WE'LL CALL HIM MR. M. He was only 14 when I met him. I was his Social Worker. He was very bright, got mostly A's, some B's but also rolled the Pizza Man for green dough ($) and broke into warehouses with his gang at night...eventually we caught up with him...discovered his Probation Officer was on Maternity Leave and well no one was covering...computer glitch. I went to his former P.O. in the old neighborhood. We got him off the streets one day before the rest of his gang were shot to death in a corner lot. It took some convincing but we managed to send him to Texas on a Vision Quest to climb ropes and prove his manhood on a wagon train. Then there was MR. G., all of 15, who tried to burn down his grandmom's house, his guardian while dad was working on the Alaskan pipeline. Mom was an addict. Again, with a little maneuvoring we managed to track down Dad (a Native American) who took him out of our jurisdiction and into the custody of paternal tribal elders who placed him on an island with another teen who thought he was "all that"...let them find their way back to the mainland to prove their manhood now! Cruel? No. Justice. Yes? As a Social Worker in both the dependency and delinquency systems I learned the importance of BEING TOUGH and PROACTIVE...before things get worse.
IF WE LET PEOPLE GO...how can we tell them to stop once they have GONE TOO FAR?
~ Mom Nanhi ~
