OP-ED: Girls in the System Need More of Our Support; News Roundup

Juvenile Justice Reform

• In ‘Vernon’s World,’ a Young Photographer Documents the Life of a Homeless Teenager (JJIE.org)
  Unaccustomed to the cold, hard floor in his spot next to the door of the public bathrooms in Trenton, Missouri, Sam Wilson, 22, slept badly. In a stall next to him, Vernon Foster, 18, didn’t have the same trouble. By the time Foster woke, Wilson had been in a state somewhere between sleep and wakefulness for hours, apologizing to the morning walkers as they filtered through the bathroom, surprised to see two young boys asleep on the floor.
• Mandatory Sentencing 17 year-olds in Adult Court - Is There a Better Alternative for Wisconsin's Youth and Taxpayers? (MacIver Institute)
  In the United States, there is a wide consensus that children differ from adults. The very fact that each of the 50 states and Washington, D.C. have institutions designed to render judgment on cases and administer justice outside of the adult criminal court speaks to this critical distinction.
• OP-ED: Girls in the System Need More of Our Support (JJIE.org)
  "I just returned from the Adult and Juvenile Female Offenders Conference in Portland, Maine, where Piper Kerman, author of the memoir 'Orange Is the New Black,' -- the inspiration for the wildly successful Netflix series of the same name -- gave the keynote address to the 400 or so attendees all with some connection to the offender population."
• Florida's Juvenile Justice Department Seeking Reform Suggestions (WJHG.com)
  Gulf County residents sat quietly as Department of Juvenile Justice Secretary Wansley Walters talked about a major change, focusing more on prevention programs. "These problems that allow people to become violent and so disregard authority and commit crimes and know that they're committing crimes, these things don't happen in a day," said Secretary Wansley Walters of the Department of Juvenile Justice.

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Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment and Mental Health

• Teen Suicide Movie Wins Mental Health Film Competition (Health24.com)
  A young Cape Town filmmaker, Garth Kingwill and his crew won the public and judges over with their film entry, entitled “I Choose Life”, into this year’s annual Let’s Talk Mental Health Film Competition – a joint partnership with Pharma Dynamics, the Film Industry Learner Mentorship (F.I.L.M) programme and the Mental Health Information Centre.
• Young Brains and Drugs (The Recorder)
  From the age of 6 we go through life with about three pounds of squishy stuff behind our eyes responsible for everything we do and think, and what we put in our bloodstreams before our mid-20s has a particularly potent impact on where that brain takes us. Six is the age that brain size and weight plateau, Dr. Marisa M. Silveri told an assembly of middle and high school students Wednesday, but the human brain remains in a particularly sensitive state of development until the age of 20-22, during which time drugs and alcohol can easily throw a wrench in its delicate mechanics.
• Young and on Drugs: Three Recovering Addicts Share their Stories of Teen Drug Abuse (Ledger-Inquirer)
  Benjamin Wilkey grew up on a 200-acre farm in Talbot County, the son of a local dentist. Christopher Belt was raised at Baker Village in a household on public assistance. Marianne P. comes from a middle class family in the northeast Georgia mountains. All three young adults squandered their teenage years, doped up and out of control.
• NIDA’s Drug Abuse Information for Teens Goes Mobile (NIH.gov)
  Teens — and adults who care for them — can now find answers to questions about drug abuse and addiction more easily, and through smartphones and tablets. Spanish language versions of easy to understand resources on drug abuse and addiction are now also available. The updates, announced today by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health, are being launched as part of National Substance Abuse Prevention Month External Web Site Policy events in October.

David Backes writes the Friday news roundup for Reclaiming Futures and contributes articles about juvenile justice reform and adolescent substance abuse treatment to ReclaimingFutures.org. He has a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Santa Clara University. David works as an account executive for Prichard Communications.