CHAMPAIGN— Champaign County officials, program leaders and youth met Wednesday afternoon to discuss the issues troubling young people.
Panelists, including three young men who were invited to share their experience, discussed youth crime, gun violence and programs aimed at supporting young people.
About 80 people attended the Champaign County Community Coalition event, which takes place every month at Holiday Inn’s Conference Center in Champaign.
“The last year has been a very tough, sad time in our community as it relates to gun violence,” said Tracy Parsons, community relations manager for the City of Champaign.
Over the summer, gun violence claimed the lives of three boys under the age of 17.
Among the panelists was Gabe Manning, a junior at Centennial High School.
“I was real loose at times, but ninth grade is what really made me open my eyes to what was going on around me,” he said.
Before high school, Manning said he saw other people commit crimes to get what they needed.
“I see they got the money from doing this or doing that,” Manning said. “If I had to do this to make sure I come home at night or eat or do whatever, I was willing to do it.”
When Manning started working on music, he realized there were other ways to get money and feel fulfilled while doing it, he said.
“It made me realize that I want to move away from [crime], if I can. That that’s not what I want to do,” he said.
Among the panelists was 21-year-old Travon Gibson who lives in Champaign. He said guns are really accessible here.
“If I leave these four walls, I can get a gun faster than I can get a job application,” Gibson said.
Gibson said his former felony makes it really hard for him to get a job. He told attendees that lots of young people use guns.
He encouraged young people to consider other ways to resolve their disagreements, without violence.
After the panel of young men finished speaking, Champaign County State’s Attorney Julia Rietz took the stage with Parsons to discuss the changes she has seen in youth crimes over the last 20 years.
“We have a detention center of young men, who are possessing and using guns against each other to solve perceived disagreements,” she said.
Many more young people have also started using cannabis on a daily basis, Rietz said. She had five review hearings at juvenile court the day prior, where all five young people tested positing for cannabis, she said.
Rietz said she also sees more car thefts.
“When I talk about car thefts, I’m talking about like two in the morning, breaking into a Hyundai, hot wiring it, driving it and fleeing from the police, when you’re 12 or 13,” Rietz said.
These crimes stem from generational issues related to poverty and housing, she said. But every young person also has a different situation, with different resources and support systems they need to succeed, she said.
“I know we can’t save them all, but that does not mean that there are not things that we aren’t doing, that everyone in this room isn’t doing,” Rietz said. “There are so many faces here that I know are working so hard, and we have got to come up with a way to break this cycle.”
It will take a coordinated effort from community members to address these issues, said James Benson, integrated care coordinator at Cunningham Children’s Home in Urbana.
“If we’re not together, it’s basically throwing a handful of rocks at a bus,” he said. “… The only way that these things are going to work is if we have, not only these organizations, but people in the community, as well as buy-in from parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, because it takes a village to raise a child successfully.”