The Final Call

‘Children are left behind’

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A new report details how children suffer trauma and loss watching police arrest their loved ones. The trauma can last for years.

Jammie (name changed) remembered the day his father was arrested as if it was yesterday, although it was five years ago. He was 10 years old when police officers, who he refers as the “popo,” snatched his father and took him into custody.

Jammie was 15 years old at the time of the interview. During the interview session, the interviewer noticed that Jammie started to tremble as he verbally walked her through the incident. Jammie related that he, his father and grandmother were getting ready to eat breakfast when his grandmother suggested that they go to the store to buy milk and bread.

“Me and my dad walked to the store and we were talking and laughing the whole way,” Jammie recalled. “The store was only three blocks away from our home, so it took a short time to get there. We got the milk and bread in no time and were on our way back home. Then popo came out of nowhere. We didn’t even see them coming,” he reflected.

“It happened so fast. They drove the cop car upon the sidewalk right in front of us and jumped out the car. I was confused and I think my dad was, too. They grabbed him and shoved him into the side of the car. They were smiling the entire time. My dad dropped the milk and bread and I ran to pick it up. They never looked at me or said anything to me. I watched them being rough with him the whole time. They put cuffs on him and threw him into the back of the cop car.”

Jammie said that as soon as they had jumped out of the car,  they jumped back into the vehicle and drove off.

“I never got to say bye. I didn’t get to ask no questions. I never got to talk,” he said. “I wanted to say something to them, to someone, you know. I didn’t know what to say. But I wanted to talk to my dad, to them, to somebody, you know. I wanted to say something. I thought I was invisible for a second because they never looked my way. They wanted my dad and didn’t think anything about me. His son who stood there helpless watching them abuse him. I walked home and thought about it the whole way.  I told my grandmommy what happened and we both cried. That was the last time I had quality time with my dad. The worst day of my life. A day I can’t forget even though I try many times.”

This scenario is one that is repeated hundreds, maybe thousands of times a day across the United States as law enforcement apprehends men and women they believe to be involved or implicated in crimes as varied as domestic violence, selling drugs, prostitution or what the police describe as property crimes.

A trio of scholars—Dr. Bahiyyah Muhammad, Professor Tina Simmons and Kasandra Dodd—produced a study published in the American University Business Law Review on August 28, titled, “The Cost of the Government’s Failure to Protect Children Witnessing Parental Arrest and Detainment,” which details in stark terms the traumatic effects children suffer when they witness a parent or guardian being arrested.

The article found that “[T]he majority of police departments have no written protocol delineating officers’ responsibility to the children of arrested parents.” The article explores the failure of law enforcement to safeguard children of detained and/or arrested parents. It draws upon interviews with children of incarcerated parents who witnessed the arrest and/or detainment of their loved one, as well as interviews with the arrested and/or detained parents. The study also address failures of the law and those who enforce it.

“We found that when it comes to children seeing that, it causes trauma. The question is who looks after the child? The family, a guardian, someone in child welfare? The way the police deal with it is haphazard,” said Ms. Dodd, clinical social worker in the Washington, D.C., metro area who has 13 years of experience in the child welfare field, specializing in work with adolescents in foster care.

“There are severe implications— children are left behind, they’re not considered, there is an impact on the loss of their parents. The result is that they are acting out and having nightmares, among other issues. This changes their view of cops and they have hostility, distrust.”

Her colleague elaborated. “Black children said officers kicked in the door. Women were in the bathroom when cops busted in and children are sharing violence after violence,” said Dr. Muhammad, an assistant professor of criminology in Howard University’s Department of Sociology and Criminology, whose research interests include familial incarceration and the collateral consequences of mass incarceration experienced by minor children and their caregivers. “It resonated with me as a young, educated woman with Black children, a Black husband, Black parents and grandparents,” she said. 

Prof. Simmons said the International Association of Chiefs of Police was the catalyst for the paper. This problem came to the organization’s attention in 2016.

“There are thousands of kids,” said Prof. Simmons, a Howard University law professor and the Special Assistant to the Deputy Director of the D.C. Department of Corrections. “The Department of Justice in 2010 said there were 1,706,600 children with a parent or parents in prison. It’s a lot. Yet there isn’t a lot of research done on children of incarcerated parents and the smaller subset of those who witness arrests.”

The women explained in the report the necessity of their scholarly research. “In American society, parents are sent to prison at alarming rates, yet very little research has been conducted on how children and young adults are impacted after witnessing the detainment or arrest of a parent or guardian. When young individuals witness such events, they are more likely to display post-traumatic stress symptoms as compared to children whose parents are not arrested,” the report stated.

“Accordingly, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, in association with the DOJ’s Office of Bureau Assistance, developed a model policy to serve as an important written guidance and resource for law enforcement to develop national guidelines and templates for internal policy to follow in these common situations.”

Ms. Dodd said research around Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES) has established a link between early childhood trauma and a range of health issues in adulthood like diabetes, heart disease and other health issues, mental health problems and early death.

“We know that the brain is affected. What’s new about this is the impact over the lifespan of affected children. Children and young people make poor decisions, abuse drugs and they’ve even linked it to suicides,” said Dr. Narketta Key, an assistant professor in the Counseling and Human Services Department at Old Dominion University. “And that’s just one aspect of it.”

“I’m a former foster care worker. The majority of children who enter the system is going to be juggled around. Parents don’t know the needs of the children they get. The issue of children left in the home and police officers not knowing, that has been around for a while. Articles in 1967 talked about it,” Dr. Key added. “Because of increased poverty, children are being put into kinship care and many are being abused. We do the research, put the stuff out there but no one does anything.”

Dr. Kaprea Johnson notes that: “The idea that kids can get post-traumatic stress syndrome outside of warzone is a new thing. And that kids experiencing this level of trauma is new.”

Several interviewees said it’s impossible to see what’s happening to Black and Brown families as they get entangled in the criminal justice system and not tie it to racial inequities, disproportionate sentencing, the school-to-prison pipeline, the failed War on Drugs and policies that have put 2.3 million Americans behind bars. And as more and more parents are arrested, increasing numbers of children are witnesses and are traumatized when it happens.

Last June, Chicago’s City Council approved a $2.5 million settlement to the family of a suffering three-year-old girl when it found that officers pointed a gun at the child’s chest then made her watch as they pointed a gun at her grandmother and struck her mom, Aretha Simmons, while she was handcuffed.

Ms. Simmons sued the city in 2014 over the way they executed their search warrant when they raided her home in August 2013, according to media reports.  An expert witness explained that the girl’s trauma “one of the worst cases of child PTSD.”  The girl is so traumatized that she may require psychiatric treatment into adulthood. 

This is not the first time the Chicago Police Department (CPD) has been criticized for their treatment of children during arrests. According to the Associated Press, a 2017 Justice Department report condemned the CPD for too often using excessive force, including against children. The city has since pledged to overhaul police procedures and training.

Aretha Simmons’ daughter is just one example of the countless children that have to witness their parents’ arrest each day. The study showed that special circumstances are created when the arresting officers take away a child’s parent in front of them. And that, in fact, by doing so, law enforcement is creating “underestimated consequences and unforeseen trauma.”

“It’s sheer post-traumatic stress syndrome,” Dr. Matthew Fogg, Retired Chief Deputy U.S. Marshal told The Final Call.  “It’s traumatizing to see your parents taken away, to see the police come and put handcuff on your parents.  I was speaking at an elementary school and asked the question, ‘What do police do?’”

“Here’s what they said. ‘Shoot you in the back.  Sit you on the ground with hand cuffs.  Lock you up.  Arrest you’.  All negative perceptions of the police.  I can still see the looks in children’s faces when I made arrests. You’re taking someone away that they love.  They will never forget it either.”

The report concludes that even with countless studies and initiatives over the past three decades there are no legislative requisites in place to safeguard this class of children.

“The state is truly creating a danger by failing to implement statutory procedures that provide guidance to the men and women who have sworn to protect the communities which they serve. Law enforcement requires complement enforcement of the law,” the report concludes.

Yet the study’s authors and interviewees contend that we cannot wait for politicians or policymakers to solve the Black community’s problems.

“I don’t know if there’s the political and social will to change this,” said Dr. Johnson, an associate professor and school and mental health counselor at Virginia Commonwealth University. “I don’t know and I don’t think so.  It’s a combination of not knowing and not knowing what to do. We have some well-intentioned people and our community overall has incredible spending power but will we spend our money? I doubt it. We’re going to have to do it from the ground up but activists need economic power to change the community.”

“It requires self-esteem, fixing abandoned and broken down homes and stepping up to build a beautiful community. We have to develop a caring community and the police are important. We need diversity training at the micro-level, community policing and recruiting officers from the communities they live in. We can change the whole story.”

Dr. Muhammad agreed. “This is not work. The hardest work has already been done,” she asserted. “Ultimately, one of the largest things that needs to happen is get rid of the fear and anger (in children). That to me is the only way to control and change what’s happening. If you don’t control your anger, it rules you.

“We don’t need a million dollars to teach our children. We have to go back to the natural love of family, gotta go back to old school, get back to natural origins. We have lost the goodness of what we were, once were. We need mind, heart and righteousness. We have to find love in our heart because we all come from One. You have to work with police officers to develop protocols to protect your children. A child cannot use hate to win anything. We have to use all the models and have different strategies. Don’t judge, don’t discriminate. They can live on love, knowledge, truth.”