I was hoping that some of the ‘kids’ realized that there is another path to be taken in life. That there are people who actually care about them.
If you work in the court system you must see some pretty sad cases where kids with the right family or mentor could make something of themselves.
I was in LE for 31 years and now I find myself on the “other end” (seeing the results), it’ll break your heart, some seem not ready to get back on track but there are quite a few that turn around but then they have to deal with their backgrounds impacting (usually negatively) their dreams and asperations.
Some will persevere on however so those are the ones you reach out to, not by enabling them further but sometimes a good listener is just as effective.
You’d be amazed at the number of retired cops going into some sort of prison ministry or outreach and they mean it, they walk the walk.