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Arrested son, 10, is free again

Given 21 days in juvenile detention, the child goes home early with his mother, who in desperation had him arrested on July 4. Experts say there are ways to help troubled youths that don't involve criminal records.

By Mallory Simon
Published July 9, 2006

He's big for his age, about 135 pounds. The Chicago Bears jersey he wore out of the juvenile detention center on Friday would swallow most kids, but not this 10-year-old.

His mother was there to take him home. She had insisted three days earlier that New Port Richey police arrest him on a felony charge after he broke into his neighbor's Ford Explorer and stole a knife and some other items. She had tried everything, she said, but the boy was incorrigible. Maybe this would work.

She wanted him to stay longer, and a judge had given him 21 days. But on Friday morning her phone rang. Come get your boy.

She wasn't happy. But here they were outside the Pasco juvenile detention center, ready to load into an old beat-up van.

A uniformed guard glared at the boy.

"If you do anything bad, your mom is going to call the probation officer or the police and you'll be back here," he warned. "And you won't go home for a long time."

The boy stood silent. He didn't hug his mom. He swayed back and forth, hands clasped behind his back. He stared at the ground.

* * *

Until he was 4, the boy seemed happy and normal, his mother said. He played with his brother, a year older. The family lived near several relatives in New Port Richey. Then his father took off.

"He went from a sweet lovable little guy to a big evil monster," the mother said.

She couldn't get anyone to watch him, not even family members. She had worked as a cashier and other minimum wage jobs, but now she had to quit working to care for the boys.

He hit her with a toy baseball bat when he was 6. He continued to take his anger out on his mother, kicking and punching her harder as the years went on. She took him to a psychiatrist who diagnosed him as bipolar with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder and oppositional defiant disorder. He takes a handful of pills every day, but his mother says he's still out of control.

"He'll beat me until I cry," she said. "Then he starts to laugh."

She said he knows that she has a bad leg from a car accident, and he aims directly for it. Sometimes, she said, he threatens to kill her or slit her throat during the night, and she is so afraid that she has a friend stay over so that she can get some sleep.

In school, he has trouble reading but averages B's and C's and is entering the fourth grade on schedule. He has run into some trouble because of his swearing and temper. He threw a chair at a classmate.

In May 2005, the mother called Child Protective Services because she said he was beating his brother. The charge was ruled unfounded, according to police reports.

Then in August, the boy would not stop banging his head against the wall and threatened to keep punching his mother. He was taken into custody for mental health treatment.

The boy began kicking holes the size of a football into the walls and doors of their apartment. The mother estimated there were as many as 100 holes in the house from the boy's fits of anger. She said the landlord threw them out.

On June 1, the family moved across the street. But nothing changed.

The boy snuck out at sunrise, disappearing for hours. He kicked the TV so hard a music box fell off and broke. She scolded the boy. He fired back asking if she wanted him to pick up the pieces of glass and cut her.

The mother called police to the home several times, records show. On June 25, the boy celebrated his 10th birthday. The next day police visited the home twice. First in the afternoon when the boy was spotted spray painting a local playground and then later that night when he stole a bicycle, according to police reports.

Then, on the Fourth of July, the desperate mother had her son taken away in handcuffs.

She feared for him as he rolled away in the back of the cruiser.

"I can see myself looking at him through prison walls," she said. "Right now he's just beating on me, but if he gets out there and does that to other people, I'm afraid for what is going to happen to him."

* * *

The arrest made headlines because of the boy's age. What becomes of a child so young when he enters a facility with much older, dangerous teens?

The Department of Juvenile Justice would not discuss the case but presented a policy for dealing with kids under 10. They separated the boy from the older boys and assigned a single officer to watch him. The policy calls for young children to be placed in a private room.

* * *

With all the boy's mental health problems, should he have been arrested and sent off to a detention center?

Barbara Bennett Woodhouse, a professor at the University of Florida and director of the Center on Children and Family, said there are ways to help this child without giving him a criminal record.

"Parents can come to the court and say my child is ungovernable and they can be adjudicated without labeling them as a criminal," she said. "That is a way to open the door to resources without giving him a record."

Bob Friedman, a professor and chairman of the Department of Child and Family Studies at the Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute at the University of South Florida, said the key to helping this boy is the treatment he receives upon leaving the detention center.

"There's really very little indication that incarceration by itself would be able to get him the services he needs," Friedman said. "What we have learned is that traditional methods such as office counseling and medication aren't entirely effective. What children need is a comprehensive plan based on their interests, which involves working with the family, establishing a mentor for him and giving aid in social, spiritual and medical ways."

* * *

The mother knows some people may not agree with her decision. Still, she believes she did what was best. She vows to do whatever she can to help her son, even if things get worse.

"I take the good with the bad, even though most of it is bad," she said. "I love my son, I just wish that I had a miracle to make this all better."

[Last modified July 8, 2006, 23:02:10]