By Benjamin Chambers, June 11 2009
Remember the two Pennsylvania judges who accepted bribes to detain kids? Now the former co-owner of the detention facilities has pleaded guilty in the case, after previousy maintaining he was the victim of a shakedown.- A panel at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is considering merging NIAAA and NIDA -- that is, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) -- into a single National Institute on Addiction, generating lots of debate.
- Boys who carry the so-called "warrior gene" are more likely to use weapons, join gangs and be "among their most violent members." Girls who have the gene aren't affected.
- Gil Kerlikowske, the new "Drug Czar" at the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), sent a clear message that the government will not be legalizing drugs.
- A new report from SAMHSA shows that drug and alcohol use rates vary dramatically from state to state. How does your state stack up?
- Juvenile justice cases in Connecticut have dropped 30% in the past 4 years, according to a new report from the National Juvenile Justice Network and the Connecticut Juvenile Justice Alliance, which hailed the state as a national model. What stood out for me in the news coverage was that this is the culmination of at least 10 years of effort: this sort of turnaround takes time and commitment.
- Despite years of emphasis on gender-specific juvenile justice programs, we still don't know if they're effective, according to a new study. Of the evidence that exists, co-ed programming seems to work as well as single-sex programming ... but that may just be due to a lack of well-evaluated girl-specific programming, since it's clear girls do have different needs than boys. (Related post: Research shows that the juvenile justice system is failing boys who have contact with it.)
- In perhaps) the same vein, more attention may need to be paid to female sex offenders.
- A promising approach to reducing school violence? Students trained in mediation are resolving playground conflicts at an elementary school in Canada.
Updated: February 08 2018