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http://www.kidscounsel.org/ct-shows-progress-on-race-justice-law-enforcement/
CT News Junkie
May 8, 2015
OP-ED
Joette Katz, DCF Commissioner
The Center for Children’s Advocacy, through its Executive Director Martha Stone, along with the Yale
Consultation Center, supported by funding from the MacArthur foundation, helped to replicate and expand
the original Pennsylvania Disproportionate Minority Youth/Law Enforcement Curriculum to help
Connecticut focus more directly on how implicit bias, racial stereotypes, mental health, and psychological
trauma impact interactions between law enforcement and youth of color.
The 2015 Connecticut curriculum was named the Pennsylvania DMC Youth-Law Enforcement Curriculum:
2015 Connecticut Racial Equity Program to emphasize specifically the role and importance of
racial equity in the juvenile justice system.
Police from each city were paired with boys from those communities to have a no-holds-barred discussion
of race, justice, and law enforcement. There were some tense moments — no doubt because
the issues surrounding fairness are very real in the daily lives of the boys, their families, and their
communities.
Nevertheless, the issues of race and fairness, as well as of the effects of trauma and limited economic
opportunities, were squarely…