are few if any specialists in the area they can see, he said.

These problems are further complicated with unstable relationships between a mom and her boyfriend or other issues the parents are facing.

“A lot of these mothers are clueless on relationships with men or have substance abuse issues themselves,” Elghammer said.

Still others pick up messages from pop culture sources that say it’s OK to simply take what you want — no matter the consequences.

“(The child is) internally feeling guilt, and then he’s going out and smoking pot, drinking, doing drugs. … If they get probation, they don’t care,” Elghammer said.

Many kids in these situations are low income and lack good insurance, he added. For those who do seek psychiatric care, they go to Crosspoint Human Services or the Center for Children’s Services.

However, these tax dollar-dependant programs are strapped for funds and can’t handle the caseloads that come their way.

Often, they face lengthy wait times to see the doctors they need to, he said

“We need programs for these kids,” he said. “You can’t throw it into the lap of the police. ... You can’t just walk away. These kids are going to cost … a lot of money.”

Elghammer suggests, in addition to gaining more mental health programs for these kids, other long-range solutions, such as mentoring programs and having more parenting resources available.

More cases

Paul Sermersheim, executive director of Vermilion County’s Peer Court, said the number of cases the program receives referrals for has gone up by 50 percent in the last year.

Last year, 109 youth offenders came through the program. This year, the program is on track to do 160 cases.

The juvenile cases are referred through the Danville municipal court. The program aims to help youthful offenders see their mistakes before they end up in the system.

Most are asked to serve on juries of their peers, perform community service and/or write letters of apology to those they hurt with their actions.

Offenses include minor drugs, fighting, daytime curfew, battery, retail theft, trespassing and vandalism.

“Those are the most common ones,” Sermersheim said, adding that battery charges have increased.

Love important

One community leader takes a different approach to solving the issue of instability in the home — and all the problems associated with it.

Jackie Brown is a retired Danville District 118 teacher who’s worked with various organizations over the years, including those associated with Provena United Samaritans Medical Center foundation.

“Our children don’t know how important they are,” she said.

Brown said the spiraling effect of teen mothers and the domestic situations they find themselves in leads to children who seem to get forgotten. The key, she said, is for parents and children to learn to connect with one another. Parents have to know they’re not their children’s friends, but that love and discipline go hand in hand.

She up sums her work with families — and the work she encourages parents to do in three words — “reach, teach, inspire.”

Part of the work, however, has to be done by the community. In other words, when people see others struggling with their kids, they shouldn’t be afraid to ask if they can help, she said. Brown often approaches children in church or even at the grocery store if they’re acting unwieldy.

She’ll ask parents if it’s OK to talk to their kids; most of the time they wholeheartedly agree. She’ll approach the kids in a calm way and simply tell them she knows they can act better than they are. Most of the time, Brown’s common-sense approach works.

As a teacher, Brown never sent a child to detention or to the office in 36 years of teaching. If she had an issue with a child, she’d arrange a conference with the child’s parent. At these meetings, the kids knew they were in trouble, and came sulking into Brown’s classroom with their parents. Brown turned the situation around quickly. She’d tell the kids they were so lucky they had a mom or a dad who cared enough about them that they came all the way to school to talk with their teacher. That was usually the end of any discipline problems Brown ever faced from that child.

Parenting skills

A lack of parenting skills aside, Brown said one thing society is failing to do is step up when people see problems.

People are afraid to say something to parents whose small children are completely out of control for fear of getting rebuked, she said. Adults who’ve raised their kids and know what works should share their knowledge, she said. Young parents have approached her about parenting advice. She tells them simply being direct with kids goes a long way when kids are made to feel loved every day.

“People have to realize (social service agencies) are good, but you have to be willing to come out of the box,” she said.

“Out-of-the-box thinking” involves working with kids and adults one-on-one. Tutoring isn’t enough, for example, if kids have no desire to do well in school. Instilling the desire for achievement is different than simply telling them education is important, she said. And it begins with that connection.

“I look at every kid as something different. Every one of them wants love.”

She relates every adolescent issue to a child’s need to be loved and to feel they’re cared for.

Teen pregnancy is the result of adolescent girls looking for love in the wrong form — and mistaking sex for love. If young women truly love themselves, they wouldn’t allow themselves to be used in any way.

“They’re loved enough to tell people NO,” she said.

She said there’s always hope to mend a broken family — no matter what situations people are facing with their kids. But parents have to step up first.

Parents themselves have to acknowledge that they too went wrong somewhere — and they’re sorry, she said.

“They have to be open and honest,” she said.

Parents need to tell their teens that they can do better together — but only with their children’s help.