Blog: Juvenile Justice Reform

Kansas Governor Sam Brownback took the first step Friday to reorganize the state’s juvenile justice system, putting into motion his plan to move the management of more than 1,500 juvenile offenders under the auspices of the state department of corrections.
By signing an Executive Reorganization Order (ERO) on Friday, Jan. 18, Brownback sent to the Kansas Legislature his proposal to place the Juvenile Justice Authority (JJA) agency under the Kansas Department of Corrections (KDOC). The signing of the ERO gives the legislature 60 days to act on the issue. If neither legislative chamber rejects the ERO, the move will become official.
The Kansas JJA had been battered by criticism for some time, prompting Brownback to move aggressively. A post audit report released in 2012 brought to light inefficiencies and neglect in the agency.
But even before the post audit was made public, Brownback removed the commissioner of the JJA last March and began consolidating some of the administrative services of the two agencies.
“The post audit highlighted how the decades-old approach to a social-services focus failed to provide the safety and security that our juvenile offenders require and deserve,” Brownback said.
The JJA currently houses 328 juvenile offenders in two facilities – the Larned Juvenile Correctional Facility, and the Kansas Juvenile Correctional Complex in Topeka. The other juveniles under the supervision of the JJA are located in community placement.

After struggling for years to engage the community, a parent-led effort called Family Voices, part of the St. Clair County, Illinois, Youth Coalition, offers dinner, childcare, gas stipends and incentive cards to parents working to unite support systems.
Through the Family Leadership & Support Initiative Program, and exceptional leadership from Chris Hendrix, Kathy Coffee and Mary Pat DeJarnette, more than 30 actively involved parents attend monthly meetings to develop leadership skills and provide training for issues like children’s mental health, substance abuse, developmental disabilities and education.
The mission is twofold:
1)Empower families to advocate for themselves, and
2)Engage parents as partners in planning, implementing and evaluating community programs and services
St. Clair County Reclaiming Futures Treatment Fellow, Daron Copp, organizes and provides trainings about adolescent substance abuse treatment. He teaches about normal adolescent brain development and how substance use disrupts areas of the brain responsible for memory, concentration, planning and judgment.
Daron also reviews signs of adolescent substance abuse and gives parents an overview of the treatment system, so they understand assessment, treatment planning and interventions for adolescent substance abuse treatment.

"Over 75% of youth in the juvenile justice system have been exposed to some form of trauma," says Christa Collins of the Center for Juvenile and Criminal Justice (CJCJ). This can affect their ability to handle stress and to make decisions. 
In the video below, Christa explains what a trauma-informed approach to juvenile justice is and how it can decrease costs while improving safety.

Juvenile Justice Reform

• DJJ Study: Fewer kids Getting Booked at School (The Orlando Sentinel)
  A new Florida study says the number of students arrested at schools was cut in half over the last eight years, which ”correlates” with a decline in juvenile delinquency. The Department of Juvenile Justice report says school arrests fell from from more than 24,189 in the 2004-05 school year to 12,520 last year, a drop of 48 percent. School delinquency arrests fell 36 percent during the same period.
• Juvenile Defendants can Meet Victims, Settle Charges Outside Court (Courier-Journal.com)
  The suspect was caught on camera and admitted he caused about $1,800 worth of damage vandalizing a Louisville business. Instead of handling the 16-year-old defendant’s case in juvenile court, local officials asked the business owner, Keith Bush, if he would take part in a “restorative justice” pilot program designed to repair the harm caused by a crime and find ways to keep offenders from re-offending — instead of seeking only retribution.
• Juvenile-Justice Corrections Program Trains Dogs, Youths (Statesman.com)
  “This is a program where the girls can learn life skills through training these dogs,” said Mike Griffiths, executive director of the Texas Juvenile Justice Department. “It’s a small program that pays big dividends — for the girls and the dogs.” The dividends include allowing the dogs to be trained to erase their bad habits, or to at least teach them how to manage their problems and keep their actions in check, so they might be adopted into new homes, he said.
• Putting a Developmental Approach Into Practice (JJIE.org)
  Having developmental competence means understanding that children and adolescents’ perceptions and behaviors are influenced by biological and psychological factors related to their developmental stage. For adults working with young people, taking a developmental approach could lead to better outcomes for kids.
• Can Forgiveness Play a Role in Criminal Justice? (The New York Times)
  At 2:15 in the afternoon on March 28, 2010, Conor McBride, a tall, sandy-haired 19-year-old wearing jeans, a T-shirt and New Balance sneakers, walked into the Tallahassee Police Department and approached the desk in the main lobby. Gina Maddox, the officer on duty, noticed that he looked upset and asked him how she could help. “You need to arrest me,” McBride answered. “I just shot my fiancée in the head.” When Maddox, taken aback, didn’t respond right away, McBride added, “This is not a joke.”
• Looking Back and Casting Forward: An Emerging Shift for Juvenile Justice in America (Chicago-Bureau.org)
  The close of 2012 focused so narrowly on terrible events and startling numbers – the Newtown massacre, for example, or Chicago’s sharp rise in homicides – some major criminal justice developments were nearly squeezed out of the national conversation.

I am pleased to share with you the second edition of “Addressing the Unmet Educational Needs of Children and Youth in the Juvenile Justice and Child Welfare Systems.” Due to the popularity of the first edition, CJJR is re-releasing this publication with updated material. The updates include references to guides that the National Evaluation and Technical Assistance Center for the Education of Children and Youth Who Are Neglected, Delinquent, or At-Risk (NDTAC), which is housed at the American Institutes for Research, has developed to elaborate upon the principles this paper presents. Since the time this paper was originally released, two guides have been published:

• “Providing Individually Tailored Academic and Behavioral Support Services for Youth in the Juvenile Justice and Child Welfare Systems” (2012)
• “Improving Educational Outcomes for Youth in the Juvenile Justice and Child Welfare Systems Through Interagency Communication and Collaboration” (2011)

These guides draw on both general research and on the experiences of the NDTAC authors to provide concrete strategies for adopting this paper’s principles and practices and achieving the type of comprehensive education system the authors describe. Both of these guides are described in the epilogue of this paper.

The last 15 years of my professional focus has been working with youth and families with an emphasis on child sex abuse prevention. While working as a Juvenile Officer in Jefferson County Oregon (2002-2006), I provided gender specific services for our department. My role was to assess, develop and implement gender specific services. Girls Circle(1) curriculum and training was the best practice service that our department implemented in 2003.
We had eight female youth signed up for the class and averaged about five attending weekly. Within about 2 class sessions, I started to hear the girls talking about various types of sexual assaults. Unfortunately, there wasn’t specific group content that addressed child sex abuse and rape. With approval, I adjusted the curriculum to include an art project that would allow the girls to outline each other and color in their body outline with colors representing emotions. This was a very eye opening activity for myself and our department. The common theme in their color representations was scribbled hearts and black stomachs. The girls talked about feeling empty, numb and hopeless about their future. That was affirmation that child sex abuse was important for us to address with the female juvenile clients.
This was what made me realize that so many of the females that came into our Department had experienced child sex abuse and many times additional sexual assaults into their teen years. OJJDP promotes publications that site anywhere from 70-90% of adjudicated female juvenile’s have been sexually abused. Unfortunately, the data on males is very limited but because of high profile cases, it appears that more resources are focusing on males.
Lessons learned:

• Child sex abuse is very real for a large percent of adjudicated juveniles
• Grooming creates very deep seeded issues
• JJO’s need child sex abuse training and assessment tools
• Juvenile Officer’s have opportunities to address this root cause issue
• Adult’s need education and training to talk about child sex abuse
• Positive youth development activities really do work (especially child sex abuse focused)
• Teens are very protective of the kids in their lives (they don’t want what happened to them happen to other kids)
• Teaching ourselves and teens how to protect themselves and others from predators works

Each year, more than 10,000 teens aged 15 and younger are arrested by police. They begin their journey into the criminal justice system with a visit to an intake officer at the Department of Probation. Increasingly, the trip stops there. In a remarkable turnaround, the probation department has become an off-ramp for thousands of teens each year, diverting them away from court and into short-term community programs.
The number of teens aged 15 and under whose cases have been “adjusted” and closed by the probation department increased 47 percent between 2009 and last year, and has more than doubled since 2006. In 2011, 4,564 teens under age 16 arrested in New York City—38 percent of the total—had their cases closed through adjustment, up from 3,107 two years earlier.
Today, the city funds nearly 30 community-based adjustment programs, serving just over 800 young people as of June. The terms of an adjustment can include restitution for victims and the completion of one of these special programs, which involve community service or other projects. Adjustment periods typically last 60 days, though they can be extended to four months with a judge’s approval. If a young person meets the terms, he or she walks away from the case with no need to go deeper into the justice system. And that’s exactly the point: Especially for low-level offenders, explains Deputy Commissioner of Probation Ana Bermudez, involvement with the justice system often does more harm than good. “There is significant research that youth outcomes actually deteriorate with court processing, particularly when you’re looking at low-risk youth,” she says. “You interfere with those supports that were making them low-risk in the first place.”

Continuing our countdown of the top blog posts from 2012, here's 15 - 11.
15. Bryan Stevenson at TED2012 on Injustice, Juvenile Justice System, Need for Reform
"How can a judge turn a child into an adult?" That's a question lawyer Bryan Stevenson has spent years asking. 
14. Rethinking Juvenile Justice: Promoting the Health and Well-Being of Crossover Youth
A recent report by the Conrad Hilton Foundation found “membership in the crossover group to be a strong and consistent predictor of less desirable [adult] outcomes,” including heavy use of public services, high likelihood of criminal justice involvement, lower educational attainment, and extremely high use of outpatient mental health treatment.
13. The Relationship Between Substance Abuse and Teen Crime
Consistent and substantial evidence exists that supports the relationship between substance abuse and criminal behaviors in youth.

This has been quite a year for our juvenile justice blog. Not only has readership more than doubled (thank you!) but we've partnered with a number of great organizations and journalists to provide you with more frequent analysis, research and ideas for reform.
As last year, our articles explaining why "Scared Straight" tactics do more harm than good, continue to be some of our most-read and shared posts. But this year, we also took a look at the effects of trauma on kids, raise-the-age efforts and the Supreme Court decision to ban life without the option of parole for juveniles. 
This week, we're doing a countdown of the top 25 stories from 2012.
25. Mentoring: Best Practices for High Risk Youth
Mentoring has been shown to reduce drug and alcohol use and help justice-involved teens get back on track. Jessica Jones share five best practices for a successful mentoring program.
24. Inside the Juvenile Justice System: A Look at How the System Works
While readers may be familiar with the criminal system through tv shows, the juvenile system is less well-known and understood. The County of San Diego explains the juvenile system.