The New York Times article, In Newburgh, Gangs and Violence Reign, includes this mention of the Newburgh School District:
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A sense of how embedded the gang culture has become can be gleaned at the local high school, the Newburgh Free Academy.Two years ago, Torrance Harvey, a social studies teacher, and Mark Wallace, the school's violence prevention coordinator, created a class where students could come and talk about issues important to them. During a recent session, Mr. Harvey drew a diagram on the board with the word "community" in the center and asked the class to define it. The students rattled off the usual institutions: churches, schools, law enforcement. But high on the list they also called out "gang-bangers," "drug dealers" and "crackheads."
Central to the problem, Mr. Harvey and Mr. Wallace said, is the lack of jobs and activities available to young people. The city has no supermarkets, one Boys and Girls Club that is closed on weekends and a virtually nonexistent bus system, leaving young people without cars too far from the only steady source of employment, at regional malls well outside of town.
"Kids are energy," Mr. Wallace said, "and if they don't have some place to go, where are they going to go? The corner."
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Earlier Intervention
A good amount of the resources promised just after this recent raid, if not all of the money, must go to restore standards of parenting in the city of Newburgh. Child Protective Services must be regulated, funded, and have better oversight. The most vulnerable members of the population must be removed from negligent parents without exception. Without this, no intervention will matter. Until the standard expected from the parents of children changes, no other efforts in Newburgh; from the federal government, from local government, or from the school district will matter in the least. The conditions that the city's children are being raised in and the blind eye people who are supposed to be in charge of ensuring it have towards them is the root of all problems. Are they overwhelmed? Are they not doing their jobs? This is the place to begin, rescue those kids and make it clear that the community will no longer tolerate abusive and negligent parents, with no quarter.