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Upon entering the courtroom with his defense attorney, the child starts waving at the judge. When the defense attorney asks the child, “What are you doing?” The child replied, “I’m waving my rights.”[1]
Across our country, children are being funneled through the juvenile justice system. The majority of these children have no real understanding of the court processes they are involved in or the legal consequences that may affect not only their juvenile record, but also their lives. Though juvenile courts are designed specifically for children, the language utilized by attorneys and judges is comparable to a foreign language to children that find themselves involved in the juvenile justice system.
Season 1, Episode 6 of the HBO series, The Wire, illustrates the type of legalese utilized in juvenile courts.[2] At a juvenile court hearing, Bodie, a 16-year-old boy, attempts to follow the rapid-fire dialogue that is occurring between his attorneys, the prosecutor, and the judge.[3] The judge and attorneys use terms such as “respondent,” “juvenile,” “delinquent petition,” “commitment hearing,” “assault,” “narcotics,” “transaction,” “remuneration,” “manipulated by traffickers,” and “home monitoring.”[4] He seems to get lost in the flurry of legalese and technical terms. Bodie seems to have no concept of what this dialogue entails, what any of these terms mean in relation to him, or the potential consequences. He appears to leave the juvenile court hearing with no real comprehension or appreciation for the juvenile justice system. In fact, later in the episode, he remarks to Officer Carver and Officer Herc that “the juvenile system in this city is f*#$%@ up.”[5] These are common scenes in most juvenile courts around the country. Though the juvenile courts are supposed to be designed specifically for children, they do not utilize language that is designed for children to understand the legal expectation placed upon them.

A new report, Breaking Rules, Breaking Budgets: Cost of Exclusionary Discipline in 11 Texas School Districts, by nonprofit Texas Appleseed shares the negative impacts of the exclusionary disciplinary methods in Texas schools. The study surveyed 11 school districts to discover the cost-benefit ratio of exclusionary discipline and how it affects students and communities. Exclusionary discipline includes out-of-school suspensions, expulsions, and referrals to alternative education programs which leads to high human and financial costs.
In 2011, the Council of State Governments released a groundbreaking report documenting the negative impacts suspension and expulsion have on students in Texas. With many schools utilizing discretionary sentencing for minor violations, the high costs and negative impacts of exclusionary discipline are hindering the Texas public school system.
Excessive state money is being spent on out-of-school suspensions and school security rather than social work services. With 75% of violations strictly school code violations, the annual cost to educate one student through exclusionary discipline methods is three times the average cost of educating a student in the regular classroom.
The Texas Appleseed report gives the following recommendations to help reduce the human and financial costs of exclusionary discipline:

Juvenile Justice Reform

• Juvenile Court Reform Details Emerging (MemphisDailyNews.com)
  Shelby County, Tennessee, Juvenile Court Chief Administrative Officer Larry Scroggs describes the court as being “sort of at the end of the beginning” in a review process by the U.S. Justice Department. And after this summer’s scathing report from the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division of the court’s due process practices, Scroggs told those at a public hearing this week that the plan for systemic changes at the court will likely be a three- to five-year process.
• Juvenile Justice Judge Speaks to At-Risk Students about Staying in School (WFXG.com)
  As students celebrate Red Ribbon Week, the Burke County Alternative School in Georgia invited juvenile justice judge Doug Flanagan to talk to them about the importance of staying in school. Judge Flanagan says this is one of the best schools in Burke County.
• After the Violence, the Rest of Their Lives (The New York Times)
  At a time when the homicide rate in Chicago has risen sharply, jumping 25 percent over all since last year and 100 percent or more in a few gang-heavy neighborhoods, the research project offers a portrait of both the perpetrators and the victims in struggling, gang-ridden neighborhoods.
   

A recent study published by researchers at the University of Cincinnati found that boys are more likely than girls to abuse over-the-counter drugs. Researchers surveyed middle school and high school students in 133 Cincinnati schools, finding that about 10 percent of teens abused over-the-counter decongestants and cough syrups.
Additional findings include boys being more at risk for long-term abuse, while those belonging to school clubs, sports, church groups and community organizations were less likely to abuse over-the-counter drugs.

An estimated 130 young people arrested each year in Ventura County, California, are diagnosed with substance abuse or co-occurring mental illness problems. But there is good news for these teens and their families.
Ventura County's juvenile drug court is turning young lives around with the help of Reclaiming Futures.
Our team recently worked with "JM" to access appropriate treatment and connect to a support system beyond treatment.   

Editor's note: On February 26, 2013, Jerry Tello and Juan Gomez from the National Compadres Network presented their Brown Paper at a Reclaiming Futures webinar. The webinar recording and slides are now available for download.

Census data indicates that Latino children are the fastest growing population in the United States. A growing body of research has highlighted the continuous plight of Latino male health and health related outcomes in this nation. The cycle of inequity has negatively impacted health outcomes for Latino boys and men. This disparity also contributes to unacceptably low levels of educational achievement and poor outcomes related to the social determinants of health. For example, a 2011 study by the College Board’s Advocacy & Policy Center indicates that 51% of Hispanic male high school graduates ages 15-24 years should expect to be incarcerated, jobless, or dead.
While the field of philanthropy has recently seen a notable shift toward investing in Males of Color (MoC) initiatives, gaps in Latino specific research, allocated funding and organizational capacity still exist. Essentially, funding targeting Latinos has been neither focused nor explicit. The existing body of literature that addresses the complexity of Latino identity, tradition and culture is under developed. Furthermore, trauma within the field of MoC dominates the conversation but does nothing to emphasize movement toward a healing aspect that this field so critically needs.

The Baby Elmo Project provides parenting education for incarcerated teen fathers through the use of media and experiential learning to develop and strengthen relationships between young parents and their babies. Each educational session is followed by a visit between the incarcerated teen parent and his child. Below, a young father incarcerated at Cuyahoga Hills describes his experience with the Baby Elmo program at the facility, piloted by the Ohio Department of Youth Services.
My daughter was born on June 30, 2011, after I had already been locked up for two months. I saw my daughter for the first time through glass and was unable to hold her, so I held her for the first time in October 2011. Before I was transferred to Cuyahoga Hills, I was only able to see my daughter the last Saturday of each month for 1 hour. It didn’t seem like enough time because as soon as she would warm up to me it would be time for them to go.
I was transferred to CHJCF in January 2012. Things were very different there: I only saw my daughter once between January and May 2012 because visits with children required a “special visit request.” I wanted more time.

Juvenile crime is decreasing nationwide. But here in North Carolina, our drop in teen crime is almost double the national average. In fact, violent crimes committed by teens 16 and younger have dropped by nearly 37%. So how did we accomplish this?
In 2003, we shifted our approach to focus on prevention and treatment. More recently, we’ve begun implementing the Reclaiming Futures model to coordinate care and improve drug and alcohol treatment for justice-involved youth.
When I first learned of Reclaiming Futures, my heart beat faster over the prospects of what it could accomplish. I immediately recognized early on what I’ve now come to describe as Reclaiming Futures’ “practice principles” – those elements of daily and organizational practice that make it work, and that improve or reform the system in which they are embedded.
These principles are of my own modification. Yet to me, they capture the essence of juvenile court reforms as catalyzed by Reclaiming Futures:

• Evidence-based (data driven) decision making – we should attempt with all intention to take our personal values and cultures out of the decisions we make regarding vulnerable youth. Reclaiming Futures drives this through evidence-based screening, assessment and the use of evidence-informed clinical interventions.
• Judicial leadership and court management – that’s right, without the judges’ buy-in, nothing in the juvenile court flies. And I’ve found that Reclaiming Futures judges buy in because they become significantly better informed by the data collected, the teams giving input around the table, and clear options for kids under their supervision and care. This “stakeholder buy-in” includes a commitment from judges to regularly bring cases back into the courtroom for reviews to recognize both the positive and negative changes that may be occurring with youth.
• Engaged communities with court staff having a primary case management function (if the youth is on supervision or an agreed-upon court plan) – sort of a corollary to the judicial leadership bullet, having a focal point in the juvenile justice system for coordinating services, engaging formal and informal helping systems, and balancing public safety with treatment, intervention and pro-social engagement makes perfect sense…and Reclaiming Futures sets up this organizational picture by virtue of the 6-step model. This does not mean that the court staff “control” the process; rather, they are the accountable hub in the wheel of collaboration and case management since they are required by law to be accountable for case outcomes to the juvenile court judges.
• Continuous quality management and improvement – Reclaiming Futures is designed to be driven by constant monitoring, feedback, team meetings and data consideration. In my view, every juvenile court should be doing the exact same thing (with or without Reclaiming Futures). By necessity, these processes will require sharing of information and data within and across agencies and systems --- and after all, shouldn’t we be finding ways to do this so that the system adapts to the child/family and not the other way around? These principles drive excellence that the methodology for measuring both process and outcome.

Happy Halloween from the blog team!

(from L to R: Mac Prichard, Lori Howell, Liz Wu, David Backes)
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