When she was 11, KiAmber was arrested for defacing school property—a misdemeanor the Tallahassee, Florida, girl insists she did not commit. That experience scared her.
By the time she turned 12, she was pregnant. School wasn’t safe—fights broke out all the time. So KiAmber asked to enroll in a program for at-risk girls, funded by the state, where she receives intensive counseling and tutoring. Now, the ninth-grader said, she’s matured and is looking forward to creating a stable life for herself and her 3-year-old daughter. Without early intervention, “I don’t know where I’d be,” said KiAmber, who at 15 is still a juvenile and asked that her last name not be used.
Male juvenile offenders still greatly outnumber females. But while the arrest rate for juveniles has declined over the past two decades, it has not fallen as sharply for girls as it has for boys. And minority girls are twice as likely as white girls to be incarcerated.
Advocates say there aren’t enough juvenile justice programs targeted to girls, whose needs are often more complex than boys’. Many girls in the system have been physically or sexually abused or have mental health issues. Forty percent are gay, bisexual or transgender, compared to 14 percent of boys. Many are poor. Many have been funneled through the child-welfare system.
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4 comments:
Pregnant at 12 ? She has bigger problems than school safety.I am disgusted by the lack of parenting and continued practice of babies having babies as a way to make a living.School is the least of this girls worries,odds are she will be a mother of 3 by the time she is 18.Where in the hell did we go wrong?
Her parents should be held accountable for their complete failure to parent this girl. NO discipline, no values, no guidance or moral standards taught whatsoever.
I don't believe every parent should be held responsible for every misstep a kid takes. But this is absolutely outrageous, and is beyond negligent. They OWED her a safe, decent place to live, and enough supervision and attention to intervene when she was obviously behaving in self-destructive ways, and hanging out with the wrong crowd. They had an obligation to take an interest in her and watch out for potential troubles, and they did not.
I don't care what "issues" the parent had. When they had the child, they are accepting that they are willing and capable of providing for, and caring for, the child.
The child's child should be taken away and put up for adoption, not rewarding her with welfare cash!
To go along with the over 2000 addendums our president issued just before Thanksgiving, I hope one stated no sex allowed until people pass a mental competence test along with parenting skills. As long as the government provides money to care for children born out of wedlock, there will be no responsibility or change in people's behavior. It is time to be hard-nosed. A few babies and children will probably die. The hard lessons of life are learned the best and fastest. Only idiots fail to see how our America is heading to disaster. The end is near folks. Wake up.
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