National Task Force On Children Exposed To Violence To Hold Final Hearings In Detroit

The nation's top lawyers are Detroit this week to hold the final public hearing of a task force to reduce children's exposure to violence.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder initiated the National Task Force on Children Exposed to Violence last year with Joe Torre, a former manager of the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers. The two-day Detroit event is part of the attorney general's Defending Childhood initiative.

On Monday evening, the task force, including Associate Attorney General Tony West, will hear public testimony, including statements from Detroit Tigers pitcher Phil Coke and Debi Cain, executive director of the Michigan Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Prevention and Treatment Board.

Justice Department officials will discuss their research into how authorities learn about child victimization, and a series of expert panelists will address issues such as public-private partnerships to reduce youth exposure to violence and successful programs to rehabilitate youth offenders.

Detroit Police Chief Ralph Godbee and Lawnya Sherrod, a former gang member who became a community organizer, will also appear at the hearing to speak about Detroit's participation in the National Forum on Youth Violence Prevention, a six-city initiative that is also part of Holder's Defending Childhood effort.

The event will take place at Bernath Auditorium in Wayne State University's David Adamany Undergraduate Library, which is located at 5155 Gullen Mall in Detroit.

For a full agenda of the hearing, visit the Department of Justice website. The program can be viewed live online: click here to register.

Flickr photo by wsilver.

CORRECTION: Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this article incorrectly stated U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder will attend the Detroit hearings. Associate Attorney General Tony West will be in attendance.