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Dellums Commission
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Commission's Charge:
The charge
of this Commission is to analyze the impact of several key public
policies on the physical, emotional, and social health of youth and
their communities and recommend actions aimed at reversing this
troubling trend. |
Better Health Through Stronger
Communities:
Public Policy Reform to Expand Life Paths of Young Men of Color
 During
the past three decades, a series of policies enacted have had a
negative impact upon young men from communities of color.
These
policies range from the abandonment of rehabilitation and treatment
for drug users in favor of interdiction and criminal sanctions in
the 1980's, to state policies to divert youthful offenders to adult
criminal systems and the imposition of zero tolerance policies to
exclude youth with problems from public schools in the 1990's.
The
hardening of these policies has had a cumulative effect of limiting
life options for young men of color as indicated by increasing high
school drop-out rates and declining enrollment in in post-secondary
education and by increasing rates of incarceration. Resulting
incarceration and recidivism rates have devastating consequences on
communities, families, and individual health.
The current status of public policies
concerning youth goes beyond the prison system. This Commission will
analyze the impact of several key public policies on the physical,
emotional and social health of youth and their communities and
recommend actions aimed at reversing this troubling trend.
These
public policies include the adoption of the state child health
program (SCHIPP), federal and state welfare reform, state
dis-investment in mental health services, state policies to transfer
jurisdiction over certain young offenders from juvenile courts to
adult courts, and zero tolerance policies that exclude children and
youth with behavioral problems from schools. |
