We have members of spft on parent forums too - undercover. What is missing is solutions in the community which are NOT punishments.
What can you say to a parent to a child who are nearly 18 and have the mind of a 14 year old hating her own race and are currently on the streets because her mom called the cops in a moment of fear when she was punched down on the ground? This particular girls is ill but won't of course choose the solution the society has in hand for her: Jail because she is wanted on a bench warrant.
What do you say to another mother, who has a son who either was blackmailed or had to pay for drugs and let other addicts empty the house?
While we are fighting programs, we have to understand that the society has to offer other solutions beside programs as well. Else we can provide all the information in the world we want, but the parents would be caught by the government who will blame them and jail them when they allow their kids to act quite normal like Elisa Kelly and her husband (Pardoned from an insane sentence of 4 years because they served alcohol at a party for teens). How many parents are not forced to pay for their teens in the juvie or in a state sponsored RTC and placed in a situation where they as well could pay a private firm for the same warehousing?
How many times are the parents not told by the government how dangerous it is to have certain thing on record (truancy, alcohol possession or violence) when applying for college or having a criminal record when seeking a job.
The 1990s was a time when introducing zero-tolerance became the norm.
1 out of 100 are in prisons now. Some are teens serving life and now we know that most of them would not be a threat if they are released once they are matured around age 25. Some shouldn't be in prison at all (curfew breaking, underage alcohol possession and various slips in probation) but should wear a GPS-bracelet instead because they impose no danger to society.
But we have to think about the amount of information his parent had at their disposal in 1994. There were no ISAC, HEAL, Cafety, Spft or Fornits. There were no internet where they could google news about deaths. They had to rely on a combination of the marketing from the programs and all the warnings from the government telling them that Aaron was a candidate for the soon to be three strike laws.
I cannot pass judgment on them for their decision. Without the information we have at hand today they could only have saved his life by hiking beside him.
But we have to remember that while we have gone some miles and we all have done a good days work with revealing the abuse in the programs, we are far from reaching the goal, because still today the parents are caught in the middle by the actions of their kids and the hammer from the justice system, which can send their child to jail for life.
Let us be satisfied with documenting the past and start improve the future. Off to work!!!