As President of the National Crime Prevention Council, I sat on Attorney General Janet Reno’s U.S. Coordinating Council on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Thirsty to learn, Reno would hold meetings in places where she could witness what was going on in local communities. At one of our meetings at a school in Southeast Washington, D.C., a minister described what his church was doing to help prevent crime, referencing Head Start, mentoring, family counseling, and after-school programs. He concluded: “We also go out into the streets to get to know the kids by name.”
How powerful! For underneath the bravado of so many kids is the ache of not being claimed, named by anyone. So many youth act on their loneliness, their almost primordial need to belong. How simple, but how basic to be called by name: it is parental. We name our kids. It is love; it is protection—“you are mine.” It evokes the God who names. One finds wonderful social policy and theology in Isaiah: “Oh Israel, fear not; for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by name; thou art Mine.”
While serving as Commissioner of Youth Services in Massachusetts, a convicted juvenile murderer said something I will never forget, “Commissioner, I’d rather be wanted for murder than not wanted at all.” Si Johnson, a Native American who works with tough kids, described the young murderer from Red Lake, Minn., as being “outside the circle. Being outside the circle is death.”
It seems worse than alienation, for many troubled youth have never even been initially attached to family or society. Perhaps the word that comes closer is anomie—rootlessness, lack of purpose,” or anonymous—without name.
I worked with one of the nation’s “anonymous” kids, Erin Jacoba, who was jailed in the Indiana Girls’ School. I met her through our Youth as Resources program I designed. YAR asks youth to identify social issues that concern them, design a project to address that issue and, if funded, run the project. Thousands of youth joined YAR; but would YAR work with youth who felt they had little to offer anybody? Erin was in YAR’s experimental class. While serving time, Erin designed a project to work with children institutionalized with severe cerebral palsy.
Now finding pupose in life, Erin holds a Masters Degree in social work, shared her YAR experience with me: “Jack, when I came into the institution to work with the kids, they would fling out their arms and welcome me. It's the only time that I can remember anyone calling my name positively.” Where has her name been, I thought? On truancy lists, on stubborn children lists, police blotters, court dockets. How many kids are without name, or who cannot stand their names? Who names them?
The church baptizes children, names children, “You are Sarah…You are Juan….” The message? We love you; you are part of our community; you are ours. And then that exuberant welcoming ceremony later on, which often includes singing and dancing; the Bar and Bat Mitzvah, which convey three messages to teens: we love you; we will support you; we have great expectations for you.
Thus the question to all of us who work with children whose families cannot bless and welcome them: who will name and claim these children?” If we don’t, they will be named—by themselves or their peers. Gangs are good at it: The Antons, Tanikas, Pauls and Annies become Whisper, Slick, Gunner, Creeper….
May we never see under our august policies a child crying out for a name, crying out to be claimed as good, important, needed. The Rev. Rivers of Boston’s 10-Point Coalition tells of the drug dealer who issued him a chilling challenge: “You go home at 5:00 in the afternoon. But I’m there for my guys 24/7, rain or shine, day and night. They’re mine.”
If we don’t name and claim them as our kids, there is little mystery in knowing who will.
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