By Benjamin Chambers, July 31 2009
Interested in what restorative justice looks like when it's implemented in juvenile court? Here's a long article about two restorative justice programs in Oakland: one uses a peer court to address low-level offenders; the other works with kids leaving detention after many months.- Want data on the well-being of kids in your state? Want to know how your state ranks compared with others? Check out the KIDS COUNT Data Center just launched by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, which also released its KIDS COUNT Databook for 2009.
- Some good news: treatment for addiction is included as a "minimum benefit" in each of the health care reform plans Congress is considering.
- Participate in a train-the-trainer event in using the Global Appraisal of Individual Needs (GAIN) to assess adolescent substance abuse and mental health needs September 22-25, 2009, in Illinois. (NOTE: while the registration form says you have until 9/15 to register, Chestnut says the actual registration deadline is August 25th.) You will be sent information about planning travel and lodging after you register.
- Is your gender-responsive programming for girls in the justice system effective? Learn how to find out at a two-day workshop held by the Girls Study Group of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) in Chapel Hill, North Carolina at the end of October. There's a two-phase application process, and applications for the first phase are due August 17th.
- For those following the judges' scandal in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, the state Supreme Court intends to expunge and destroy records of juveniles adjudicated by accused judge Mark Ciarevella who failed to meet a June 1st deadline to join a class action lawsuit brought by the Juvenile Law Center. This could make it difficult for the lawsuit to be successful.
- The Maryland Supreme Court has ruled that juveniles must have a legal representative present at every "critical stage" in their legal proceedings, including any occasion when they're asked to waive their Miranda rights.
- The University of Virginia's Curry School of Education will be using $4 million of a $25 million gift from Philip Morris USA to create a positive youth development center.
- The New York Times called for an end to sending children 13 and under to adult court, and the renewal of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act. It based its editorial in large part on a recent report, From Time Out to Hard Time: Young Children in the Adult Criminal Justice System, from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.
- A brief from The Future of Children by Laurence Steinberg and Ron Haskins, "Keeping Adolescents out of Prison," makes a succinct, research-based case that prison (and detention) do not deter crime by adolescents, although evidence-based treatment has been shown to be effective. And Amy Vorenberg of the Franklin Pierce Law Center comes at it from a different direction, in her paper showing how basing juvenile justice policy on occasional violent crimes sensationalized by the media can make the public less safe.
- As a non-expert, I was interested to see an editorial on the Psychiatric Times blog arguing for reforming the Diagnostic Statistical Manual (DSM) IV and embracing the DSM-V as soon as possible. (You can also follow a link to see the article the writer was responding to.) It would be interesting to hear from an expert how the DSM-V might affect work with adolescent substance abuse. Anyone care to weigh in?
Topics: Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment, Gender-Specific, Juvenile Justice Reform, No bio box, Positive Youth Development, Public Policy, Resources
Updated: February 08 2018