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A national task force assembled by U.S. Attorney Gen. Eric Holder is in New Mexico to gather testimony on the epidemic of children’s exposure to violence in rural and Native American communities.
They’re hosting a daylong public meeting today in Albuquerque as part of the U.S. Justice Department’s Defending Childhood initiative.
In a recent survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 20 percent of New Mexico youth reported they were bullied on school property and almost 10 percent experienced dating violence. Nearly 16 percent considered attempting suicide during the 12 months before the survey.
U.S. Attorney Kenneth Gonzales of New Mexico says the state is proud of its Native American heritage and that protection of children from its rural and tribal communities has come to the forefront.
3:09pm 10/13/11 — Feds Plan Hearings in Four Cities, Including Albuquerque, on Children and Violence
By The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department says a newly established Attorney General’s National Task Force on Children Exposed to Violence will hold four public hearings around the country while drawing on the knowledge of 14 leading experts to help identify promising strategies for preventing the problem.
The task force is part of Attorney General Eric Holder’s Defending Childhood initiative and the panel’s co-chair is former New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers manager Joe Torre, himself a witness to domestic violence as a child.
The first public hearing will be in Baltimore on Nov. 29-30 at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law. Subsequent hearings will be in Albuquerque, Miami and Detroit.
