In Baltimore, Police Mentor Troubled Kids (and Keep Them Out of Juvenile Justice System)
In Baltimore, Maryland's Eastern District, police officers are taking a proactive and community-centered approach to keeping families and neighborhoods safe.
Police officers realize that in order to be effective at their jobs, they need to build trust and cooperation with the communities they serve. And a police force in Baltimore is going one step further by actively working to find solutions to their community's problems and becoming positive mentors to children in rough neighborhoods.
Writing in today's Baltimore Sun, police officer Quinise Green explains:
We see ourselves not just as enforcers of the law but also as problem solvers and supporters of the people in our "hood."Our district commander demands that we be an integral part of the community. We go on walks with stakeholders in the neighborhoods to identify problems and find ways to fix them. If we see kids playing where they aren't supposed to, we don't just yell at them to move; we find another place they can play.
One such place is the Eisenhower Foundation Oliver Center, which is funded through the Department of Justice and home to the Youth Safe Haven program. I serve as a mentor to high-risk kids from the Barclay neighborhood at the center. Their lives are littered with challenges most Americans don't have to face: hunger, homelessness, parents with serious substance abuse problems and wrenching poverty. Some days, the snack and lunch at the youth safe haven is their only meal. It is a tough life for our 6-to-11-year-olds. For many of these children, the program has been their lifeline for survival.
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New Rules Protect Teens in Adult Prisons
The Justice Department released a landmark ruling on Thursday to help protect juvenile offenders from falling victim to sexual abuse in adult prisons.
The ruling marks the first-ever federal effort aimed at setting standards to protect inmates, both juvenile and adult, in correctional facilities on the local, state and federal level.
“The standards we establish today reflect the fact that sexual assault crimes committed within our correctional facilities can have devastating consequences – for individual victims and for communities far beyond our jails and prisons,” Attorney General Eric Holder said in a DOJ release.
The standard also restricts the placement of juveniles in adult facilities, aiming to protect youth from sexual abuse by limiting contact between youth and adults behind bars through four specific requirements:
- Prohibiting the placement of youth in the general adult prison population
- Eliminating contact between adults and youth in common areas,
- Ensuring youth are under constant supervision
- And limiting the use of isolation for juveniles.
- States that will be most affected by the new regulations are the 13 states that end juvenile court jurisdiction before the age of 18. Although classified by state-law as adults, the new federal rule clarifies that all inmates under the age of 18 deserve special protections.
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North Carolina Funding Opportunity: Become a Reclaiming Futures Site!
The Division of Juvenile Justice and The Duke Endowment are pleased to release this request for proposals for four additional Reclaiming Futures sites in North Carolina. With funding from The Duke Endowment, this opportunity furthers the efforts of the North Carolina Reclaiming Futures Initiative to ensure that court-involved youths are screened for substance abuse problems, connected with assessment and treatment, as necessary, and have access to long-term, community-based supports to ensure positive outcomes. To learn more about the Reclaiming Futures model, visit www.reclaimingfutures.org.
For more information on this request for proposal, a bidders’ webinar will be offered on Thursday, June 14th at 11:30 to provide additional information and answer questions. To register for the webinar, click here.
The deadline to apply is July 13, 2012 by 5:00 p.m. If you have any questions or need additional information, please do not hesitate to contact me at jessica.jones@ncdps.gov or 919-743-8115.
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DSM 5 could mean 40% of college students are alcoholics and more: news roundup
Juvenile Justice Reform
- How revision of the state budget could affect San Joaquin County (Record Net) Governor Jerry Brown's revision of the California state budget could mean the Division of Juvenile Justice would continue to operate, but its budget would be cut by $24.8 million. The governor is proposing to charge counties $24,000 per year for each person committed to a state juvenile justice center.
- New Pennsylvania Bar Association chief focuses on youth (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) Thomas G. Wilkinson Jr., the new chief of the Pennsylvania Bar Association will push three priorities, 1) training requirements for prosecutors and public defenders involved in juvenile cases; 2) civics education, so kids understand how government works and the availability of courts to resolve disputes instead of taking disputes into one's own hands; and 3) youth courts to help address the number of kids who get into the juvenile justice system.
- Tackling gang violence (The Crime Report) Toledo, Ohio builds an approach similar to Boston during the late 1990s to tackle violence. The model was developed by David Kennedy, now the director of the Center on Crime Prevention and Control at John Jay College in New York.
- Youth recovery court starts in Winnebago County (WREX) Chief Justice Janet Holmgre describes a holistic approach to providing a comprehensive network of mental health services to help the youth that are involved get out of the juvenile justice system and hopefully stay out of the adult criminal justice system.
- Portland church spearheads effort to keep youth out of justice system (The Portland Daily Sun) Restorative Justice Center in Portland, Maine has won endorsements from the law enforcement community including the Portland Police Department and the Cumberland County District Attorney's Office. "This gives us an additional tool as police officers that we didn't have," said Portland Police Chief Michael Sauschuck.
- Calling in juvenile justice cavalry (Austin American Statesman) Gov. Rick Perry moved Jay Kimbrough from his new position as assistant director for homeland security at the Department of Public Safety to the Texas Juvenile Justice Department to bring some urgently needed safety and security to the agency's youth lockups.
Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment
- DSM 5 could mean 40% of college students are alcoholics (TIME) Most college binge drinkers and drug users don’t develop lifelong problems. But new mental-health guidelines will label too many of them addicts and alcoholics. The DSM 5 will have just one diagnosis for addiction problems, though it will be characterized as mild, moderate or severe.
- Breaking the inter-generational cycle of substance abuse (Join Together) Children raised in a household with one or more parents struggling with a substance use disorder often use compliance as a coping mechanism—a skill that often no longer serves them well in adulthood. Compliance is one key reason so many people with substance use disorders do well while in the criminal justice system, but relapse, often only days after they are released.
Jobs, Grants, Events and Webinars
- Please share the Reclaiming Futures Opportunity Board with your colleagues in the juvenile justice, adolescent substance abuse and teen mental health areas. It's free to browse and post!
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Former Teen Offenders Speak Up, Make Recommendations to Improve Juvenile Justice System
The youth sent to the Texas Juvenile Justice System are some of the most chronic delinquent offenders in the state. Ninety-three percent are boys, 79 percent have unmarried parents, 78 percent are Hispanic or African-American, 62 percent need alcohol or drug treatment, 56 percent are from low-income families, 42 percent need mental health treatment and 36 percent have been abused or neglected. And they also have really good ideas about how to improve the juvenile justice system.
In late April, a group of youth with experience in the juvenile justice system spoke at the Capitol about their recommendations to make the system more effective. The Texas Network of Youth Services (TNOYS), a nonprofit association of organizations that serve youth in at-risk situations, hired this team of young people who met at the Capitol every other Saturday throughout the school year to learn about advocacy, brainstorm ideas and practice public speaking. To inform their recommendations, they attended state-level policy meetings, read professional reports, interviewed practitioners involved in the juvenile justice system and surveyed their peers.
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Applications Now Available for CJJR's Information Sharing Certificate Program
The Center for Juvenile Justice Reform at Georgetown University‘s Public Policy Institute, in partnership with the Juvenile Law Center, has announced its inaugural Information Sharing Certificate Program. This program, supported with funding from the MacArthur Foundation’s Models for Change Initiative, is designed to enable leaders in the juvenile justice, child welfare, education, behavioral health and other child serving fields to overcome information sharing challenges that prevent the communication and coordination that is necessary to more fully serve youth known across multiple systems of care. Upon completion of the intensive three-day learning experience, participants apply the knowledge they gain through the development and implementation of a Capstone Project—an action agenda they undertake in their organization/community to initiate or enhance information sharing efforts. To accelerate these efforts, it is strongly encouraged that those interested in attending form a team from their jurisdiction to apply to the program.
Faculty for the program is comprised of information sharing, juvenile justice and child welfare subject matter experts from across the country who will deliver a curriculum designed to increase participants' ability to solve real-life problems when they return home. Thanks to the MacArthur Foundation, tuition subsidies are available for those with financial need.
Information Sharing Certificate Program
October 1-4, 2012
Washington, DC
Application Deadline: June 28, 2012
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David Domenici: Educators Can and Should Break the School-to-Prison Pipeline
Speaking at the New Schools - Aspen Institute Summit 2012 last week, David Domenici challenged educators to embrace troubled (and often challenging) students and to keep them in school, instead of calling the police.
(watch David's short talk at the 29:45 mark)
He listed 4 focus areas:
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National Prevention Week is May 20-26!
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has created a new annual health initiative called National Prevention Week. This year’s event will span May 20-26, with the theme: “We are the ones. How are you taking action?”
SAMHSA’s mission is to reduce the impact of substance abuse and mental illness on America's communities. This national observance celebrates the work that community organizations and individuals do year-round to prevent substance abuse and promote mental, emotional, and behavioral wellbeing, while serving as an opportunity for community members to learn more about behavioral health issues and get involved in prevention efforts throughout the year.
The event’s dates were strategically selected to coincide with the beginning of summer, a season filled with celebrations and recreational activities that can potentially be linked to substance use and abuse (such as graduation parties, proms, weddings, boating and camping excursions); it is also timed to allow schools to take part in a prevention-themed event before the school year ends, raising awareness in students of all ages.
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Misconceptions About High-Risk Youth Offenders
The High Desert Daily Press featured a three-part story last week exploring how San Bernardino County prosecutes, supervises, and rehabilitates their juvenile offenders. Daily Press reporter Beatriz E. Valenzuela looked at patterns of juvenile crime and arrest reductions, the unbridled powers of local district attorneys to “direct file” juveniles into adult court and the impact of adult realignment and Governor Brown’s juvenile realignment plan on local corrections systems.
The facts highlighted by the Daily Press are well known to criminal justice experts, but also demonstrate the many contradictions that exist in county and state-level juvenile justice practices. The third article also includes some unfortunate misinformation.
Ms. Valenzuela quotes San Bernardino County Probation spokesman Chris Condon saying, “The state continued to take 707b offenders, or those who committed serious or violent felonies, and we at the county level housed the lower-level 707a offenders.” Mr. Condon argues that counties cannot handle more serious 707b youth offenders and that, “there are certain offenders who even with some rehab will not do well.”
Yet San Bernardino County’s own local practices contradict this statement. San Bernardino County Probation manages the Gateway Program, a secure facility for high-needs youth. The probation department’s evaluation of the program shows that serious 707b offenders comprise 36% of the juvenile offenders in the Gateway Program.*
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Disruptive Behavior Sends Students to Court Instead of Principal's Office
Actions that once sent students to the principal’s office to be handled by teachers and faculty are now getting Massachusetts students pulled from school entirely and sent to juvenile court in handcuffs, according to a recent report by Citizens for Juvenile Justice. Research shows that police officers are increasingly stepping in to handle behavior such as foul language, hallway misconduct and disrupting public assemblies, which has led to a significant spike in student arrests.
Data from Springfield, Boston and Worcester, three of Massachusetts’s largest school districts, shows children as young as 11 were subject to arrest and were faced with criminal records for minor offenses during the 2007-08, 2008-09 and 2009-10 school years. Although students should be held accountable for their actions, using police and court resources instead of existing school disciplinary practices could pose severe consequences for their future. One alarming statistic noted by the report states that, “students who are arrested at school are three times more likely to drop out than those who are not.”
Criminalizing children for these minor offenses not only limits their educational and career opportunities, but it is also costly for schools and taxpayers. Springfield schools have armed officers permanently stationed at selected schools for the entire duration of the school day, contributing to a hefty payroll percentage that could be spent on staff leadership and disciplinary training.
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