TOO LATE TO REACH OUT?

Kudos to Edward Humes (“No Matter How Loud I Shout,” March 24) for telling the truth.

The juvenile justice system arises from the injustices suffered by juveniles. The system is doomed because it intends to address the wrongs done by the juveniles, not to redress those done to them. If we were more interested in securing the safety of children, we would be less interested in futile efforts to secure our safety now.

In the place of early intervention, we have incarceration. It is not enough to be in trouble, one must be trouble. The “therapist” for the poor is the police officer. A poor person’s chance of getting mental health treatment is essentially nil, unless he or she reaches adulthood and is sentenced to a state or federal prison. Mental health treatment for the poor is practically gone, and the booming penal system has trouble hiring psychologists for which it has funding. It is too little, too late.

Families, communities and societies that do not care about their youth create youths who don’t care about themselves or anyone else.

In a dozen years of testing and treating “juvenile offenders” in the L.A. County juvenile system, many times I felt the painful sinking of my heart in realization of the emptiness and despair in youths I met and the futility of reaching out to them. Some are too far gone. They are gone for substantial reasons. You would go too. Unless we improve their early experience, they will always be among us. And they are having children that they can’t care about. They can’t give what they never had. Thanks to Humes for caring.

DR. RICHARD PORTER, BRENTWOOD