DAC: The First Revolution – When You Change Your Mind

Welcome back to Da Urban Conservative, where we keep it raw, real, and unfiltered. Today, we gotta talk about a serious issue plaguing our streets—the ease by which guns flood into North Minneapolis and into the hands of kids who should be worried about middle school homework, not packing heat. Six juveniles—three boys, ages 11, 12, and 13, and three girls, 12 and 14—were arrested recently, caught up in a crash that could’ve ended their lives. And for what? A brush with death because they got their hands on firearms that shouldn’t even exist in their world.
What we’re witnessing is nothing short of a police failure. Let’s be real here. The system justifies its existence, its abuses, and its bloated budget by saying they’re the ones protecting us from this very chaos. Yet, here we are, watching as kids—barely old enough to know what life is—are locked up in detention centers. How do we keep letting it get this bad?
Look, I’m not saying every problem falls on law enforcement, but when we see children, twelve years old, with a weapon in their hand, it’s clear the system is broken. North Minneapolis is flooded with guns, and they end up in the wrong hands, feeding a cycle of violence that nobody wants to take responsibility for. They keep telling us more cops, more budget, more authority will fix the streets. Well, where’s the fix? I see more damage, more kids being shipped off to hospitals and detention centers. Is that the fix they promised us?
We’ve reached the point where we’re locking up our children to keep them “safe.” And what’s the plan after that? Toss them into detention centers, try to sweep the problem under the rug, and hope it doesn’t blow up again? Take Goodhue County for example. They’re out here proposing to retrofit an empty 60-bed unit in the Adult Detention Center in Red Wing into a 24-bed Juvenile Detention Center. That’s right, we’re converting adult jails to house our youth. Goodhue isn’t alone in this idea, either. They’re the fourth county to have the Minnesota Department of Corrections inspect their jail for potential juvenile detention use. They’re planning to keep our kids locked up, not just theirs, but other counties’ too.
It gets deeper. Goodhue usually has four to six kids needing detention. Right now, they’ve got six, two of whom are being held in Houston County’s juvenile detention facility in Caledonia. But here’s the kicker—there are 14 total secure and non-secure options in Minnesota to detain juveniles, and they’re all full. Full. How did we let it get like this?
Let me break it down. The Sheriff’s Office and Court Services want to retrofit that empty unit in Red Wing. They’ll have an assessor on-site to complete psychological evaluations, figuring out where these kids should go next. That means more contracts with other counties for additional beds. Goodhue doesn’t even need all 24 of those beds; they’ll lease the rest out to other counties. This is what we’ve come to—creating more space to lock up more kids instead of addressing why these kids are out here catching charges in the first place.
And what happens to these kids once they’re locked up? Is there a system in place to break the cycle, or are we just setting them up for failure, giving them a fast track to the adult system? The very same system we’ve been told is designed to protect us. But how many of us are really being protected? Because if guns keep flooding into the hands of kids in our communities, if detention centers are filling up faster than schools, then who’s winning here? Certainly not our children.
We gotta start asking the hard questions. If the police can’t keep these guns off the streets, if they can’t protect our kids, then why do they keep getting more power, more money, more support from the system? And why are we so quick to build more cells for children instead of breaking the cycles that are leading them there?
The first revolution is when you change your mind. We need to change the way we think about our youth, about the way we protect them, and about what real protection looks like. Locking them up isn’t protection. Flooding their neighborhoods with guns isn’t safety. It’s a setup for destruction, a setup for failure, a setup that serves nobody but the very system that claims to protect us.
So, to the powers that be—what’s your solution? More beds in juvenile detention centers? More budgets for police who can’t stop the violence they’re supposedly keeping at bay? Or is it finally time to admit the system isn’t working for us? If you can’t keep our children safe from the streets, maybe it’s time to rethink your whole damn strategy.
We’re losing generations out here, and it’s time to stop pretending like locking them up is a solution. Because the real revolution begins in the mind, and it’s about damn time we start thinking differently.
This is Da Urban Conservative. Stay woke, stay informed, and don’t let them fool you into thinking this cycle has to continue.
That’s it for today’s episode. But don’t forget—change starts with knowledge, and knowledge starts right here. Peace out.