By Tom Davidson
MERCER COUNTY — There’s a problem in Mercer County when out-of-towners come to the Farrell-Sharon basketball game to sell drugs. That happened Tuesday.
Or when members of the rival Shenango Valley street gangs the Young Gunnaz and the Chedda Boyz get into a beef Dec. 28 at the tradition-rich Dresch-McCluskey basketball tournament that resulted in a handful of arrests in the last month.
Or when a 21-year-old mother gets gunned down in broad daylight and the person accused of shooting her is the brother of a man that was shot and killed in what a Mercer County judge called a “senseless death” three years ago.
“Society is much more violent-prone,” Mercer County Common Pleas Court President Judge Francis J. Fornelli said. “Drugs are so much more acceptable than they were a decade ago.”
“We’ve got gang activity,” he said. “There has been further deterioration of the family unit.”
That’s why Mercer County’s recent designation as a site for the Communities that Care Initiative is important, Fornelli said.
“The CTC initiative is critical at this time to bring a fresh approach at identification and prevention,” Fornelli said.
A nationwide program that in Pennsylvania is administered by the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency, the county’s CTC program was awarded a $36,825 grant to study the county’s problems and find answers that work, Mark Benedetto, the county’s juvenile probation chief and chairman of the local CTC initiative said.
They’re looking to hire a “mobilizer” to administer Pennsylvania Youth Services (PAYS) surveys to kids in grades 8, 10 and 12 in the county’s 12 school districts.
The information gathered in these surveys has proven to be helpful in assessing problems and identifying prevention programs that work, Benedetto said.
CTC is nothing new in Mercer County, Bennedetto said, noting there were successful programs in Sharon and Farrell in the 1990s along with a program in the Greenville Area School District earlier this decade.
But the recent designation brings a county-wide approach to identifying problems and building programs to address them, Benedetto said.
“CTC brings with it a lot of respect. It is a program that’s been proven (to work),” he said.
Surveys completed during the last two years identified three big problems facing kids in the county, Benedetto said:
• There’s a neighborhood attachment problem.
Students in Sharon and Farrell especially, he said, “feel little or no attachment to their neighborhood.” This is exacerbated by the area’s drug and crime problems.
“Oftentimes, members of the communities feel they can’t make a difference,” Benedetto said. “People don’t get involved with community functions.”
• There are family management problems.
These include poor family supervision and poor family discipline, Benedetto said. Parents need to learn to “set clear expectations for behavior,” he said.
Families with poor supervision create children who are more likely to use drugs or get involved in crime, Benedetto said.
Teen pregnancy also continues to be a problem, he said.
• There’s early and persistent anti-social behavior.
When children are younger, they’re more likely to exhibit “pro-social” behavior and be against crime and drugs, he said.
But “when they hit middle school, the attitude shifts,” and kids are more likely to rebel by experimenting with drugs or committing crimes.
There’s a “greater acceptance of negative behavior,” Benedetto said.
There’s also the budding problem of teenage depression, he said.
“Something we’re looking at is getting them to feel good about their community,” Benedetto said. “So we’re in the process of that right now.”
The Communities that Care designation gives the county an advantage when applying for grants to set up programs to address the problems, Benedetto said.
The CTC advisory board also provides a means where members of the numerous social services agencies in the county can get together and get on the same page.
Board meetings, held at 8:30 a.m. the 4th Wednesday of each month. The next meeting is Feb. 24 at the Behavioral Health Commission offices on U.S. Route 62 near Mercer.
“We’re hopeful. We are hopeful that this will build on the accomplishments of Communities that Care,” Fornelli said. “It’s time for a new innovation because the juveniles in this county need it.”
