Kids, Drugs, Crime & Consequences

A 3-in-1 special satellite broadcast feed of the following three videos -- each one containing a special message designed for school-aged-children from the 4th grade and up, as well as teachers, parents, juvenile justice agencies and the like.

It Never Goes Away

If you commit a crime as a juvenile, is the slate wiped clean when you turn 18? Not necessarily! Drugs + Crime = Consequences, no matter how you add it up. And those consequences can last a lifetime, especially when you are involved in a crime associated with illegal drugs. This 12-minute-long scenario-driven awareness video drives home the message about how some kids have to find out the hard way that no matter when it happens, sometimes It Never Goes Away! This award-winning video is uniquely produced in a format in which kids talk about their crimes and consequences they pay. This video a production of the Multijurisdictional Counterdrug Task Force Training Program, the Florida National Guard, St. Petersburg College, and the Pinellas-Pasco, Florida Counties State Attornney’s Office.

Not Free

Did you know that taking a pocket knife to school, holding a friend’s prescription medication or grabbing a teacher by the arm could put you in juvenile detention for more than a year? Have you ever seen the clothes they have to wear in jail? The places they have to sleep? The food they have to eat? This 10-minute award-winning video presentation will explore the seemingly innocent things that you could do to end up: “Not Free.” It is a production produced in partnership with St. Petersburg College and the Pinellas-Pasco, Florida Counties State Attorney’s Office.

Hard Knocks High

You’ve heard the saying, “I learned everything I know in The School of Hard Knocks!” But the self-proclaimed “Toughest Sheriff in America,” Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona has taken that saying and turned it into one of the first high schools behind the bars of a maximum security jail in America. In the state of Arizona, juveniles who commit adult crimes can be charged, tried and incarcerated as an adult criminal offender would be. “If you are going to commit rape, robbery, murder—that type of crime—as a juvenile, they you should be tried as an adult,” says Sheriff Joe, who supported Proposition 102 that became Arizona law in 1997. It makes it mandatory for juvenile offenders 15 and older accused of violent crimes such as murder, rape, armed robbery and drive-by shootings to be tried as adults. Prosecutors, not judges, now have discretion to transfer such offenders to adult court. Minors with two prior juvenile felony convictions automatically are sent to adult court, even if all the felonies are non-violent.

Find out why, then, when it comes to juvenile offenders, Sheriff Joe believes so strongly in his Four “Rs” – Reading, Writing, Arithmetic and Rehabilitation. At his maximum security Madison Street Jail in downtown Phoenix, many juvenile offenders who are tried, convicted and sentenced as an adult, are serving their time while earning a high school diploma or a GED, in addition to learning skills that will help them transition back into the real world. Sheriff Joe’s hope is that when these kids are turned back to society, that the education and rehabilitation they received at “Hard Knocks High” will help them turn their backs to a life of crime once and for all.

During this video production, You will meet the principal of “Hard Knocks High” and a 17-year-old inmate/student and former gang member who talks openly about why he joined a gang and what gang life ultimately offered him. He will also tell you what it is like to work on Sheriff Joe’s controversial “Chain Gang” – and hear Sheriff Joe’s philosophy about putting juveniles on the chain gang.

This video is a production of the Multijurisdictional Counterdrug Task Force Training Program.