Delinquent: High exposure to trauma might explain why so many Cuyahoga youth, like Nathan, commit serious crimes, get bound over – ‘Trauma is the story’He says he was offered therapy then, to address his grief, but declined it, thinking he was too tough. Then the victim’s family blamed Nathan and his brothers for the drowning, and he started getting death threats, which contributed to his distress.
Delinquent: Cuyahoga’s juvenile system is supposed to rehabilitate youth when they offend. Most of the time it works – Cameron is one example “Trauma is the story,” argues David Crampton, a Case Western Reserve University social work professor and Cuyahoga Division of Children and Family Services advisory board member. “We can put these kids in juvenile detention, or residential care, but if they don’t get help with their trauma, they’re not going to get better.”He grew up with four siblings in a Garfield Heights neighborhood where crime was common, and his family was well known to police.
Then his brother died and he “didn’t care about anything,” Nathan recalls. “My brother had just passed. Then another friend passed. It felt like things were happening chain after chain, so it was like, f--- everything.” Prior to the shooting, though, he says court-ordered programs were already failing him. He tried many, but says it felt like staff were trying to force him through a superficial checklist, rather than focus on what he actually needed, like therapy and a mentor.