Blog: substance abuse

Juvenile Justice Reform

• Confronting an Unseen Problem: Abuse and Its Long-Term Effects on Incarcerated Juveniles (Chicago Policy Review)
  Children and adolescents who find themselves in the juvenile justice system often come from backgrounds characterized by abuse. Recent studies indicate that once incarcerated, that trend is appallingly likely to continue.
• Experts Concerned that LA County Youth Not Always Well Served by the Juvenile Justice System (Public CEO)
  Nearly 50 years after the U.S. Supreme Court established the rights of juveniles to have adequate legal representation in a landmark case known as In re Gault, due process rights remain unclear for thousands of indigent juvenile defendants facing felony charges that could lead to years of incarceration.
• Question of Raising Criminal Age in Texas Fraught With Complexity (El Paso Times)
  Texas criminal courts have regarded 17 as the age of adulthood since 1918. But recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions conflict with the law in some ways, prompting Texas and the eight other states to consider making 18 the age at which criminal offenders are sent into the adult legal system.
• Racial Disparity in Juvenile Facilities Increased as Overall Incarceration Plummeted, Report Says (The Chronicle of Social Change)
  Racial disparity in juvenile facilities may have widened as the overall number of youths declined in recent years, according to a report released today by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency.

I’ll never forget how my hands shook as I gripped my office phone that afternoon. My 16 year-old son called tell me he was a drug addict and that he needed help. Right now.
I must admit I did have suspicions he’d been involved in drugging. His behavior had changed. He was doing so poorly in school that he was on the verge of either failing or dropping out. He struggled with my newly blended family and the move to a new state. I thought everything would work its way out in his life, but the tenor of his voice told me this was something serious.
Even though I’m the parent or step-parent of seven boys, I was totally unprepared. I’d always wished for a book for the teen years to turn to when things go rough, much like my mom turned to her trusty Dr. Spock reference book. But, there isn’t anything like that to help parents navigate today’s minefields.
I flew out the door and was soon home, sitting in my living room, attempting to wrap my mind around the depth of his problems. The night before a drug dealer threatened him. This was serious. Turning to the Yellow Pages, I called several drug rehab facilities in my state, but found only one with an immediate opening. It was two hours away from home and my son sat quietly in the front seat. I felt I’d failed him. Who knows what he felt.
The intake counselor sat us down in a private office and began to do a drug inventory. As the list began to grow from marijuana use all the way down to cocaine and heroin, I shakily agreed to anything to help him get out of the death trap of drug addiction.
My situation wasn’t unusual.