Blog: No bio box

The New York Times reported March 5 that the national trend of trying teens as adults in criminal cases is reversing. Almost all states have raised, or are raising, the age teens are tried as adults. The opposition to this trend argues that it is too costly to try teens as minors.

The generally accepted assumption is that states save money by trying teens in adult criminal court, rather than in juvenile courts. But is this assumption really true in the long run? What is the real cost of trying teens as adults?

Certainly, in the short-term, the more involved and supportive approach of juvenile courts may cost more than criminal courts. Juvenile courts emphasize treatment rather than punishment. That focus can mean that more people are employed in the care and rehabilitation of offenders in juvenile court than in the adult counterpart. 
These costs, however, yield long-term benefits. Youth and society benefit from supportive rehabilitation. And states can make back the money from that initial investment. A recent study by the Vera Institute on the cost of raising the age of juvenile jurisdiction in North Carolina found that with an investment of $70.9 million a year to include 16 year olds in juvenile court, the state would accrue “$123.1 million in reoccurring benefits to youth, victims, and taxpayers over the long term.”

Beginning in 1998, with my son's first arrest at the age of 12, I embarked on a journey that I was ill-equipped to handle. When I gave birth to my children, I had high hopes and dreams for them -- this arrest and the succeeding problems that lay ahead for him were never a part of those hopes and dreams.
I, like most family members who find themselves involved in the juvenile and criminal justice systems, was incredibly naive and made decisions based on what system professionals told me, never considering that it wasn't their job to help my son. Those decisions set a predictable course for my son, for those with knowledge and understanding, that would leave him emotionally and physically scarred for the rest of his life. I made those decisions without an understanding of what they meant for him or a conception of what it meant to have a "system-involved" child.  For the next three years, I walked this path alone in confusion and isolation. 

I sat through meetings where professionals talked about my son and I said nothing, because they presented themselves as the experts and seldom asked me anything. I sat in court rooms in front of a judge without an attorney or advocate, because I was told an attorney would only slow down my son getting the help he needed, and I believed this lie to be the truth. I sat outside the court house on the day my son was adjudicated as a delinquent and sent to a far-off facility because my legs would not carry me away from my baby, and still believed that I had done what was right. I sat by the phone for days, awaiting a call from the facility to inform me of where my son would be placed and when I would be able to visit.

• Webinar 3/10: Responding To A High-Profile Tragic Incident Involving A Person With A Serious Mental Illness
  From the Council of State Governments' Justice Center's Criminal Justice/Mental Health Consensus Project press release:

  When a person with a history or current diagnosis of serious mental illness is involved in a high-profile tragic incident, community leaders face public, media, legal and legislative scrutiny. Incomplete and/or inaccurate information may spread quickly—not only about the incident, but also about the likelihood of violence among individuals with mental illnesses. This is often fueled by community members’ mistaken assumptions that mental health treatment is ineffective and that most people with mental illnesses are violent. Though most individuals with serious mental illnesses will never be violent and can live successfully in the community with adequate treatment, supports, and housing, when a high-profile, tragic incident does occur that involves a member of this population, it can engender fear and lead to heated public debate.

  To help policymakers better anticipate and respond to these events, the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors and the Council of State Governments Justice Center have released a toolkit for responding to tragic incidents involving a person with serious mental illnesses. In this webinar presenters will discuss the toolkit’s origins and applications. Presenters include:

  Dr. Lorrie Rickman-Jones, Director of Mental Health for the Illinois Department of Human Services
  Dr. Fred Osher, Director of Health Systems and Services Policy for the Council of State Governments Justice Center
  Mr. David Miller, Project Director for the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors.

  Date: Thursday, March 10, 2011
  Time: 2:00-3:15 pm E.T.

  To register for this event, please click the link above.

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) is offering grants to support mentoring for youth  leaving secure facilities. One-time awards of up to $625,000 will be made for a project period of up to three years. (Hat tip to Mark Fulop.) 
From the call for proposals: "The purpose of this initiative is to support the successful and safe transition of juvenile offenders from correctional facilities to their communities. To this end, OJJDP will provide funding to develop, implement, and expand mentoring programs and transitional services. OJJDP expects successful applicants to integrate best practices and proven principles into mentoring service models, develop strategies to recruit and maintain mentors, and assess and develop services to respond to the needs of youth offenders reentering their communities. Local community collaboratives should lead such programs, design them to address local needs, and use local resources. If local resources are not available, the program should obtain resources outside of the community through partnerships and other collaborative efforts.
Application deadline: May 2, 2011. 
[UPDATE March 11, 2011:  Got questions?  Check the FAQ.]

Multidimensional Family Therapy (MDFT) is an evidence-based practice for working with adolescents struggling with substance abuse – the manual can be downloaded from SAMHSA for free. (SAMHSA is the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.) One of five treatment protocols developed and tested in the past decade by SAMHSA, it has been shown to be clinically and cost-effective.
As it happens, the creator of MDFT, Dr. Howard A. Liddle, Ed.D., will be doing a webinar for us on family engagement on April 30, 2011, at 11 am PST / 12 pm CST / 2 pm EST. You can learn more and register for it on our webinars page.
Dr. Liddle told me recently that there was an MDFT program operating in Portland, Oregon, where I live, so I set up an interview with Deena Corso, who is a clinical supervisor in the Juvenile Treatment Services unit at the Department of Community Justice (DCJ) in Multnomah County, Oregon. (Deena and I were co-workers when I was employed there between 2000 and 2007.)
 

Benjamin: What are the top reasons to implement MDFT?
Deena: We picked MDFT as our treatment model because it's an evidence-based practice, effective at reducing substance abuse and delinquent behavior for populations that looked like ours. We’d had a Multi-Systemic Therapy [MST] program for many years with good outcomes, but budget cuts forced us to look for an alternative, and once we looked at the research, we decided on MDFT. 

 
When I was at the Joint Meeting on Adolescent Treatment Effectiveness (JMATE) in 2010, I interviewed Dr. Mark Lipsey about a new tool he and several other colleagues developed to improve the implementation of evidence-based juvenile justice programs. Dubbed the Standardized Program Evaluation Protocol (SPEP), the tool uses a massive meta-analysis of nearly 700 evaluations to help local jurisdictions identify what they're already doing that's working, and to improve on what they've got. 
I asked Dr. Lipsey the following questions:

1. Why did you do the meta analysis and develop this tool to improve effective programming in juvenile justice? (:20)
2. How is the new tool different from simply implementing evidence-based programming? (2:35)
3. How do I get my hands on it? Can I just download it? (6:36)
4. How do I access the assistance I need to implement the SPEP? (8:57)

[The following column on using social impact bonds to promote effective programs in juvenile justice (and adult criminal justice) has been republished with permission from The Urban Institute website. --Ed.]

 

Abstract
At least 40 states face swelling budget deficits. Likely targets for reductions include the discretionary social programs that protect public safety. Rather than jeopardize the public's safety and well-being with imprudent cuts, a different and better way out of the financing crunch is explained by two criminologists: the social impact bond.

State and local governments are in trouble. At least 40 states face swelling budget deficits. While few details of next year’s budgets are available, likely targets include the discretionary social programs that protect public safety.

Often, programs that serve criminal offenders, at-risk youth, people with mental illness and drug addictions, and prisoners returning home are the first to get hacked when budgets are cut. In a preview of what is likely to come, governors in Virginia, Texas, and New York have proposed cutting funding for at-risk youths, increasing the chances of future crime increases.

Rather than jeopardize public safety and well-being with imprudent cuts, here’s a different and better way out of the financing crunch: the social impact bond (or SIB).

Gail Wasserman and her colleagues from the Center for the Promotion of Mental Health in Juvenile Justice at Columbia University published an important new study that was released just this week in Criminal Justice and Behavior: "Psychiatric Disorder, Comorbidity, and Suicidal Behavior in Juvenile Justice Youth." It may be the best source of information yet on the prevalence of substance abuse and mental health disorders among youth in the juvenile justice system.
We need accurate information. I've heard many practitioners around the country make the same mistake, claiming that "70 percent" of the youth in "the system" have diagnosable disorders. As I described in a 2008 post on this blog ("Size of Drug Problem in Juvenile Justice Depends on Where You Look"), this common mistake usually starts with a misreading of the 2002 study by Linda Teplin at Northwestern University.
Teplin and her colleagues found high rates of substance abuse and mental disorders among a population of juvenile offenders, but many readers failed to note that the study was about just one large detention center—not exactly a good proxy for the entire juvenile system. The Teplin study did not include data about youth at other stages of the juvenile justice process, such as probation and intake.
Gail Wasserman and her colleagues, on the other hand, used a high-quality and consistent methodology (the DISC) to measure the presence of disorders among nearly 10,000 juveniles in more than 50 jurisdictions and at varying points of juvenile justice contact, including juvenile intake.

Here's a story about the right man being in the right place at the right time: 72-year-old artist Arvie Smith (pictured at right) is bringing hope to youth locked up at the juvenile justice center in Portland, OR, Larry Bingham of The Oregonian reported Feb. 14. 
Smith has worked with 109 teens detained in the Measure 11 unit on charges that could land them in the adult system with mandatory sentences. By all accounts, Smith has brought them a rare combination of care, concern, and the opportunity to do something they enjoy -- drawing and painting inspiring murals.
A selection from the full article:
Smith would like to think he has reminded the young men of a few things they may have forgotten.
"In a lot of cases they've been told you can't do anything, you're no good, you're the underclass," Smith said. "For me, I see them engage in something they probably thought they could never do. My job is to say, 'Yes, you can. Sure, you can.'"
Here's wishing that every youth in the juvenile justice system gets his own Arvie Smith.

Hat tip to Darcy Daniels for bringing the story to my attention. Do you have a similar inspiring story about someone working with youth in the juvenile justice system in your community? Send it my way.

Photo by Randy L. Ramussen/The Oregonian; reprinted with permission.