Many leaders in the community, including officials at the White House, are praising the recently-released “Your Life Matters Report.”
In the wake of a recent wave of violent crime, Indianapolis’ Mayor Greg Ballard charged Tanya Bell, president and CEO of Indiana Black Expo Inc., and Jamal Smith, executive director of the Indiana Civil Rights Commission, with assembling a task force to formulate a plan to address many of Indianapolis’ ills.
Not only is the resulting plan packed with eye-opening data, but it also contains a series of concrete recommendations.
The report to the mayor is also drafted as part of the “My Brother’s Keeper” community challenge created by President Barack Obama.
“Your Life Matters and My Brother’s Keeper share the same goals. The current pattern of violence is robbing us of an entire generation of young men of color,” said Ballard. “The problems were decades in the making and may take a generation to escape it, but we have to start somewhere. That time is now.”
In September 2014, President Obama issued a challenge to cities and towns across the country to become “MBK Communities.” The challenge represents a call to action for communities, and mayors in particular, to enact sustainable change through policy, programs, and partnerships.
Though Ballard assigned the task force the responsibility of researching and reviewing local programs and policies; and coming up with a plan for Indianapolis prior to Obama’s call, Ballard accepted the presidential challenge, thus making Indianapolis among the first cities to unveil a plan.
Michael Smith, special assistant to President Obama for My Brother’s Keeper told the Indianapolis Recorder Newspaper during the report’s unveiling event, that there is a great opportunity for Indianapolis to be a model for other cities. But now it’s up to citizens of Indianapolis to hold leaders accountable.
“This is a John F. Kennedy moment. It’s a time not to ask ‘what can my government do for me’ but what can I do for my government,” said Michael Smith.
The local task force experts include Judge Marilyn Moores, of the Marion County Superior Court Juvenile Division; and Pastor James Jackson, senior pastor of Fervent Prayer Church.
“Jamal and I selected a bi-partisan group of individuals to create a public will around these issues,” said Bell.
Together, they addressed five issues: education; justice and re-entry; employment; health; and mentoring.
Some of their findings are surprising, especially the fact that in each of the five categories, Black men and boys fared worse.
People should note that this report is specific to Indianapolis/Marion County.
Within education, one of the most surprising findings was that of vague data.
Public schools (traditional and charter) are required to report to the Indiana Department of Education on suspensions and expulsions. Common reasons for out of school suspensions are: other (27 percent); defiance (22 percent); fighting (17 percent); verbal aggression (11 percent); and attendance (7 percent).
Many feel these categories, especially “other,” are questionable.
“When we did the literature review, whenever subjectivity is involved in discipline, it tends to increase the impact,” said Michelle McKeown, general counsel for the Indiana Charter School Board and education task force subcommittee member. “Many of these suspension reasons require a lot of subjectivity.”
McKeown adds that this may give a reason to the fact that in one recent report, Indiana had the second highest percentage nationwide of Black males who experienced out of school suspensions.
The task force recommends additional information be required from school officials whenever the term “other” is used, and also that the use of school suspension for attendance problems be prohibited.
“When students are not in school, it’s even harder for them to connect with school. Why keep them out?” questioned Jamal Smith.
Also, according to law, the state of Indiana is not currently required to provide alternative education for expelled students.
The task force also believes the state should change this and provide a statutory right to alternative education for this population and also ensure rigorous instruction in alternative schools.
They also suggest parents become more knowledgeable about school disciplinary processes and stand up for their children’s rights.
Among justice and re-entry, it’s well-known that Black males are statistically more likely to be incarcerated than their white counterparts. However, what the task force found troubling was that there are multiple barriers to rehabilitation.
Jamal Smith specifically cites House Bill 1006. It’s been found that those with less violent offenses are not encouraged to rehabilitate. For severe offenses, the bill provides a time-served cap. Historically, time served would be reduced for good behavior. The bill requires that the majority of the sentence be served.
“If I’m 18, in jail and sentenced to 20 years, why would I be motivated to rehabilitate myself?” asked Jamal Smith.
One recommendation: If incarcerated individuals can’t work off their time, at least they could use that time to reduce mounting fees expected to be paid shortly after release.
They also found troubling that among juveniles, even if their crime is a non-school related offense, by law, the courts must report the crime to the school. The school then typically utilizes that information to expel the students. They believe this should be amended too.
“Judge Moores said a lot of these kids end up back in her court because they aren’t in school,” said Jamal Smith.
Pastor Jackson says Black unemployment rates are high, however, youth unemployment is a specific issue that should be addressed. Though kids want to earn wages, youth are not employment ready.
“They are able to understand cultural language like ‘what’s up’ and ‘hey dog’ but they don’t know corporate speech or how to interact on a corporate level,” said Jackson.
His committee recommends the community comes together to pool more funds for youth programs. Jamal Smith and Bell cite a program in Baltimore, Md. where various sectors of the community annually raise $5 – $7 million for youth work programs. They believe programs of that scale could happen in Indianapolis if everyone recognizes the need for youth jobs and pools their resources together.
Experts state that violence is a major public health issue and is the No. 1 killer of children and young adults between ages 15-24. Access to care is limited and there is a strong need for mental health treatment among other issues.
Some of the task forces’ recommendations on health issues includes convening to establish a framework for coordination of activities and services targeted for Black youth. They would like to mandate that health care professionals receive training about factors that contribute to youth violence including poverty, truancy and mental health.
Finally, the group indicated in the report that they believe the lack of mentoring was an issue contributing to the city’s problems.
“We’re all busy but if you are too busy to pour into the life of someone else, we have a problem,” said Ontay Johnson, task force member and executive director of 100 Black Men of Indianapolis. “They’re building prisons to house our babies. You must ask, where are our priorities?”
Now that the Your Life Matters Report is complete, according to the My Brothers’ Keeper initiative, Indy has a limited window of time to take action on their recommendations.
