Blog: Public Policy

Okay, my headline's an exaggeration. But here's a few news items that make me wonder how we got to a place where teen-aged behavior is dealt with so punitively: 

• Students in Alabama will be punished for possessing "Smarties" candy because middle-schoolers have figured out they can crush them to a powder, then use it to make themselves look like they're smoking. They're not being taken to court, but the reaction seems overblown. 

In what's probably the largest-scale longitudinal study of its kind to date, researchers have assessed how well detained teens were functioning up to three years later. 
The results, in press at the Journal of Adolescent Health, were based on assessments of "1,653 youth arrested and detained between 1995 and 1998 at the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center (CCJTDC) in Chicago, Illinois." Researchers used the Child and Adolescent Functional Assessment Scale (CAFAS).
What did they learn?

• Nice article in The New York Times on the Missouri Model (getting kids out of detention and lock-up and into small group homes that focus on treatment and actual behavior change). Santa Cruz, California (and former Reclaiming Futures Justice Fellow, Scott MacDonald) are mentioned.
• TIME magazine weighed in on the state of the juvenile justice system, noting the need for more accountability to prevent abuses of various kinds. Also noted that most teens in the system who need mental health and addiction treatment don't get it.

Want to change the system -- not just the juvenile justice system, but entire neighborhoods -- to reclaim the futures of the kids who live in your community?
Then dream big.
To help you, we're giving away a copy of Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada's Quest to Change Harlem and America, by journalist Paul Tough.  "This is a dispatch from inside the most daring and potentially transformative social experiment of our time."
Here are the rules: drop me an email (sorry, posting a comment doesn't count) with the subject line "WHATEVER IT TAKES," and please include your name and full mailing address. We'll take all entries until 12:00 pm PST/3:00pm EST on Thursday, March 27th  March 26th and then the Random Number Generator will make its merciless decision. Good luck to all entrants!
(Please note: I will add all entrants' e-mail addresses to our mailing list to receive our weekly email digest unless you request otherwise.)

We have a winner! Earlier this week, I announced that we'd give away a copy of "Rethinking Juvenile Justice," by Elizabeth S. Scott and Laurence Steinberg. To choose a winner, I took all of those who entered the contest by leaving a comment or dropping me an email, and I numbered their entries. Then I entered the first and last numbers in the Random Number Generator, and pushed the button. The generator picked a number at random, and we had our winner: "Sandy".  (Sandy, send me an email with your full name and mailing address, and we'll get the book mailed out to you next week.)
Congratulations! 
For the rest of you, we'll be giving away a copy of Paul Tough's inspiring book, Whatever it Takes: Geoffrey Canada's Quest to Change Harlem and America" in a week or two. Stay tuned!

Reclaiming Futures is nothing if not eager to share. Every now and then, we're going to offer up a few giveaways to readers of the blog. This week, we're giving away a copy of "Rethinking Juvenile Justice," by Elizabeth S. Scott and Laurence Steinberg. In it, they "outline a new developmental model of juvenile justice that recognizes adolescents' immaturity but also holds them accountable."
And you could have your very own free copy if you enter our contest.

A recent national survey of attitudes toward addiction performed by Hazelden contains some encouraging news: 

• 77% of Americans agree that addiction treatment should be part of healthcare reform (though many are unsure if their own insurance plan covers it); and
• 78% of Americans "understand that drug addiction is a chronic disease rather than a personal failing."

Complicated times… In so many ways, youth advocates have access to more helpful information, inspiration, role models and heroes than ever before. We have movements, evidence-based practices, champions and momentum for a variety of important reforms and improvements across a range of youth-serving systems. 
At the exact same time, we watch disparities grow, budgets strain under pressure, poverty persist among too many. Within Reclaiming Futures communities, even those who have been the most successful implementing the model feel they must rigorously defend each and every aspect of their programs in these budget-trimming times. 
 
Yet now more than ever before, it's essential to focus on our key components:

Youth Today reports that the number of juveniles in the justice system who commit suicide while confined is higher than anyone thought -- worse yet, their deaths often go unreported to state authorities.
We know this because the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) commissioned a report, Characteristics of Juvenile Suicide in Confinement. Though the report was completed in 2004, it was only released yesterday. The author blames former top OJJDP administrator, J. Robert Flores for the delay. 
One takeaway: youth entering detention should be given mental health assessments as soon as possible. Over half of the youth who killed themselves in detention did so within the first six days, and only 35% had received a mental health assessment by then. Stands to reason that a youth's alcohol and drug use should also be assessed at the same time.