Blog: No bio box

During the past few years, Rhode Island has been in the news regarding its approach to the juvenile justice system. In June of 2007, the General Assembly passed a law that required that 17-year-olds be tried as adults for any crime, and incarcerated at the adult prison.
The initial rationale for the change was that it was a cost-saving measure because the average cost of incarceration at the adult prison was thought to be less than incarceration at the Juvenile Training School. However, it was then determined that the 17-year-olds would have to be incarcerated in the high security wing of the adult prison to separate them from the adult population, which was costlier than housing them at the Training School. Despite this finding, the law was passed and put into effect.

• The so-called "Missouri Model" of juvenile justice reform received more coverage on CNN.
• Meanwhile, Louisiana, which has been attempting for several years to reform its own juvenile justice system by importing the Missouri Model, is seeing mixed results.
• The New York Times reported that four youth prisons in New York routinely broke kids' bones, "shattered" their teeth, and gave them concussions in attempts to discipline them.

Over 60% of youth in the juvenile justice system meet criteria for three or more mental health disorders, per a 2006 multi-state study by the National Center for Mental Health and Juvenile Justice. And 60.8% of youth who meet criteria for a mental health disorder also meet criteria for a substance abuse disorder. (Thanks to Paul Savery of the North Carolina Division of Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities and Substance Abuse Services for the tip.)

Those of us who keep up with the field of adolescent substance abuse, as well as substance abuse treatment in general, are well-versed in the idea that addiction is a chronic, relapsing disease, and that it is not a choice.
Psychologist Gene M. Heyman says in a new book from Harvard University Press that addiction is not a disease, and it's not involuntary. Instead, he says, it's a choice. He doesn't mean that individuals choose addiction, but that every time they use, they're making a cost-benefit analysis -- i.e., a choice. And furthermore, he argues, most addicts quit without treatment once the costs outweigh the benefits.

Adolescent substance abuse in the juvenile justice system is the subject of Laurie Chassin's excellent article in the Fall 2008 issue of The Future of Children.
But I urge you to check out the entire issue, whose theme is "juvenile justice." Edited by Laurence Steinberg (whose recent book, Rethinking Juvenile Justice, we gave away last March), the journal brings together research from a number of scholars connected with the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice, funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. 

One of the key parts of the Reclaiming Futures model is "beyond treatment":  connecting kids in the juvenile justice system with a network of positive adults, services, and activities that will sustain them when they leave probation, incarceration, or treatment.
No problem, right? Well, as anyone who's ever wrestled with this problem knows, it's a huge problem. It can be hard for probation officers and treatment counselors to keep up with what's available. Then, too, there's the always-tricky issue of what services or activies are appropriate for which kids. 
So here's an idea from Community YouthMapping (CYM): ask the kids to help you map the services; together, you can canvass neighborhoods in search of places to go and things to do. It's a great opportunity to harness their energy, given them skills, and model pro-social behavior, and you'll often find resources you wouldn't find otherwise. 

• Juvenile justice reform seemed to be on the mind of The New York Times last week, at least judging by its article documenting the increasing burden placed on the juvenile justice system by growing numbers of mentally ill youth, which was closely followed by an editorial bluntly favoring juvenile detention reform. Meanwhile, Barbara Ehrenreich, in a long op-ed on the criminalization of poverty, condemned recent trends to criminalize and fine kids for truancy. 

Connecticut Turning to Youth and Families

I'm a huge fan of the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (ADAM) program, now run by the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). The program tracks, as you might imagine from its name, drug use among arrestees. Because data is taken from multiple cities around the U.S. -- and variations from city to city can be quite large -- the data's used to track and predict drug use trends over time.
The program was axed in 2003 because of budget constraints, so I was pleased to learn today that ADAM was reinstated in 2007, this time as ADAM II.