In a perfect world, children should be home with their family units intact, happy siblings, grandparents around, and healthy, loving interaction from good role models; unfortunately, this often is not the case though. Many homes are broken, parents may be in jail for drugs or other crimes, and children may become displaced. Their new families may not be tied to them by blood at all as they go to foster homes where there may be multiple other kids who need a safe place to live also.
Foster kids are just typical children in most ways, but usually they have experienced more hardships than others and require a huge amount of compassion, patience, and understanding. PTSD may be common in foster kids after all they have gone through, and especially if they have been ‘in the system’ for a long period of time. They may have a lot of mental and emotional issues, and even physical disabilities that keep them from having a good quality of life. Some of these problems can lead to further complications and unfortunately, an introduction to crime. This could begin with minor shoplifting—and especially if they have no money of their own and are in need—and then continue to cigarettes and marijuana, drinking alcohol, and getting into harder drugs like meth and heroin later.
Hundreds of thousands of kids are in foster homes, and far too many are ‘funneled’ to prison. Foster kids are often abused, and sex traffickers target kids in temporary living arrangements. These children may often end up in juvenile facilities simply because foster parents and individuals in charge in larger foster group homes are used to calling the police over even the smallest infractions. Kids who are just being normal kids and pushing the limits or going too far periodically may find themselves in juvenile hall, or worse—jail.
Studies show that kids in the foster care system often go from home to home, and over 90 percent of them who have moved over five times will end up in the criminal system in some capacity. This could mean that they end up in jail, prison, probation camps, or on probation that is supervised from their home. Today there are many programs dedicated to keeping minors out of jail and prison, but there are also hundreds of thousands of kids being arrested.
If your minor child has been charged with a crime, call Dolan Law Offices as soon as possible. We have defended hundreds of adults and juveniles in these matters, with successful results—and it is very important to try and avoid something like a gang crime conviction that would be on your child’s record permanently, leading to further escalation if there were another charge in the future. Call us at (760) 775-3739 or contact us online as soon as possible.