Thursday, December 2^nd

How Dolphins' Ronnie Brown Is Out to Reduce Youth Violence

Ronnie Brown just had to come here, to this sprawling middle school campus about 40 miles north of Miami where 600 kids at an assembly hang on his every word.

Violence brought him here.

In October 2009, Michael Brewer, a 15-year-old student at Deerfield Beach Middle School, was sprayed with rubbing alcohol and lit on fire in an off-campus incident stemming from a beef over a video game. Over 75% of his body was burned.

In March, Josie Lou Ratley, 15, suffered permanent brain damage when she was beaten outside the school by a student from another school who allegedly received a disparaging text message from Ratley about his brother, who had committed suicide. Ratley, an eighth-grader, was stomped with steel-toe boots. Read More

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Rivers Bridge Ramble: A Race Against Gangs

About 80 bicyclists participated in Saturday's Rivers Bridge Ramble, a ride aimed at raising money to continue a community-based gang prevention program.

"We have a lot of people that sometimes ignore the fact that we have youth participating in gangs until there is a violent action that takes place," said Chief Wendell Davis of the Orangeburg Department of Public Safety.

"That is too late."

The event is sponsored by the Orangeburg County Gang Intervention Project 20/20, a cooperative effort including community leaders and law enforcement. Read More

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A Former Portland Gang Member Leaves Prison with a Mission: to Help Others from Following Him

LaMarcus Branch quietly sat and listened to police, city leaders and community members talk about how to stem the summer's gang violence.

Then one day this fall, Branch ditched his dress shirt and pulled on a bright blue long-sleeved shirt and wool hat -- the colors of the Columbia Villa Crips. He stood with other former gang members in their respective gang colors. One thing united them: They all wore matching white T-shirts that read "BRO," for Brothers Reaching Out.

"I'm an ex-member. I was a Crip," Branch, 38, told the mayor and police chief at the Portland Gang Violence Task Force meeting in North Precinct. "As you see, we have some Crips and Bloods in here. We're the original gang members that started all this mess." Read More

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Report: 'Dropout Factories' on Decline in US

The number of so-called "dropout factory" high schools in the United States has declined since 2002, translating into at least 100,000 more students getting a diploma, a new report shows.

But the report from America's Promise Alliance to be released Tuesday also said that progress needs to increase fivefold for the country to graduate nine out of 10 students by 2020, a goal of the Obama administration.

States including Tennessee, Texas, New York and Georgia have already figured out tactics that work. But fixing the problem won't be easy, said report co-author John Bridgeland. Read More

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Many Options Available to Find Right Fit for Troubled Youth

In Adams County, juvenile justice is about finding the right fit.

With several programs operating for offenders, Youth Court Judge John Hudson said most of the time he can find the place for each young person who appears before him.

Many times the best option is regular probation that requires the offender to meet with a counselor on a regular basis, maintain good behavior and learn from what he or she did wrong.

"Most of the people we seen in juvenile justice, we only see once," he said. "That is the way we like to see it happen." Read More

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"Art With Heart" On Display At Carl May Center

Art With Heart (AWH) began as a ground-breaking art program for children incarcerated at Indio Juvenile Hall (2007-2009). It was funded by grants from the Anderson Children's Foundation, and was highly successful, becoming a model for other Juvie art programs. In July 2010, the AWH program again became an Anderson grant recipient, now shifting the focus onto mentoring the kids of the streets of Desert Hot Springs through highly creative art classes. It remains a new and innovative strategy for helping at-risk and gang kids. Many of these children are victims of neglect and abuse, and are in the need of creative outlets and compassionate mentoring. Art with Heart offers them hope and opens doors through creative expression. Read More

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