They can be defiant, contemptuous of authority, and heedless of how their actions will affect their future.
Adolescents possess little of the reasoning and judgment that keep most adults out of trouble, according to recent scientific research that has encouraged more training of judges, prosecutors, and probation officers to realize that juveniles in the criminal justice system should be treated differently than their grown-up counterparts.
Comments
In the old days when you told a group of kids on the corner to get lost they did. Today they tell you to f off. Who needs the training? The cops or the parents?
Your reasoning doesn't address the problem. In my day, the moment we saw the cops, we took off. Today is today and things have changed. Training is absolutely essential for anyone who works with adolescents. My 30 year career was with adolescents....believe me, you can communicate effectively and de-fuse so many situations that could be potentially dangerous. Our kids today are very different , as is the society they live in.
Yes, things have changed today. There is no discipline in the home which reflects on the street. My 25 year career has been with hoodlums. Thank god I'm not just starting out. The cops don't need to change, the kids and their parents do.
Rep. Brian Dempsey and his colleagues are the problem. I have been in the law enforcement business for over 30 years and Massachusetts police have been fighting for adequate and better training for all that time. Governors have promised to find a funding mechanism such as the one proposed by this Governor, but the Legislators do not feel it is a priority.
In-service training for officers is nearly non-existant. And such training is just for the basics, like law update. The recruit academies were supposed to be self-sufficient with a $2500 fee for each officer. That figure is no longer realistic yet our legislators have no desire to raise it. We have college tuition at our state colleges, why not an adequate tuition to pay for the six-months of training? It is a fee paid for by the recruit, not the taxpaper.
This juvenile training is needed and I know my colleagues would embrace it in recruit and in-service training. But the overwhelming majority of municpialities cannot afford it. So what is wrong with a funding mechanism such as the one proposed. Firefighters are getting adequate training. Why? Because there is a training surcharge attached to every home owners insurance policy issued and no one seems to care or even notice. It covers the cost of training.
This is a simple matter to fix but we have a bunch of representatives who think like Brian Dempsey. They don't care.
Didn't the State Police try to get half of the projected funds for themselves?
richstan...That may be part of it.