Whether we acknowledge it or not, all of us are mentors and models for the young people in our community just by being present in their lives. But I believe we must fully embrace this responsibility. In my day job, one of the unfortunate but necessary tasks I must perform is criminal sentencing. Even in federal court, as well as in state juvenile and criminal court, many of the offenders are people who began at a young age to make “bad decisions” resulting in convictions.
Yet many of these “bad decisions” are exactly that: decisions that would have been made differently if the young man or woman had the benefit of alternative sources of information and insight—information and insight available only from mature, caring adults willing to offer it. We all know that many young people in our community lack ready access to such adults. We also know what we as a community need to do about it!
Young people choose mentors and role models on the streets every day. Rarely will they obtain the tools needed to develop good judgment in that environment. Rather, they may be learning exactly the life choices that will become so detrimental to their lives – and to the well-being of the entire community. Moreover, when I sentence a young offender to federal prison, you can bet that he or she will be “mentored” in the institution to which he or she is assigned to serve the sentence that is imposed according to law. My state court colleagues agree. What judges desperately need is for those of us to reach out to these young people in meaningful ways before they make “bad” decisions; in this way, we can actively reduce the number of incidences that destroy their lives and those of so many around them.
Baltimoreans, in all our wonderfully diverse and disparate lives, need to say “yes” to mentoring. Every adult in this community, in other words, owes it to all of us to make himself or herself an active mentor. Choose a school, an organization providing services to youth, or even a specific young person who could benefit from your counsel and friendship, and become a reliable friend, advisor, and guide. Let’s not continue to send young people off to be mentored by those who lack concern for their lives, their families, and for our community.
Do you agree with me that, if you are not mentoring a young person, you are failing to live up to the legitimate expectations of our community?
The Mayor’s Office of Employment Development operates both in-school, dropout prevention programs, alternative high schools and programs to support out-of-school youth. All these programs need mentors. (criminal background check required) To become a mentor, contact Ms. Michelle Miles at 410-396-6155 or me at 410-396-6722.
Patricia Waddell
Excellent article. And, among the people that kids should be able to turn to for mentoring and role modeling, are their fathers. Judge, can you explain why our courts are so eager to respond to a mother’s no-fault divorce petition by permanently supressing the defendant father’s parental right to be involved in parenting his child more than 4 days a month? The Census Bureau reports that 83.1% of sole custodial parents are female. Brinig (“These Boots are Made for Walking”) compiles data showing a steady increase to about 80%, of the rate of women filing divorces. Since we’re not imprisoning (for causes like the crimes of abuse, neglect etc..) anywhere near the number of divorce defendant dads, I have to elieve that most of their no-fault divorces are truly no-fault. So why not equally protect their parental rights so THEY can provide the mentoring and positive role modeling the children need?
I am a PIP, a Previously Incarcerated Person and I use to belong to a program inside & ouside called the 7th Step Foundation. To my knowledge it had the best Youth Counseling Program in the U.S. Administrators from the Department of Juvenilte Services would bring in young men, first time offenders to get 10 weeks of counseling according to the 7 Steps to Freedom. It was a successful program until prison administrators started riots and shut down the program. It was supported by judges, psychologists, counselors and other social scientists. It was too progressive. It had to be shut down. Any time there is an effective program it is snuffed out because it goes against the grain of the stereotype. Prisons provide jobs!
I work with Partnerships in the Baltimore City Public School System and have been a mentor myself. I know that mentors change lives. I see it in the many good programs that are connected to our schools and students. I know they are effective because they provide the data showing that their programs are improving a student’s academic achievement, behavior, truancy, and successful graduation. However, there are not enough adults engaged in mentoring. The Judge is correct in stating that our children are finding role models and mentors on the streets. All children want the attention of an adult who they believe cares about them and will seek them out whether the connection is positive or negative.
We have mentoring programs working with our schools and students that would welcome individuals and businesses to join their efforts. They are all different in their approach and time commitment required.
When I have the opportunity, I ask potential mentors to remember the adult or adults who made a difference in their lives. We’ve all had them and we all need them through difference stages of our lives.
Take the challenge. Be a mentor. You can change a life forever, including your own.
I’ve been a mentor to the same young person for nearly nine years. When I began mentoring, I was still living in D.C. and interested in taking my weekend tutoring to a deeper level. Mentoring seemed to offer a greater intensity of challenges and rewards. But as I quickly discovered (and as Robert Coles explains in his outstanding book, The Call of Service), it’s audacious to expect anything more from being a mentor than a greater sense of humility. Mentoring won’t change the world, let alone another person’s life. But being there for someone, as a positive, consistent and selfless guide, can change young people’s perception of themselves and their community – and the world of possibilities that lies beyond it. I’ve been privileged to see the 7-year-old girl I first began mentoring in 1999 become an increasingly confident and hopeful high-school sophomore who regards college as a logical next step. Now that I live in Baltimore, we spend less time together. But my commitment to her and her well-being has not wavered. I wish each youth in the South Baltimore neighborhood I now call home could have the benefit of a mentor. And to answer Judge Davis’s audacious and essential closing question: Yes. I believe that people who don’t, in some capacity, make space in their lives to mentor a young person are delinquent in meeting their basic civic duties. And that Baltimore, and every community, suffers the consequences.
The next time any of you are at a social function with successful Baltimoreans, look around the room. Instead of seeing the individuals in the room as successful business persons, politicians, judges, doctors, etc. see them as potential mentors to Baltimore youth. Then consider the widespread tragedy that unfolds on a daily basis in our youths’ lives that the collective mentoring at that black tie function might preclude, if mobilized appropriately. It is my belief that each of our youth are in desperate need of not one, but many mentors, and it is in these rooms that they will be found.
Peace,
Without question our Babies(youth) need mentoring.What is so troubleing and often emotionally draining for my person is the present state of thought that exists amongst Original People.Someone asked me the other day…”Ny Allah What is wrong with our Babies(youth)….” I replied the fact that U are asking that lets me know that U are not intune with them,and it leads me 2 know that U are not mentally equipted or physically prepared for the task at hand.
In accessing our position and condition,it should be clear and evident that we are simply lacking in the fundamentals. I am 38 years old and I recall the days of my youth,amongst all of the madness,chaos and confusion there was always an older brother keeping me pointed in the right direction.The Apostle Paul stated it very clearly “When I was a child,I thought and acted as one,yet now that I be a man I have put away foolish things”.Our young boys need men to show them exactly what a man thinks,operates and looks like.Again many will say that is simple,yet a comment like that clearly illustrates one who is not intune with our young men today.
I have a Youth Dev.Program that will be kicking off in January.We will be dealng with the areas of gang-intervention,skill and vocational trades,educational,computer literacy,arts and other areas that are Babies(youth) have been denied access to.I have found that the key component that is missing for US a people is EXPOSURE to life in its proper order.I am a Shift Commander in the field of juvenile detention,and what I have found is that these Babies(youth) have NEVER known right.Thus they are following behind/patterning their behavior behind the ignorance that is displayed in front of them by the generations before them.
We have monumental work to do,I could go on for years,months and days yet I will see what replies are offered.Also the true and lving dont do much “talking”,we have enough of that,I focus,work and deal with the daily reality of living this out and being an example of my determined idea.
Peace,
God Ny Allah
YES YES we are in great need of mentors, are young people of colour need this intervention, it will enable are young people to express themself to non family members.
Peace from England