Paul Bass Photo
Dawson, Graves, Kerekes mic up.
Clifton Graves Jr. has an idea for tackling youth violence in New Haven: start fining offenders’ parents.
Graves floated the idea in a televised forum featuring Democrats running for mayor this year.
The prerecorded forum, to be aired Sunday evening at 7 on CTV Comcast channel 26, featured Graves and fellow candidates Anthony Dawson and Jeffrey Kerekes. The forum is the latest episode of “OneWorld Presents: Civic Engagement,” hosted by longtime public-access talk-show host N’Zinga Shani. Two other Democrats running, Mayor John DeStefano and Robert Lee, declined invitations to appear.
Mayoral candidates, including DeStefano, will also appear next Thursday, Aug. 11, at a formal candidates’ debate at Metropolitan Business Academy on Water Street beginning at 7 p.m. The debate will feature questions from a panel of journalists from news outlets including the New Haven Independent and La Voz Hispana (the event’s co-sponsors), the New Haven Register, WNPR, and One World, Inc. A second panel of journalists will lead a live-blog discussion with readers; and NBC30 will live-stream the event.
In the televised CTV forum, Shani asked the candidates to offer ideas on tackling crime in New Haven, especially the violence that has already claimed the lives of 20 people this year, 18 of them African-American.
“We have a generation of parents who don’t know how to be parents,” Graves responded. He said he’d like to see government both “empower” parents of troubled young people and hold them “accountable” for their children’s actions.
Toward that end, he suggested that adults legally responsible for arrested minors receive a “fine or sanction.”
He was asked about parents or grandparents who appeal for help because they can’t control the teenagers they’re raising. “We understand it’s difficult for mothers, grandmothers, fathers” raising children, Graves responded. He suggested they perhaps receive a “warning” ticket after the first arrest along with referrals to agencies like the Yale Child Study Center. The parents would then be expected to “show good faith” by taking advantage of help, or face financial penalties upon further offenses.
Dawson and Kerekes called for a return to community policing with an emphasis on walking beats. People don’t trust the cops, Dawson said.
“The person has to trust who they’re giving the information to,” Dawson said. “That’s what New Haven got away from when it got away from community policing.”
Heroes
Dawson, Graves.
The candidates were asked during the televised forum to name their heroes.
Clifton Graves Jr. named Clifton Graves Sr. He called his father, an accountant and businessman, a “positive role model” who “understood the importance of education.”
Dawson also talked about education in naming his hero: Southern Connecticut State University President Stanley Battle, who has enlisted Bill Cosby to help him work with young people in Newhallville.
Jeffrey Kerekes named somebody he’s never met: Mahatma Gandhi. “He was leading from principle,” Kerekes said. “He faced the world’s problems directly and organized people.”