Blog: Juvenile Justice Reform

Youth in a Topeka juvenile correctional facility will soon begin training in a field that could net them attractive career options in the future.
Thanks to instruction from Fort Scott Community College (FSCC) and a grant from the U.S. Department of Labor, students at the Kansas Juvenile Correctional Complex (KJCC) now have the opportunity to gain skills in “Environmental Water Technology,” a field in which the median annual income in Kansas is $41,000.
The Department of Labor has identified that a shortage of technicians in the field is looming, as the mean age of those in the industry is in the mid-50s. The agency’s grant is targeting trainees in the 18-21 age range, and FSCC is bringing the opportunity to those in the Kansas juvenile justice system.
KJCC held an open house on Friday, Feb. 8, to introduce its new Environmental Water Technology course of study and encourage the youth at the facility to enroll in the program.
Classes in Environmental Water Technology, which are offered to residents of KJCC who have received a high school diploma or a GED, will begin in March. Enrollees in the program will typically study in a classroom setting during the morning, then engage in hands-on lab work in the afternoon, said Megan Milner, deputy superintendent of KJCC.

Last week, the National Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Prevention Coalition (NJJDPC) -- a coalition comprising more than 300 national, state and local organizations working together to ensure healthy families, build strong communities and improve community safety released "Promoting Safe Communities: Report and Recommendations to the Obama Administration" to urge the President to restore a more effective system of juvenile justice for youth by focusing on five priority areas.
The NJJDPC recommends that the Administration restore federal leadership in juvenile justice policy such as increasing funding for juvenile justice reforms, supporting the reauthorization and state implementation of the Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA), strengthening the partnership between the federal government and the states, ensuring that program policies and practices involve families, implementing recommendations from the Attorney General's Task Force on Children Exposed to Violence (which he co-chaired) as well as improving data collection.
In addition, the NJJDPC urges the Administration to support prevention, early intervention and diversion strategies by advocating for the elimination of the Valid Court Order (VCO) exception to the JJDPA, supporting community-based alternatives to incarceration, improving school safety and reducing exclusionary school disciplinary practices, improving access to and quality of mental health and behavior health services, addressing the specific needs of girls, and promoting cultural competence on LGBTQI youth.

Justice-involved youth have complex histories that not only contributed to their delinquency but present challenges for rehabilitation. They often experience poverty, violence, familial instability, exposure to drug use and gangs, and serial relocations. These compound factors exacerbate a lack of self-confidence, learning difficulties, physical disabilities, and mental health issues.

In the field of public health, these experiences are identified as traumatic: including a loss of safety, powerlessness, fear, hopelessness, and a constant state of alertness. In the video above, Christa Collins notes that exposure to trauma severely diminishes decision-making skills and the ability to cope with stress.

Models for Change continues to take a proactive approach to juvenile justice, making sure that families know what to expect if somebody close to them ends up involved in the juvenile justice system. Their publication, “A Family Guide to Pennsylvania’s Juvenile Justice System,” (also available as a PDF download) was developed by the Family Involvement Committee of the Pa Council of Chief Juvenile Probation Officers--a committee of family advocates and juvenile justice practitioners--to help families understand Pennsylvania’s juvenile justice system and be better prepared to work closely with juvenile justice staff to promote positive outcomes for justice involved youth.
Pennsylvania’s approach to juvenile justice is itself a model for change--focusing on three main goals aimed at balance and restoration:

Community Protection – The public has the right to safe and secure homes and communities. The juvenile justice system must help the child while keeping the community, including the child and family, safe.

Accountability – When a crime is committed, the child is responsible for the harm caused and should take action to repair the harm and restore the victim and community.

Competency Development – Children should leave the juvenile justice system more capable of living responsibly and productively in the community. Since children are not as developmentally mature as adults, they are given the opportunity to learn to be responsible and competent.

As Pomp and Circumstance played from a laptop computer, adults, some in prison staff uniforms, and a handful of teenage girls in gray sweat suits, stand in respectful silence.
Finally, a solitary young woman in a red gown pushes her way through a heavy green security door, which slams with cold severity behind her. The door’s blast doesn’t faze her, however. She’s heard it before. She smiles sheepishly, but holds her head high, her eyes fixed straight ahead.
Emily won’t celebrate her graduation with any parties at her home. She won’t be toasted at any restaurants by family and friends. Instead she’ll spend another night at the Kansas Juvenile Correctional Complex (KJCC) in Topeka.
But it will be her last. She’s going home for good the next day, to live with her mother, to start a new life.
Emily enrolled in a Topeka area high school in the fall of 2011, ready for a senior year like most students experience – going to ball games, participating in activities, maybe even attending the prom in the spring.
But Emily’s plans were interrupted. After several stints in foster care and juvenile facilities, and a short stay with her father in Mississippi, Emily was informed that her near future would be spent at the lock-down facility for juveniles in Topeka, serving time for previous convictions.

Juvenile Justice Reform

• Juvenile Justice Should be a Focus for Georgia (AlbanyHerald.com)
  In her final State of the Judiciary address before the General Assembly today, Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Carol Hunstein is expected to focus on an issue that needs serious thought — juvenile justice.
• [AUDIO] When Crime Pays: Prison Can Teach Some To Be Better Criminals (NPR.org)
  In popular lore — movies, books and blogs — criminals who go to prison don't come out reformed. They come out worse. Scientists who have attempted to empirically analyze this theory have reached mixed conclusions, with analyses suggesting that activities like drug addiction or gangs are what determines whether the correctional system actually gets criminals to correct their ways.
• Mapping Juvenile Justice (TheCrimeReport.org)
  A new mapping project demonstrates overlaps between New York City communities with the highest percentage of youth, the lowest household incomes, rates of foster care placement and adults without high school diplomas.
• GA Police Chief to Serve on Juvenile Justice Board (CBSAtlanta.com)
  The Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice has announced Elaine Snow, chief of the City of Rome Police Department, has been named vice chair of the agency's board. Snow is filling a board position that was left vacant by Avery Niles after Gov. Nathan Deal named him as Department of Juvenile Justice Commissioner.
• Gov. Dayton appoints the first Minnesota Somali Woman to Serve on the Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee (TCDailyPlanet.net)
  Saciido Shaie has long had a dream that her thoughts and actions would one day become a reason for Minnesota youth to excel in education and life. That’s why she’s spent many years of leadership and advocacy in building a better place for Twin Cities’ young minorities. Minnesota took a note of her passion in activism, and so did Governor Mark Dayton. He appointed her last June as the first Somali woman to serve on the Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee for Minneapolis.
• Suffer the Children (The Economist)
  On March 29th 2012 Georgia’s Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted on a criminal-justice reform bill that read like a left-leaning criminologist’s fantasy. It revised sentencing laws to keep non-violent drug and property offenders out of prison, directing them instead toward alternatives—drug courts, day-reporting centres, mental-health courts—designed to treat and rehabilitate rather than punish. Now Georgia is looking to do something similar for juveniles.

In 2007, Models for Change-Pennsylvania set out to address the roles of families in the juvenile justice system. The multidisciplinary workgroup included both family advocacy and juvenile justice leadership. The Innovation Brief: Strengthening the Role of Families in Juvenile Justice, outlines the goals and process Pennsylvania took to achieve their three overarching goals:
 

1. Align with the philosophies of Pennsylvania’s juvenile justice system and the state’s family advocacy network.
2. Integrate with ongoing system reform emerging from Models for Change-Pennsylvania.
3. Design and implement a strategic model that authentically includes the voices of all stakeholders, advances evidence- based approaches, and produces measurable and sustainable change.

Before Pennsylvania's formal family involvement training was put in place, only about 51% of participants felt that the benefits of family involvement in the court process outweighed the drawbacks. After, nearly 80% felt that family involvement was good for the court process:

Juvenile Justice Reform

• Urban Teaching and Juvenile Justice OR Why I Have 8 Probation Officers’ Numbers in my Phone (Philly Teacher Man Blog)
  "When I started teaching, I had no interest or background in the juvenile justice system. The fact that it might one day be incredibly relevant to my work in education was not even on my radar, but here I sit nearly 5 years later with no fewer than 8 probation officers in my cell phone."
• Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice Prepares for Transformation (JJIE.org)
  Georgia’s DJJ boss tells state lawmakers that his department must be transformed to handle the burdens a class of inmates that’s older and more violent, and high employee turnover and low morale, just as the governor pushes a large package of reforms.
• Florida Tightening Juvenile Justice Monitoring (Bradenton.com)
  State officials on Friday announced plans for quality improvements and tighter monitoring of juvenile justice residential and detention facilities following the arrest last month of a staff member accused of battering a 15-year-old girl in the Florida Panhandle.
• Senator Proposes Moving Toughest Juvenile Offenders to Adult Prisons (Statesman.com)
  In a move that would change decades of state policy, the chairman of the Senate’s criminal justice committee suggested Monday that 17- and 18-year-olds who commit violent crimes should do their time in a new system of youth prisons rather than in Texas’ juvenile lockups.

Models for Change recently published an innovation brief, “Juvenile Justice and Mental Health: A Collaborative Approach,” [PDF download] that reports the benefits of a collaborative model for juvenile justice and mental health. Although teens with mental health problems used to be handled outside of the juvenile justice system, a shift in the 1990s placed “rehabilitation” responsibility to the juvenile justice system. From the report (emphasis mine):
High crime rates [in the 1990s] led to get-tough measures, including zero-tolerance policies in schools and criminalization of normal adolescent behaviors, that put more youths in the system. The closing of psychiatric hospitals, a trend that began in the 1970s, continued apace, while the community mental health system, initiated with such optimism in the 1960s, was being downsized. As a result, youths with mental health problems frequently ended up in the juvenile justice system, which could not refuse to serve them.
To better serve teens with mental health troubles, Models for Change recommends a framework for multi-system change, including (via the report):