My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being My priest. Since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children. 

 - Hosea 4:6 

Greetings!

I have been working with Delegate Jill P. Carter and Kimberley Armstrong, Founder & Director at Eric R.Villines Advocacy Institute, to get legislation passed that would require lead testing prior to trial for juveniles tried as adults, and prior to adjudication for reverse waived respondents, upon filing of motion.

Research from the University of Cincinnati concludes that kids exposed to lead are more likely to become violent criminals as adults. Lead is a powerful neurotoxin that has been linked to lower IQ, poor school performance, high drop-out rates, delinquency and crime and violence. According to the Abell Foundation study below "it will take at least 45 years to address only the most dangerous portion of the housing market-private rental units constructed before 1950 and not in compliance with State lead laws."

Coalitions across Maryland and the nation are being formed to address youth violence. We can not afford to ignore important environmental factors that may be contributing to youth violence.

Please contact the members of the Maryland House Judiciary Committee listed below. We need your support. Also reach out to ♫ Ruth Ann Norton from the Coalition to End Childhood Lead Poison ranorton@leadsafe.org  and Donald W. DeVore, Secretary of Juvenile Services . I have been in contact with them both and they both seem hesitant in giving their full support.

The hearing for HB 1011 Juvenile Law - Lead Testing will take place February 25, 2010 at 1pm in Annapolis.



In love and service,

 

Jamye Wooten
Kinetics

Kineticnet.org

JUDICIARY COMMITTEE

Joseph F. Vallario, Jr., Chair (410) 841-3488, (301) 858-3488
Samuel I. Rosenberg, Vice-Chair (410) 841-3297, (301) 858-3297

Maryland JUDICIARY COMMITTEE WEBSITE

Hear is a link to the Bill. http://mlis.state.md.us/2010rs/billfile/hb1011.htm

HB 1011Status as of February 12, 2010: Bill is in the House - First Reading Judiciary Hearing
FEBRUARY 25
1:00 p.m.
Sponsored By Delegates Carter, Anderson, Oaks, Pena-Melnyk, and Simmons
Entitled Juvenile Law - Lead Testing - Required
Committee
Assignments		 House: Judiciary

Synopsis:

Requiring the juvenile court to order the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to perform a blood lead level test on a child after a petition has been filed but before an adjudication; requiring a court exercising criminal jurisdiction in a case involving a child to order the Department to perform a blood lead level test on a child before trial; and requiring a copy of the blood lead level test results to be provided to the child, the child's parent or guardian, the child's counsel, and the State's Attorney.


Full of Lead

Experts Say There's a Direct Connection Between Lead Poisoning and Violent Crime, But Will Public Policy Ever Catch Up With the Research?

By Stephen Janis | Posted 3/9/2005

CityPaper.com

While it may seem like an inconsequential fact, a side effect of living in a city filled with houses marred by lead paint, scientists, child advocates, and even politicians are publicly arguing that there is a link between lead poisoning and violence. Lead affects a variety of vital organs, including the brain. The brain damage resulting from lead is permanent and can be extensive: the loss of IQ, serotonin production, and other neural motor functions, causing impulsivity and anti-social behavior-in short, some key factors that might tip someone toward a life of violence. A study published in the April 2003 New England Journal of Medicine by Dr. Bruce Lanphear and his colleagues found that blood-lead levels as low 10 micrograms per deciliter of blood can cause substantial loss of IQ.

As lead paint has been outlawed for use in homes since 1978 and the medical effects of lead poisoning are so well known, the problem should be on its way to being solved. Far from it, though, according to the latest statistics issued by the Maryland Department of the Environment: In Baltimore City in 2003, 1,166 children of 51,892 children tested by the state had levels of lead in their blood of more than 10 micrograms per deciliter, which is considered an "elevated" level; 160 had at least 20 micrograms per deciliter, the level at which children are considered lead-poisoned by the state. Given that only 35.2 percent of children from 0-72 months of age were tested in Baltimore, according to the 2003 Maryland Department of the Environment annual report "Childhood Blood Lead Level Surveillance in Maryland," there are likely thousands more who were not tested that are positive for lead as well.

According to a 2002 report on the state of city's housing stock commissioned by the Abell Foundation, titled Childhood Lead Poisoning in Baltimore: A Generation Imperiled as Laws Ignored, at least 114,000 housing units in 11 targeted Baltimore ZIP codes pose a moderate to high risk for containing lead hazards, such as peeling or chipping lead-based paint. Which means that if lead poisoning does have an effect on long-term behavior, the seeds of future crime and social ills have already been cast in more than 100,000 unsafe and unfit homes throughout the city.

Read Full Story

 
Childhood Lead Poisoning in Baltimore: A Generation Imperiled As Laws Ignored

  • At the current pace of cleaning up lead-laden rental properties, it will take at least 45 years to address only the most dangerous portion of the housing market-private rental units constructed before 1950 and not in compliance with State lead laws.
  • Federal requirements to perform a blood test to identify lead poisoning in young children on Medical Assistance are violated for nearly half of eligible children in the City. Recent City and State laws extend this testing requirement to every resident at ages 12 to 24 months.  Penalty provisions in these laws are weak and unlikely to be enforced.
  • Services available to children who have been lead poisoned do not include educational interventions aimed at improving outcomes in school.
Read Full Report
 
Improper school-based arrests and referrals to law enforcement have a devastating impact on children. Studies show that being arrested has detrimental psychological effects on the child; nearly doubles the odds of dropping out of school, and, if coupled with a court appearance, nearly quadruples the odds of dropout; lowers standardized test scores; reduces future employment prospects; and increases the likelihood of future interaction with the criminal justice system.-POLICING IN SCHOOLS:
DEVELOPING A GOVERNANCE DOCUMENT FOR SCHOOL RESOURCE OFFICERS IN K-12 SCHOOLS
DYING TO LEARN, THE EFFECTS OF LEAD POISONING ON YOUNG PEOPLE IN INNER CITY SCHOOLS 

Dying to Learn, the Effects of Lead on Inner City Children is the first documentary short film produced by the youth media group, INTELLIGENTSEEDZ, set to be released in July. For more information visit intelligentseedz.org

IntelligentSeedz youth-media organization teaches middle and high school students the craft of filmmaking, music video and television production. Students are taught specialized techniques, skills and cutting edge film technology.

Watch
The number of children arrested or referred to court for school discipline has grown in recent years. In South Carolina, the single most common offense resulting in a juvenile court referral during the 2007-08 year was "Disturbing Schools." -  POLICING IN SCHOOLS: DEVELOPING A GOVERNANCE DOCUMENT FOR SCHOOL RESOURCE OFFICERS IN K-12 SCHOOLS
VIDEO: Pazzion Girlz featuring WISE INTELLIGENT, "GET THE LEAD OUT"

 

 
Children of color and students with disabilities are disproportionately represented among these students. In Florida, Black youth, who represented only 22 percent of the overall juvenile population, accounted for 47 percent of all school-based delinquency referrals; youth with special needs accounted for 23 percent of all school-based referrals.- POLICING IN SCHOOLS:
DEVELOPING A GOVERNANCE DOCUMENT FOR SCHOOL RESOURCE OFFICERS IN K-12 SCHOOLS
 
Baltimore Algebra Project:  Juvenile Justice PSA
POLICING IN SCHOOLS:
DEVELOPING A GOVERNANCE DOCUMENT
FOR SCHOOL RESOURCE OFFICERS IN K-12 SCHOOLS
 
AN ACLU WHITE PAPER
BY CATHERINE Y. KIM AND I. INDIA GERONIMO
PUBLISHED AUGUST 2009
 
INTRODUCTION
K-12 public schools across the country have begun to deploy law enforcement agents on school grounds in growing numbers.  Although there are no current national figures for the number of such officers, in 2004, 60 percent of high school teachers reported armed police officers stationed on school grounds,1 and in 2005, almost 70 percent of public school students ages 12 to 18 reported that police officers or security guards patrol their hallways.

Frequently referred to as "School Resource Officers" or SROs, these agents are often sworn police officers employed by the local police department and assigned to patrol public school hallways full-time.   In larger jurisdictions such as Los Angeles and Houston, these officers may be employed directly by the school district.
 
Without addressing the question of whether police officers should be deployed to schools in the first instance, this White Paper posits that if they are deployed, they must be provided with the tools necessary to ensure a safe school environment while respecting the rights of students and the overall school climate.
 
New detention centers planned
PSA-Dewberry / August 17, 2009
An artist's rendering by PSA-Dewberry of Fairfax, Va., shows the design for the proposed juvenile detention center.

PSA-Dewberry / August 17, 2009
The proposed five-story, 200,000-square-foot Baltimore Youth Detention Center will accommodate youths charged criminally as adults and will enable the state to increase services for youth offenders.
Baltimore Sun photo by Karl Merton Ferron / August 17, 2009
A view looking west on East Monument Street shows the site of the adjoining juvenile and women's detention centers in East Baltimore.
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Lead Poisoning Facts

OSHA defines lead poisoning as having a lead blood level of 10 microliters/decaliter.

Lead is not able to dissolve in water or biodegrade, dissipate, decay, or burn.

Lead poisoning affects a child's IQ test results.

Recent studies show that blood lead levels below 10 vg/dl can have detrimental effects.

A blood lead poisoning test refelcts exposure only over the last 90 days.

One in five urban children are affected by lead poisoning.

Lead poisoning affects the development of young children by causing speech delay, hyperactivity, attention deficit disorder, learning disabilities, behavioral disorders, neurological and renal damage, stunted growth, anemia, hearing loss, and cognitive deficits..

Lead poisoning symptoms include, irritability, stomachaches, poor appetite, diarrhea, colic, distractibility, and lethargy.

Detecting lead poisoning can be difficult because many cases have no visible symptoms, delaying the diagnoses and allowing it to further damage a child's cognitive development.

Exposure can cause lead poisoning to young children and babies before being born. Up to 50% of lead ingested by a child may be caused from fetal absorption when a pregnant woman is exposed to lead.

Over 1 million workers in more than 100 different occupations may be exposed to lead poisoning every day.

Improper lead removal can increase lead poisoning hazard by spreading even more lead dust throughout the house.

The main target for lead poisoning is the nervous system in both children and Adults.

Source

Growing Up Baltimore-Violent Behavior Linked to Lead Paint

by Sarah Richards, WYPR

Jamia Handy is sitting at a table in the front room of her house. A fan is blowing cool air in from a window. Handy's watching her three-year-old daughter Jaiah stare at a brightly-coloured picture in a children's book.

Jamia: "What colour is it?"

Jaiah: "Purple castle."

Purple castle. It's a small statement, but it means a lot to this 28-year-old mother of four. A year ago, the physician suggested her daughter be tested for lead at a routine doctor's visit. The blood test showed Jaiah had a dangerously high lead level of 84. That's 84 micrograms of lead for every deciliter of blood. Anything above 10 is considered high.

"Her pediatrician hadn't seen levels as high as hers in 25 years of his practice. (...) They actually showed me the x-ray of her stomach and we saw the actual chips of paint where she may have wiped stuff and put her fingers in her mouth."

Lead and violent crime

New research reveals that lead exposure in early development shrinks key areas of the brain, and is linked with violent crime.

Listen
Read
 
Mapping and Analyzing The Schoolhouse to Jailhouse Track Action Kit
 
This Action Kit is intended to help mobilized communities (parents, youth, advocates, and educators) understand and begin to address the schoolhouse to jailhouse track so that they may ultimately create caring learning environments that push students toward colleges and careers rather than prison. It includes information on:
  • Collecting information and data about school discipline policies and practices;
  • Analyzing and organizing the data; and
  • Developing messages that resonate with your audience.
Locating the School-to-Prison Pipeline
 
The "school-to-prison pipeline" refers to the
policies and practices that push our nation's
schoolchildren, especially our most at-risk children, out of classrooms and into the
juvenile and criminal justice systems. This pipeline reflects the prioritization of incarceration over education. For a growing number of students, the path to incarceration includes the following "stops":

 
Md. moving forward on detention center projects

Two planned $100 million facilities in E. Baltimore would hold youths, women
 
By Julie Bykowicz | julie.bykowicz@baltsun.com
 
Downtown Baltimore's campus of ancient-looking prison buildings, several of which date to the 1800s, is slated for a major face-lift as the state moves forward with plans for two new detention centers that would cost more than $100 million each.

A state architectural board is scheduled to review today the design for a five-story, 180-bed detention center for teens facing adult criminal charges. Construction of the glassy, modern building along East Monument Street could begin next summer.

Meanwhile, design of an 800-bed detention center for women began about a month ago.

The buildings would keep adult male detainees separate from women and teens as required by federal law, addressing long-standing Justice Department complaints. Now, men, women and teens share hallway, classroom and booking space, creating conditions that Benjamin Brown, deputy commissioner of the state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services' pretrial division, calls untenable.

"It definitely is a difficult place to manage today," Brown said.

The state agency has overseen Baltimore pretrial services, including the city jails, since the 1990s.

This week, the state settled a decades-old federal lawsuit over health and safety conditions at the Baltimore City Detention Center, parts of which are 150 years old, though prisoner rights advocates said plans for the new facilities were not a factor in that agreement.

The two projects are expected to cost the state more than $280 million. State lawmakers have approved money for design but not construction. They're expected to vote on the youth center construction during the next legislative session, which begins in January.

Although Maryland is strapped for cash amid a national economic downturn, lawmakers do not expect to postpone the projects, in part because the state's top bond rating enables it to borrow money cheaply.

Del. Keith E. Haynes, a Baltimore Democrat on the capital budget subcommittee, called the buildings "a good investment" because they would create jobs in construction and lead to the hiring of more state employees.
 
About Us

 ... You will raise up the age-old foundations; And you will be called the repairer of the breach, The restorer of the streets in which to dwell. (Isaiah. 58:12)
 
Kinetics mission is to develop new ideas that work to strengthen social movements within the African-American community; providing them with the tools and skills to pursue justice and better address the needs of those whom they serve. 
 
Kinetics is a project of Fusion Partnerships, Inc. 
 
 



Phase 1
Speaker Series
Strategic Planning
Grant Writing
Build a coalition of grassroots, community/ faith-based organizations who are working in the areas of gangs and re-entry.


Phase 2: T.R.U.C.E. Institute @ BCCC
History of Gangs: From Protector to Predator
War on Drugs: The Real American Gangster
Street Law: Trips, Traps, and the Trappers
Testimonials: Ex-offenders and families give their testimonies
Life Skills Training
Conflict Resolution
Spiritual Development
Male/Female Relationships
Fatherhood Training
Job Preparedness
Skill Development
Career Day
Advocacy/Legislative Process


Phase 3: The T.R.U.C.E. Movement


Please help us build this MOVEMENT with Time, Talent or Treasure.

Kinetics mission is to develop new ideas that work to strengthen social movements within the African-American community; providing them with the tools and skills to pursue justice and better address the needs of those whom they serve. 
... You will raise up the age-old foundations; And you will be called the repairer of the breach, The restorer of the streets in which to dwell. (Isaiah. 58:12).