Blog: Public Policy

We've still got a few spaces left in two great webinars. Both will be closed at 75 participants, so register now!
[UPDATE: the "Bridges out of Poverty" webinar has come and gone, but there's still space in "Treatment of Adolescents with Opiod Use Disorders." Scroll down for more info!]
Here's the details:

Philip DeVol on Bridges Out of Poverty: Strategies for Professionals and Communities
When: Thursday, May 21st, 10:30am-12:00pm PDT / 1:30-3:00pm EDT
To Participate: scroll down to "How to Sign Up."
 

In addition to hosting Marian Wright Edelman at our Leadership Institute in New Orleans last week, we were also honored to have Mr. Shay Bilchik (seen at left with Laura Nissen, National Director of Reclaiming Futures) as our guest. Mr. Bilchik is founder and director of the Center for Juvenile Justice Reform at Georgetown University. (The CJJR recently put out recommendations on improving services to youth transitioning out of the juvenile justice and/or child welfare systems.)
Mr. Bilchik spoke entertainingly and cogently on where he thinks the juvenile justice system needs to go to be successful. The full text of his remarks should be available in the next few weeks; in the mean time, rough notes on his speech are below. (I'm grateful to Reclaiming Futures staffer Mimmy Patterson for her extensive notes, which I've supplemented here and there. My apologies to Mr. Bilchik if we've mangled his presentation.) 

• Biggest news of the week: according to The New York Times, the U.S. Supreme Court is taking up the question of whether it's appropriate to sentence juveniles to life without parole, given its 2005 decision that execution for crimes committed as a juvenile is inappropriate given what we now know about their developing brains.

• The Bureau of Justice Assistance is looking to fund nonprofits to provide mentors for individuals 18 or older leaving incarceration -- a great opportunity to help "transition age" youth 18-24 ... 
• A recent study showed that online alcohol and drug treatment is effective; I'd like to see it replicated for teens, as online approaches hold tremendous possibilities for engaging and reaching youth who have no transportation to get to care.

In part because of research that indicates that the human brain doesn't fully mature until about age 25, we now know that youth who are "connected by 25" -- have sufficient education, employment skills, and a positive social network -- are likely to be successful in life. But youth without such preparation are likely to struggle, at great cost to themselves and to society.

[The following post is courtesy of Ashley Nellis, Ph.D., Research Analyst at The Sentencing Project. -Ed.]
 
Despite the federal mandate to address it, minority overrepresentation has persisted in nearly every state’s juvenile justice system for decades. Racial and ethnic disparities often mount as youth move through the system, from referral to secure confinement.  To demonstrate, note that African American youth represent 15% of the general population, yet they represent 28% of youth arrests, nearly 40% of those in juvenile residential placement, and as much as 58% of those entering adult prison.[1]

If it were up to you, what would you have the Obama Administration do in its next 100 days to help teens in the juvenile justice system struggling with alcohol and drug issues? 
You can submit your answers, using stories (100 words or less), pictures, and videos (no more than 2 minutes), to the Annie E. Casey Foundation's "100 Days/100 Voices" campaign beginning April 30th. (Follow the link for info on how to participate.)
While the Casey Foundation's campaign has a broader focus, this is your chance to speak out on behalf of kids in the justice system caught in the cycle of drugs, alcohol, and crime -- and their families. 

Duke University has just launched a great website that allows policymakers and others to get information about teen alcohol and drug use in North Carolina.  It pulls from multiple public information sources about teen arrests for possession by drug, emergency room visits, and much more. County data can be compared to state data, data can be examined by county on a map of North Carolina ... and that's just the start.
The amount of information and possible permutations to explore on the Substance Abuse Among North Carolina Adolescents site are both impressive. Every state should have a tool like this.
Know of others? Let me know!
UPDATE: I've been informed that Duke created the website in partnership with the Center for Youth, Family, Community Partnerships at the University of North Carolina Greensboro, with a grant from the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT).Additional partners are listed on the splash page.

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."