There was much discussion on ctlocalpolitics.net regarding the Youth Task Force recently.
I don’t think anyone questions the tragedy of misguided youth. I for one however question the wisdom of recreating the wheel.
Why are we looking to hire “professionals” to establish something that already exists? It makes me wonder if any background research is conducted at all before a decision is made to spend my tax dollars.
It took me all of 5 minutes and a vague inkling of what to look for to find a wealth of information. Here is what I found:
U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
It appears that millions in research funds have been spent and thousands of research hours invested in identifying what works and what doesn’t in matters of juvenile intervention. They even have a handy and user friendly search engine to identify a program for your community based on it’s specific problems called “Model Programs Guide“. Check it out.
That’s enough to digest for now. Maybe one day we’ll get to addressing whether or not a youth task force is proper use of taxpayer funds.
Tags: East Hartford, OJJDP, Town Council, U.S. DoJ, Youth Task Force
