Blog: Juvenile Justice Reform

Below are four lessons in reforming the juvenile justice system that I gleaned from a recent interview with Bart Lubow, Director of the Programs for High Risk Youth at the Annie E. Casey Foundation (pictured below). He’s best known for his pioneering work leading the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI), which helps jurisdictions safely reduce unnecessary reliance on juvenile  detention and stimulate other reforms, notably reducing disproportionate minority confinement. --Ed.


Lesson #1: Be Specific About What You’re Changing
"The biggest reason why system reform efforts fail is that they don’t provide system players with an alternative set of policies and programs. Instead, they provide a lot of vague talk, such as, 'We’ve gotta collaborate,' or 'We’ve got to be different,' etc.  Without providing the guts of the new, re-engineered system, the status quo prevails. Though people are often critical of initiatives that are relatively prescriptive in terms of laying out the elements of the system reform, it’s a naïve proposition to expect the status quo to be overcome without a lot of operational detail. There can be lots of room for local adaptation, but within a fairly prescriptive framework."

Okay, my headline's an exaggeration. But here's a few news items that make me wonder how we got to a place where teen-aged behavior is dealt with so punitively: 

• Students in Alabama will be punished for possessing "Smarties" candy because middle-schoolers have figured out they can crush them to a powder, then use it to make themselves look like they're smoking. They're not being taken to court, but the reaction seems overblown. 

• Nice article in The New York Times on the Missouri Model (getting kids out of detention and lock-up and into small group homes that focus on treatment and actual behavior change). Santa Cruz, California (and former Reclaiming Futures Justice Fellow, Scott MacDonald) are mentioned.
• TIME magazine weighed in on the state of the juvenile justice system, noting the need for more accountability to prevent abuses of various kinds. Also noted that most teens in the system who need mental health and addiction treatment don't get it.

We have a winner! Earlier this week, I announced that we'd give away a copy of "Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada's Quest to Change Harlem and America, by journalist Paul Tough. 
To choose a winner, I took all of those who entered the contest and I numbered their entries. Then I entered the first and last numbers in the Random Number Generator, and pushed the button. The generator picked a number at random, and we had our winner: Shawn Billings, Probation & Field Services Supervisor for the Family/Juvenile Court in the Reclaiming Futures site in Greene County, MO. (FYI, you don't have to work at a Reclaiming Futures site to enter or win; Shawn just got lucky.)
Congratulations to Shawn! For the rest of you, we'll have more giveaways coming up. Stay tuned!

Youth mentoring for teens in the justice system will get a huge boost, thanks to the stimulus plan. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) will be awarding $97.5 million (-!-) in  two categories. Info from the website: 
Recovery Act Local Youth Mentoring Initiative
In an effort to reduce juvenile delinquency, violence, gang participation, school failure, and drop-out rates, OJJDP is issuing this solicitation to support local organizations that develop, implement, or expand local mentoring programs leading to measurable, positive outcomes for at-risk youth.
Recovery Act National Youth Mentoring Programs
This solicitation invites applicants to propose initiatives ready for implementation that will assist in the development and maturity of community programs to provide mentoring services to populations that are underserved due to location, shortage of mentors, special physical or mental challenges of the targeted population, or other such situations identified by the community in need of mentoring services.
Applications are due April 20.

• As expected, R. Gil Kerlikowske has been officially named America's "Drug Czar", according to Join Together. While the former Seattle police chief seems to be a good choice, the "drug czar" positoin will no longer be part of the President's Cabinet. Though this might suggest that the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) will have reduced influence on policy, apparently Vice President Joe Biden will also be working on the issue. (See coverage in The New York Times and The Washington Post.)

Looking for something positive to do with youth in the justice system that's inexpensive, gives them useful skills, and they can continue doing when they leave detention or a residential program? Consider yoga, as this juvenile justice program in San Mateo, CA did. (The Reclaiming Futures program in Portland, Oregon also invested in yoga for teens in the secure residential alcohol and drug program run by the County, so I can attest to its benefits -- and the teens, after initial grumbling, found they liked it.) By focusing youth on being emotionally and physically aware, yoga provides teens with better skills for managing their emotions and behavior. 

Unsurprising news for those of us in Reclaiming Futures: a study funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation found that only about 10 percent of adolescents who have substance abuse problems actually enter treatment, partly because the nation lacks sufficient teen-only treatment services. Furthermore, of the adolescent treatment programs that are available, very few receive "high marks for quality." You can find the actual study in the March 2009 issue of the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment.
More news: