Episode 26 Clay Walker - ”Shreveport-Bossier: My City, My Community, My Home”

Clay Walker, Director of Juvenile Services for Caddo Parish since 2011, sits down with Jeffrey Goodman, Director of Marketing and Development with the YMCA of Northwest Louisiana, to answer the following questions:

 

 

0:37 1. Clay, since 2011 you have been the Director of Juvenile Services for Caddo Parish.

 

I want to spend today talking about the issue of juvenile crime in our community - a multi-faceted, complex problem that we have been struggling with for decades.

 

Let’s start with this quote of yours:

 

“It cost 10x more to lock them up than it does to prevent it. Louisiana can’t afford it. We’re gonna continue to see brain drain and companies leave and nobody moving in.”

 

Talk to me about the economics of incarceration versus prevention.

 

3:55 2. Let’s move on to another quote of yours:

 

“For my adult life, Caddo Parish has led the world in incarceration per capita and yet here we are.”

 

7:14 3. You have said that we are not getting upstream at solving the problem. I came across another quote of yours:

 

“You’re dealing with poverty, parenting issues and with reasons kids are susceptible to gangs.”

 

And I would add trauma to the above quote.

 

What can we do better for children to help them take a healthier path rather than a gang path?

 

12:34 4. Only 304 children in a parish of 60,000 children came to the detention center last year. Of those 304, only 66 were repeat offenders and returned to the detention center after serving their time.

 

The number one factor for the 66 kids that are repeat offenders in detention is that they do not have a single pro-social adult in their life. Not a parent, not a grandparent, not an aunt, not an uncle, not a principal, not a teacher, not a coach, not a pastor, not a mentor.

 

Talk to me about all of this if you could.

 

22:50 5. You said, “When we’re dealing with things like truancy we need the school system, the parish commission, the juvenile court. We need all of those bodies together.”

 

You are in the process of creating an intergovernmental committee to address juvenile crime. Talk to me about this effort and the important role the committee will serve.

 

35:30 6. I have read that Washington State and some other states around the country are addressing the issue of crime in far different ways than we do. Can you talk to me about one or two of these other models and their level of success?

 

55:02 7. You’ve said that when 14 year olds come to see you you’re too late. That of the 66 repeat offenders mentioned above, you might turn around three. That you’re too late.

 

I know that between Kristi Gustavson and the Community Foundation’s work with the Parish and the recent passage of the City’s Shreveport Early Start Initiative that there is great work happening in the community around Early Childhood Education for 0-5 year olds.

 

What do we need to do for our 6-13 year olds to help reduce juvenile crime in the future?

 

1:05:31 8. For people out there who are listening, just the lay person who says, “I love my community. I’ve had enough of the crime. I’m convinced I need to do my part.”

 

What do you have to say to those people? Or what can they do? Or how can they get involved and play as small of a role as it may be in helping this in the future?