From County Attorney Andrew Thomas
Before I was elected County Attorney, I served as a prosecutor in the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office in the juvenile division. All too often, the offenses involved either truancy or delinquent children with a history of not attending school. When a request from a school for a truancy citation arrived on my desk, it was like receiving official, written notice of a child’s bleak future.
Studies of truancy support this pessimistic outlook. Elementary and middle school students who habitually miss school will very likely hop from courtroom to courtroom on petty offense after offense: graffiti, shoplifting, trespassing, the list goes on. As the educational gap widens between truant students and their peers, the chronically absent student becomes a dropout. Without an education, the likelihood of continued interaction with the criminal justice system is high—all that changes is the significance of the charges. Graffiti and shoplifting often give way to assault or armed robbery. Eventually, the rap sheet that started with truancy at the age of 13 grows to include a long prison sentence when the child becomes an adult. The U.S. Department of Justice reports that 80 percent of prison inmates are former truants.
Last year alone, my office cited over 4,000 students for truancy. This alarming trend must be stopped. Simply stated, truancy is a gateway to a life of crime. The basic discipline of daily school attendance must be mastered in order to reverse a tragic and foreseeable future for truant students.
If parents, schools, law enforcement and the criminal justice system can work together to confront this problem, the life prospects of an at-risk child can quickly go from bleak to bright. To that end, my office has created this booklet on truancy to give parents and teachers insight into the problem of truancy, the citation process and the juvenile justice system. I hope that you will find it useful and that we can work together so that all children can be a part of the American dream.
Sincerely,
Andrew Thomas
County Attorney