PROBLEMS YOUNG PEOPLE FACE IN WARREN COMMUNITY

This is the first article in a three-part series about the problems that
young people in the community face today. This article discusses what
problems young people encounter. Next week the Journal will talk to young
people to see what solutions they might have to these problems. The
following week, the Journal will discuss the experts' solutions to the
problems.

Major Kevin Harrison, 36, of the Warren County Sheriff's Department can
remember the time when he was a teenager and the trouble that he and his
peers faced.

Alcohol use was frequent among teenagers, Harrison remembers, and the most
serious consequences that concerned students and adults, were being cited
for driving under the influence and losing a driver's license.

While alcohol abuse continues to be an issue confronting today's youth,
that problem is often magnified today by increasing amounts of drug use
among young people and the increasingly higher stakes of such behaviors.

"We have a huge amount of our local population that are rock solid,
law-abiding young people," Harrison said. "There's been people since time
that have been doing it (using alcohol and drugs), but the thing I see
today with our young people is the type of drugs they're messing with. The
consequences today go well beyond losing your license. The stakes are your
freedom and your life."

The problems aren't unique to Warren County, and they entrap a small
portion of its young people, local law enforcement and educators said.
Whether the challenges confronted by youth are substance abuse, or teasing,
people who work closely with area youth say there are a myriad of obstacles
to healthy lives.

From a law enforcement perspective, Harrison said that a "common
denominator" in many issues he and his colleagues confront with young
people are alcohol and drug use. While alcohol use among teens has always
been present, Harrison said that he believes drug use has been on the rise.

"It's not a big shocker when young people know someone that smokes
marijuana," he said. "I think that has got to have a lot to do with it (the
rise in use), that it's so readily available to them."

For those youth that become involved in drug use, Harrison said that it
becomes much easier for those individuals to progress to "harder and
harder" types of drugs like acid or heroin-which along with marijuana and
methamphetamine are becoming more available in the county.

"If you're not careful and don't get it under control, it goes in a
dangerous direction," Harrison said. "It moves them from one level to another."

For Harrison and Warren County R-3 School Resource Officer Carol Leebrick
of the Warrenton Police Department, drug and alcohol problems can intersect
with other issues that confront young people.

According to 2002 statistics provided by the Wright City Police Department,
Wright City officers responded to a total of 123 incidents involving people
under the age of 18. Of those incidents, 16 included incidents involving
drugs or alcohol-ranging from possession of drug paraphernalia, possession
of alcohol, possession of tobacco product by a minor, possession of
marijuana and possession of crack/cocaine.

The other incidents to which the department responded involving youth
ranged from parking in a handicap zone to property damage to assault.

The trouble that kids may find can often have its roots in the types of
relationships that young people face with their peers and family. Leebrick
said that the home environment for children is critical to their
development. "Parents are the biggest mentors in their children's lives,"
she said.

During her time in police work and as school resource officer, Leebrick has
seen situations where children are exposed to drug use or domestic violence
in their homes. Leebrick said that she has heard grade school students
comment on the arrest of a family member.

"There's a lot these kids are going through at a young age that we've never
experienced," Leebrick said. "Unfortunately, it seems to me that some of
them are very, very wise about adult things."

The stress that those exposures place on children can build to a point
where the child is involved in unhealthy behaviors-such as becoming
unusually passive or aggressive with peers or at school, she said.

Not only do those traumatic situations impact children, but the attention
parents provide to kids is also critical, Leebrick said. Some parents may
use school, church, or other activities as "drop off services" and overlook
many of the things in which their children participate. In these
situations, it can be easy for communication to break down and for children
to become involved with negative influences, she said.

Many of the obstacles kids face are out of their control and even out of
their parents' control, Leebrick said. Nevertheless, as she and her
colleagues reach out to kids and their parents, the officers try to impress
on them the importance of their relationships.

"Sometimes it's true (that parents are involved) and sometimes it's not,"
Leebrick said. "Kids aren't perfect and are going to make wrong choices.
We're trying to teach that every life touches other lives."