Juvenile Justice Reform

• South Carolina County Sheriff investigator makes a difference in kids’ lives
  Richland County sheriff investigator Cassie Radford is working hard to get troubled kids the services they need and to keep them out of jail. The grant that funds Radford's position is in its third year and ends Sept. 30. Richland County prosecutors and judges hope Sheriff Leon Lott finds a way to keep Radford in her position.
• Missouri juvenile office to use electronic monitoring
  The expense of sending Linn County’s juvenile offenders elsewhere, coupled with the strict criteria that must be met to detain a juvenile, has prompted the Linn County Juvenile Office to obtain electronic monitoring equipment. Without a juvenile detention center of its own, the Linn County Juvenile Office has been forced to pay the expense of transporting offenders as well as the cost for a bed in Kirksville’s Bruce Normile Juvenile Justice Center.
• New goal for Illinois juvenile center: Clear it out
  Cook County’s Board President is advocating a new approach for the county’s juvenile justice system: empty the juvenile detention facility by putting children in group homes, monitored home confinement and other community-based programs where advocates say young people have better opportunities for counseling, job training and other life-skill instruction.
• Kentucky launches pilot program to decrease juvenile detentions
  Henderson schools, law enforcement and court officials joined forces with the state to examine why so many teens were being incarcerated. They came up with a pilot program to combat the issue. It includes asking schools to deal with small offenses, instituting a mentor program and encouraging teachers and school officials to meet to review statistics on disciplinary action.
• Washington, DC’s juvenile justice system sees real change
  As part of sweeping reforms, DC’s Oak Hill was closed in 2009 and replaced by a smaller and dramatically different facility named New Beginnings Youth Development Center. Youth Radio interviewed DC Lawyers for Youth executive director Daniel Okonkwo about Oak Hill’s impact on DC’s juvenile justice system.
• Wisconsin critics: Stop treating 17-year-olds as adults
  Wisconsin is one of 13 states that automatically place 17-year-olds in the adult criminal justice system. In the past few years, almost one-third of states have passed laws to keep more young offenders in the juvenile justice system. Now officials and families are calling on the state to place 17-year-olds in juvenile facilities, mainly for their own safety.
• Benton County’s juvenile center nearly finished
  Arkansas’ Benton County's Juvenile Justice Center is nearly complete, with part of the $6 million complex scheduled to open in January. The new facility is twice as large as the current one and will include classrooms and a courtroom in addition to holding cells.

Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment

• Two key questions are focus of new teen alcohol screener for pediatricians
  A new alcohol screening tool that focuses on two key questions is designed to help pediatricians spot children and adolescents at risk for alcohol-related problems. The doctor asks about the patient’s own drinking, as well as his or her friends’ alcohol use.

Many of you have undoubtedly seen news about synthetic drugs that are marketed -- legally, in many places around the country -- as "bath salts" or "plant food." These "synthetic cathinones" are stimulants that usually come in powder or crystal form, and can be smoked, injected, or snorted.  Emergency rooms and poison control centers have seen enough serious negative health effects that legislatures in a number of states have attempted to ban these drugs, and the constituent ingredients.  

Use varies by locale. In Maine, police and hospitals have reported "a surge of people becoming delusional and violent after injecting, snorting or smoking so-called bath salts."

The National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC) recently issued a situation report on bath salts (non-prescription synthetic cathinones), calling them an "emerging domestic threat." Users include teens.

Note to Juvenile Courts (and Juvenile Drug Courts in Particular):

Teens and others find bath salts attractive because:

• They are often sold legally in gas stations, head shops, skateboard shops, and on the internet; and
• Most routine drug screens will not detect the use of bath salts. (Though specialized drug screens will.)

The good news is, the Drug Enforcement Administration is considering scheduling them as a controlled substance under the Federal Controlled Substances Act.

The bad news? The NDIC expects that abuse will grow over time, and that manufacturers will adjust the chemical make-up of their products when needed to keep them legal.

Related Post:

• Bath Salts Still Legal Despite Dangers

There's no question that the riots in the U.K. last week -- mostly perpetrated by young people and young adults -- generated a lot of outrage on both sides of the Atlantic.

One of the hot topics in the U.K. was Prime Minister David Cameron's about-face. In 2006, he gave a speech designed to "reposition his party as tough on the causes of crime, urging a greater focus on the family and on the social influences driving children to offend," rather than on police crackdowns. This became known as his "Hug a Hoodie" campaign (#hugahoodie suddenly became a very popular hashtag on Twitter last week). But in the wake of the riots, Cameron promised the rioters, "We will track you down, we will find you, we will charge you, we will punish you." (You can see a fairly balanced AP story on Cameron's about-face and the politics of responses to youth crime in the Britain and the U.S. here.)

Commenters in the United States have also been quick to pile on their scorn for "soft on crime" approaches, so I thought it would be useful to hear more thoughtful responses from youth experts familiar with youth in the juvenile justice system and common policy responses. Several were kind enough to email me their quick thoughts:

• Does Your Youth Program Work?
  An OJJDP publication. Dates from 2000, but it provides a great introduction to evaluating success. (Hat tip to Paul Savery.)
• Reclaiming Futures in the News: "Drug Courts Restore Addicts"
  A great piece profiling the adult and juvenile drug courts and the accomplishments of Reclaiming Futures in Hocking County, Ohio. The article originally appeared in the Logan Daily News, but you can find the full article on the Reclaiming Futures website.
• Improving Educational Outcomes of Youth in Juvenile Justice and Child Welfare Systems Through Interagency Communication and Collaboration
  Maybe you read that headline and thought to yourself, "Got it covered: we're already collaborating and communicating as well as we can." I can tell you from experience with multiple sites implementing the Reclaiming Futures model that there's always room for improvement -- and investing time and attention in this sort of collaboration pays off big time for kids, families, agencies, and service providers. So be sure to check out this comprehensive, 20-page "practice guide" put out in May 2011 by the (deep breath) National Evaluation and Technical Assistance Center for the Education of Children and (don't forget to breathe) Youth Who Are Neglected, Delinquent, or At-Risk (NDTAC). (Hat tip to Paul Savery.)