AAWA

  AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN'S AGENDA EDUCATION FOUNDATION

I Am Woman, Hear Me...

African American women want a Mayor who will stop criminalizing our youth.  With African American teens, 300% over-represent Ohio’s youth corrections system, and 80% of those incarcerated youth are functionally illiterate. The Mayor must promote alternative sentencing and diversion programs instead of incarceration. Our Mayor must work with families and community agencies to integrate juvenile offenders into our communities.  The Mayor must expand youth recreational and educational alternatives, utilizing the recreation department to establish after-school programs in elementary and middle schools.  The Mayor must take steps to increase citizen confidence in law enforcement, and put an end to racial profiling and injustice.

Priority Issues for Youth Crime and Law Enforcement

• Our inner-city communities continue to suffer the disproportionate effects of gangs, drug abuse and neglect.

• For too long our youth have been “overexposed” to examples of individual and community self-destruction, and “underexposed” to effective examples of personal development and success.

• African American teens are 300% over-represented in the youth corrections system.

• 80% of youth in the juvenile detention centers are functionally illiterate (read at or below a fifth grade reading level).

• Black males represent only 6% of those enrolled in Ohio’s public institutions of higher learning.

Priority Issues for Youth Crime and Law Enforcement: Action

On this point, action is simple: African American women want these horrific statistics turned around!

As Mayor I Pledge To:

• Provide a community focus on positive expectations for Cleveland youth by developing a citywide vision statement and actively promoting it.

• Provide cultural sensitivity training for all law enforcement officers and stop racial profiling of youth in Cleveland.

• Promote aggressive family and youth services that provide drug prevention and treatment, anger management programs, mediation services, and negotiation training.

• Promote juvenile diversion programs to rehabilitate rather than incarcerate youth, adopting model programs such as those now operating in Shaker Heights and Parma.

• Promote, when incarceration does occur, education at all youth facilities so that studies may continue, thus enabling post-incarceration continuation of education or job employability.

• Provide more alternative programs in recreation centers and extended day programs in public schools.

• Intensively monitor the findings of the office of professional standards for police, and publicize their decisions.

• Involve Black women on committees, boards and other decision-making bodies to develop laws, rulings, guidelines and programs impacting youth who are, or who are at risk of becoming, involved in the criminal justice system.

Last modified: 08/25/05