“To protect and to serve does not mean to preserve those in power. It does not mean to attack the innocent, nor does it mean to ambush the voiceless.”
Those wise words were not written by a seasoned public official or community advocate. They appeared in an essay written by 16-year old student Shreya Daggolu from Jackson Heights, New York, who won first place in a contest sponsored by You(th) Matter (YM), a youth-led initiative of Strategies for Youth.
Listing the names of some of the young people killed by police in the past several years, the essay observed poignantly, “Their souls, their friends, must be crying out, “How can we be kids in America?”
In announcing the contest last November in The Crime Report, Laura A. Jenny, Isaac Annan and Hannah Sussman, members of You(th) Matter, discussed the importance of including youth in conversations about police reform.
They wrote: “Young people are all too often left out of discussions about policing practices, the law and the relationship between their communities and law enforcement.”
And they posed a simple, yet powerful question: “What if we started listening to them?”
We are delighted to report some of the insights that can be gleaned when we do exactly that.
For the Second Annual Youth Voices Contest co-sponsored by Strategies for Youth and You(th) Matter, we asked young people aged 14-18, to submit either a written essay, a work of art, or video addressing the prompt: “What is the role of policing in fostering democracy by the people, for the people”?
What shines through so brightly in the entries we received is more than a strong commitment to democracy.
The 14 judges from across the country—including attorneys, art professors, youth advocates, and journalists—found the entries shared nuanced understanding of the need for young people and police to move beyond mutual antagonism, listen and learn from one another, and work together for the greater good.
The winner in each category will receive $1,000. The first runner up will receive $500, and the second runner up will receive $250 .
Check out the winners here, and in The Crime Report’s special section on Youth Voices winners.
Jade Duffas, a 17-year-old from Flatbush, Brooklyn, who won first-place in the visual arts category, wrote of their entry: “This is what I wanted to show through my artwork, that piece of hope that unites us as citizens no matter the animosity of the police and no matter how large the power from our democracy.”
In their third-place written essay, Rhonasha George, a 17-year-old from East New York, Brooklyn, wrote: “Presenting a united front, being willing to come together, have dialogue with each other, and actively listen will help each side discern how they can help the other and will reduce uncertainty, distrust, and fear.”
These young artists are neither naïve, nor unrealistically idealistic.
They fully recognize the harshness of the current reality that they are experiencing.
Rozlin Genc, from Nassau County, Long Island, who won second prize in the visual art category, wrote of the symbolism in their painting: “the various experiences an adolescent will be exposed to within childhood, usually occurring within low-income households, such as drug abuse, unnoticed or ineffectively cared for mental illnesses, several kinds of abuse and neglect as well as exposure to violence.”
Nick Hernandez, a 14-year-old from Utah, who won third-place, depicted the racial injustices of so many police encounters.
“Some people are only given a warning while others are automatically arrested or threatened,” he wrote.
“This is because of the government’s mentality. It’s unfair for those of color, just because the police work for the government they should still allow them to be free-willed when arresting someone, and not be racist towards the situation.”
Yet, the youth who submitted entries refused to yield to demonization.
As Sebastian Valencia, a 14-year old from Queens, New York, who won second place in the writing category, wrote: “We need to stop playing the blame game…. A strong relationship of mutual trust between police and community is the key to a society where democracy can be realized to its full potential.”
We encourage everyone to visit the SFY and YM websites at www.strategiesforyouth.org and www.youthmattersfy.org to view the powerful visual works of art created by the contest winners, and to read the extraordinary selected essays in their entirety.
With so much written lately about the mental health struggles of teenagers, who have experienced so much trauma in their young lives, hearing directly from them is more important than ever.
While their struggles are deep and real, we find great hope in the honesty, compassion and common sense expressed in these submissions.
Displaying so much insight, acute observation, and willingness to face reality head-on, it seems obvious that our young people deserve so much more than what society is currently giving them.
The unfair and unnecessarily harsh way in which police treat too many young people represents just one of the many ways in which we, as a society, are failing our young.
But their resilience, creativity and honesty, as exhibited in these extraordinary works of art, doubles our resolve to ensure that Strategies for Youth and You(th) Matter continue to advocate for the fair and respectful treatment by police that should be the birthright of every child and adolescent in this country.
Lisa H. Thurau, is Executive Director Strategies for Youth, Inc. Laura A. Jenny and Hannah Sussman, Co-founders & Youth Leaders for You(th) Matter, also contributed to this essay.