They looked and looked and looked. They
called other cops, and other cops came, and when they couldn’t find
him, one of the cops came in and said to me, “You’re under
arrest.”
And I looked at him and I was like, “What do
you mean I’m under arrest?”
“You’re under arrest for obstructing the
police.”
And I’m like, “What are you talking about?
What do you mean obstructing the police?”
And he’s like, “Ma’am, just come with
us.”
Now, I had my 2-year-old daughter and my
4-year-old stepson with me, because at this point, his son was
living with us because his mother had abandoned him. They put me in
the police car with these two kids and took me to the police
station. While I was sitting in the police station, confused, a cop
came up to me and told me, “This is off the record. If you ever say
it, I’m going to deny it. The only reason we are taking you into
custody is that he escaped handcuffed, and we can’t find him, and
we need to blame somebody. If we don’t, we could be suspended for
two weeks with no pay. If you say it, I’ll deny it.”
When we went to court, I chose not to press
charges. I was 20 years old with no money. I didn’t know anything
about the law. I didn’t know anything about rights. I was
threatened with two or three years of jail time if I didn’t plead
guilty, but if I plead guilty, they would plead for six months of
supervision. So I pled guilty and walked out of there.59
I didn’t leave him right away, but a few
months later, when he went to work one day, my best friend and her
brothers came with a moving truck, and in a matter of three hours
we packed up the apartment and cleared it out. I left him with a
mattress and a roll of toilet paper. We put all of my furniture in
storage and I went to live with my parents. At that point, I
decided I had to do something with my life. I said, “I can’t live
like this.”
And that’s when my best friend and I decided
to go take our GED test. The moment I looked at those results, I
went straight to Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago and I
started college. From then until I graduated, I went to school
full-time and I worked full-time in a pharmacy and I was taking
care of my daughter.
My initial plan was to go on to law school,
but I began to volunteer at the Juvenile Temporary Detention Center
here in Cook County, and I would visit kids who didn’t receive
visits, and I became interested in kids that were involved in the
juvenile-justice system.60 So I applied in Lake County as a
juvenile probation officer, but I couldn’t be a probation officer
right off the bat because I didn’t have experience, so I had to
work in the Detention Center. I came in with a law-enforcement kind
of attitude. I was like, “I’m going to tell these kids what to do.
And if not, there’s a consequence.” That was my thinking.
I walked in and got a wake-up call real
quick, because now I was dealing with kids who had the same
attitude I had when I was 13, 14, 15: “I don’t feel. I don’t care.
Lock me up in my room.” I mean, I had never been to jail or
anything, but some of these kids had been in and out of juvenile
detention, so me saying I’m going to put them in their room was not
a threat. They would curse me all the way there and sometimes they
would have to be restrained. What it did was change my attitude
with the kids.
It involved me doing less talking, and I
started doing more listening, just to kind of understand who these
kids were, what they were doing, where did they come from. Because
of legal reasons, I couldn’t talk to them about the offense they
committed. But where did they live? Where did they come from? Is
there a mom? Is there a dad? I would notice the kids who didn’t get
visits or some of them that got visits that would be very
contentious. The kids would come back very upset. And then there
would be those who had visits every week, very positive visits, so
I saw there were all different types of kids with different types
of experiences.
And after I became a probation officer for
juvenile offenders, I began going into their communities, into
their homes. Here I saw kids who didn’t have parents, or girls who
had a dad but didn’t have a mom, or Mom was a drug addict. What I
realized is that people judge these kids on their behavior in the
communities and schools, and they have no idea what they’re going
through at home. Just like how people judged me when I was their
age, and I was acting like this, a little delinquent. But they had
no idea what I was going through at home, no idea. I was not going
to say, “Oh, poor kids, I know you’re having a hard time at home.
Go out and act a fool.” But I felt a sense of connection with these
kids.
I dealt with some of the most thuggish
gangbangers. I dealt with some of the snottiest kids from the
snootiest suburbs, and they were still kids that came from
dysfunctional homes and were judged just by their behavior. That
was a whole new awakening for me.
I wanted to have all of them understand that
there is a better way, and that there is hope, and that there are
things you can do to get out of your situation. You cannot make
this the rest of your life. You have to change. And when I told
them my own story, they felt like, “She understands. She’s not okay
with what I’m doing, but she understands.”
So now I had them listening. I had their
ear.
There was this young girl that I met. She was
probably 15 years old when the case was first assigned to me and
I’ll never forget, when I drove up to her house there were all
these gangbangers in front of her house. I mean, our policy was if
you don’t feel safe, drive off, but I was like, “No, no, no. This
girl’s not going to be hanging out with gangbangers.”
So I got out of my car and I walked up to her
and she just had this mean look on her face. I identified myself
and said, “They got to go. We need to talk.” I explained my role
and told her what was acceptable and what was not, and then I set
up appointments to meet with her at the office. When I started to
get to know her, I realized she lived with her aunt, uncle and
cousins. And then I found out that the mom was in and out of
prison, and when she wasn’t in prison she would just be gone. Mom
was a crack addict.
This girl was a fighter. Oh my God! All this
girl would do is fight. She was on probation for hitting a kid over
the head with a padlock at school. She ran around with the Satan
Disciples in Waukegan61 and she got high. Smoked a lot of
marijuana. That’s what she did, smoked a lot of marijuana. She was
this angry, angry girl, and it was almost like I was seeing me at
her age. Me and her would butt heads all the time and I would give
her a run for her money and she would get very angry with me. And
then I started to realize that she didn’t have her dad. Her mom had
prostituted herself. She had witnessed this as a very young girl.
I’m sure she went through some sort of abuse. She cut herself a
lot.
In one of our moments, I said to her, “You
know, it’s not your fault. I’m sorry you went through what you went
through, but it’s not your fault.”
I think that was like a breakthrough for her. Somebody had given
her
permission to be angry. And I don’t think anybody had ever said
that to her. All of a sudden I discovered this little girl. This
little girl. I just think she was just trapped in that traumatized
body of hers. I mean, I have lots of stories, but for me that was
probably the most impactful because that’s where I knew that what
worked for me was going to work for her. That was just
accountability, structure and someone to listen, to say, “It’s
okay.” And to celebrate the rewards, dish out the consequences when
needed, and let it work for her own good. She was on probation for
a long time. She would email me every so often to ask me how I was
doing and tell me she was doing well.
The last time I Googled her name, just to
see, oh my God, what am I going to find? Was she arrested as an
adult or something like that? And what I found was an article of
her with a bunch of other people in Mississippi after Hurricane
Katrina. She was down there helping to rebuild homes. So it was a
proud moment. It was almost as if she was my daughter, and I was
like, “Wow! Here was this thug, wreaking havoc in the town of
Waukegan and she’s now in this town in Mississippi, helping people
rebuild.” That was awesome.
See, if you’re not going to try to figure out
what is going on or what has happened with a young person, then
you’re simply punishing the kid; you’re not dealing with the
behavior. So you can’t restore. That’s the real question: How do
you restore?
—
Interviewed by Emma CushmanWood
Endnotes
59 Figueroa reports that, when she wanted to
become a probation officer, her guilty plea “came back to haunt me.
It was going to ruin my career.” Luckily, she was able to get her
record expunged.
60 According to the Cook County website, “The
Juvenile Temporary Detention Center provides temporary secure
housing for youth from the age of 10 through 16 years, who are
awaiting adjudication of their cases by the Juvenile Division of
the Cook County Courts. The Center also provides care for youth who
have been transferred from Juvenile Court jurisdiction to Criminal
Court. These youth would otherwise be incarcerated in the county
jail.” See
http://www.cookcountygov.com/portal/server.pt/community/juvenile_temporary_detention_center/304/juvenile_temporary_detention_center
61 Waukegan is a racially diverse suburb
about 40 miles north of Chicago.
WHERE IN THIS
COMMUNITY DOES IT
SAY WE CARE?
DIANE LATIKER
Diane Latiker has been a resident of the
Roseland community for more than two decades. This South Side
neighborhood has one of Chicago’s highest homicide rates and is
plagued by poverty and unemployment. In 2003, Latiker, a mother of
eight, opened her home to at-risk youth seeking a positive
alternative to gang involvement. Her living room became a place for
tutoring, mentoring and artistic expression for the young people of
the neighborhood. Ten years later, Latiker’s nonprofit
organization, Kids Off the Block (KOB), has helped more than 2,000
kids.
In 2007, “Miss Diane,” as young people call
her, created a memorial near KOB that contains rows of carved red
paving stones. Each stone bears the name of a child who was killed
by street violence in Chicago. The memorial currently has 376
bricks and, even though she has already rebuilt it nine times,
Latiker still needs to add the names of 118 murdered children. In
October of 2012, the Chicago City Council passed an ordinance for a
12,500-square-foot site to be made into a public park and expanded
memorial so that KOB can continue its work.
A charismatic woman with a quick smile and
big laugh, Latiker is both passionate and resilient. In one moment,
she welcomes a youth at KOB with a gentle greeting; in another, she
pounds her fist on the table when advocating for change.
I grew up with unity. To me, unity consists
of not just that word, but also love, caring, respect, relationship
and trust. I grew up with Mrs. Stone down the block knowing who I
was. And if I got out of line, she’d tell my mother when my mother
got off work. If I came over there doing my thing, I’d hear, “Diane
Latiker, if you don’t get back over there, I’m gonna...” It was
unity. I was surrounded by people and a support system. I’m not
saying it was perfect because we always had knuckleheads. But
growing up I always remember that it was this tight-knit community.
I could walk through and not be afraid.
We had the gangs, but for some reason they
were more like protectors. They would kill each other, but they
wouldn’t hurt the innocent people in their communities. If we had a
barbecue or something, they would make sure nothing happened around
that area. It was crazy, but it was beautiful to me as a child,
because I knew that I was protected. I knew that I was
supported.
I have memories of people wanting to come
together. Barbecuing on the street, you know, eating together,
laughing together. But the younger generation never saw that place.
And the reason that they didn’t see it was because we didn’t teach
it to them; we didn’t show it to them. I say “we” because it was my
generation that dropped the ball. And I don’t only mean in
Roseland. I mean, period. We dropped the ball on teaching our young
people about how important it is that they help in the community
and be a part of a community and not separate themselves. I know
the young people thirst for that. I know they do because, when we
do community events, they don’t want to go home. They love it. They
talk about it for days. That’s what I would like to see. I think
there are some good parts in Roseland, and there are some bad parts
in Roseland. I want to stay here and make it all the good
parts.
As a young girl, all I wanted was to be
married and have a lot of kids. Well, be careful what you ask God
for, because He’ll give it you. I got pregnant on my 16th birthday,
and my mom made me get married. I wanted to get married but was
scared at the same time. I was married nine years to him and 25
years to my current husband. I have eight beautiful kids. I have
four boys and four girls. My oldest one will be 38 this year. And
my youngest one, she’ll be 21. I love them. They are, wow.
I was a licensed hair stylist. Hated it. I
hated doing hair. I did it because of my family. My daughter, she’s
the one that had the talent to do hair. She wanted to drop out of
school. And I said, “Don’t do that. What do you love to do?” And
she said, “Hair.” So I enrolled her in hair school, an after-school
program. To keep her in there, I joined. I didn’t want to. But in
the meantime, my other two sisters went to hair school, so my
mother said, “I’ll open up a shop for you guys,” and then I was
stuck. I couldn’t say no to my mother. My mother is my mentor, my
best friend. She believes in everything we want to do. So for eight
years, I did hair. But when I found KOB—well, when God helped me
find it—I knew: This is me. This is it.