A former colonel in the U.S. Army believes the best way to stop juvenile crime is to reach out and assist children in their earliest stages, including their years as an infant.
Retired Col. Roy G. Ray told members of the Clarksdale Rotary Club during its July 10th meeting that adverse childhood conditions are “the root cause of many problems we are having today.”
Ray said brain development begins very early in a human being and the amount of effort it takes to change one’s thinking increases dramatically as we age.
“There’s a whole bunch of stuff going on in that baby’s brain very early and we’re missing it,” Ray said. “We’re missing the boat because we’re not taking advantage of the age when they can be fixed.”
Ray is part of Rotary District 6800, which consists of 40 clubs serving communities in Memphis, Shelby County (Tenn.) and the northern one-third of Mississippi. The district has formed the Rotary-Family Youth Initiative Inc., which has the purpose of reducing youth involvement in the justice system and to be a “force for learning” by informing communities about Adverse Childhood Experiences.
And ACEs came up often during Ray’s hour-long presentation to the Clarksdale Rotarians.
He said ACEs have “nothing to do with race or different cultures,” rather it involves such things as poverty, bullying, physical, emotional or sexual abuse, parental divorce or the incarceration of a parent or guardian.
Ray said ACEs can have lasting effects on health, behaviors and life potential. And it’s important that those issues be addressed in the earliest parts of a child’s life.
After his military career, Ray founded and operated several corporations involving land development and residential and commercial construction as his companies have built more than 1,000 homes in Northern Mississippi.
Those same lessons he learned in building homes can be applied to children, he said.
“You’ve got to get it right… before they’re 1,000 days old,” Ray said.
And ACEs are “diagnosable, preventable and treatable,” he said.
Ray pointed to work done in Holly Springs, where they are striving to end the school to prison pipeline. There is a goal to reduce the number of justice-involved youth by 50 percent in five years.
There are mentoring programs with more than 2,500 trained volunteers who offer tutoring, life coaching and serving families and underserved youth.
There is also the Family Connect program. This effort takes juvenile offenders and, instead of incarcerating them for minor offenses, the offenders and their parents undergo training to reduce the ACEs in their life and receive mentoring from “the Seven Ps” (parents, pastors, principals, police officers, proprietors, politicians and partners).
Since undergoing the program, Holly Springs has seen a significant reduction in violent crime. In 2016, there were 36 murders committed in the town. In 2017, that number dropped to 19. As of July, there had only been four murders committed in 2018.
He said the crime-reduction effort expanded from doing it “piecemeal” to a “systematic, holistic approach.”
Ray challenged the Clarksdale Rotary Club to make a decision to lead that type of effort here. He said his rotary district would assist and help the local rotary club “find that one champion in Clarksdale” to lead the effort here.
