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Curious about the presence, extent, or characteristics of local youth gang problems?
No worries - the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) has your back. An updated version of OJJDP's National Youth Gang Survey (NYGS) is now available on the web site of the Institute for Intergovernmental Research. Available data include annual numbers of gangs and gang members from 1996 through 2007, the change in the number of gang-problem jurisdictions from 2002 to 2007, and gang member demographics.

Anyone working on a Reclaiming Futures initiative -- or for that matter, anyone working to improve alcohol and drug treatment services, even if not for teens in the juvenile justice system -- will benefit from a new provider toolkit from the Network for the Improvement of Addiction Treatment (NIATx).

 
Tim, a youth on probation in Multnomah County, Oregon, testifies to County commissioners about how the juvenile justice system helped him get off alcohol and drugs, learn job skills, and begin giving back to kids in the community. (His testimony begins at 8:08.)
Related Post:

• Want more information about how the juvenile justice system can harness the power of positive youth development (PYD)? Then check out this post with information from the Coalition for Juvenile Justice.
• This roundup has links to proven strategies for improving employment and education for young men involved with the juvenile justice system.

[This article on the juvenile drug court in the Reclaiming Futures site in Nassau County, NY originally appeared, in a longer form in the Spring 2009 issue of the Nassau News, the newsletter of the 10th Judicial District, Nassau County.]
 
On March 4, 2009, Nassau County, NY held its first Juvenile Drug Treatment Court (JTC) graduation. Three teenagers successfully completed the program.
 
It was a little overwhelming to think we already had three graduates. When we first talked about creating the program, it had seemed like a logistical impossibility.
 
And after we got our first participant, there were immediate doubts: What were we thinking? How do we expect to help this kid get off drugs? We’re not equipped. This is never going to work.

Anyone interested in juvenile justice reform should check out this opinion piece from The Boston Globe by David Fathi of Human Rights Watch, "An Unfair Prison Litigation System."(Link courtesy of the National Juvenile Justice Network.)
Fathi is making a larger point about the burden on all prisoners, adult and juvenile, but his sample case is focused on a juvenile:

Two important newly-available tools to help you unravel adolescent substance abuse treatment funding are out from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA):

• The "Missouri Model" was featured on ABC's Primetime show this week: more good press for the importance of rehabilitation and treatment for youth in the justice system. (Click through to see show segments.) UPDATE: Youth Today also has an update on efforts to replicate the Missouri Model around the nation.
• Meanwhile, the Coalition for Juvenile Justice released a key, first-of-its-kind report on the states' compliance with the federal Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA), which is up for renewal this year. Reauthorization of the JJDPA is supported by the American Psychological Association (APA), and this week, Marian Wright Edelman posted a widely-noted editorial urging renewal of the JJDPA and congressional support for promising models of juvenile justice reform, such as the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative, Models for Change, and the Missouri Model. 

Friday, September 04, 2009 ABC Television Network
PRESS RELEASE - PRESS RELEASE - ENTERTAINMENT - ON ABC NEWS' PRIMETIME: CRIME (9/9)
IS MISSOURI'S RADICALLY DIFFERENT APPROACH TO THE JUVENILE JAIL SYSTEM WORKING?
There are nearly 100,000 kids in America's juvenile justice system, most in orange jumpsuits, locked behind bars and under constant guard. But the state of Missouri has cast aside the familiar model of juvenile jails in favor of a radically different approach - therapy and rehabilitation.

Tackling adolescent substance abuse isn’t getting any easier, what with shrinking budgets for treatment and support services and trends like the rise in prescription drug abuse. So I was pleased to have the opportunity to see Charlotte Sisson (shown at left), Policy Analyst for the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), give an informal address to a group of Reclaiming Futures judges over lunch at a judicial training in Greensboro, NC on August 28th.