Blog

Reclaiming Futures has been invited by New Jersey Health Initiatives (NJHI), a program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, to conduct a six-month readiness assessment to determine if Reclaiming Futures can be implemented in New Jersey, with support and funding through NJHI.
Please join us and spread the word about the following information sessions. Participants will learn more about the Reclaiming Futures model and share experiences working with justice-involved youth in New Jersey. 
Tuesday, November 13th, 2012
9 a.m. – 2 p.m.
Westin Mt. Laurel
555 Fellowship Road
Mt. Laurel, NJ 08054
 
Thursday, November 15th, 2012
9 a.m. – 2 p.m.
Hyatt Morristown
3 Speedwell Avenue
Morristown, NJ 07960
Please RSVP online.
Space is Limited. Register early for your preferred location.

PBS Newshour has an in-depth piece out on bath salts: their origins, growing popularity and (adverse) effects. It's particularly interesting to learn how bath salts actually affect the brain. From the article:

Taking bath salts, it seemed, was similar to taking amphetamine and cocaine at the same time. Except for one thing: MDPV is as much as 10 times stronger than cocaine.

Imagine the space between the nerve cells as a kitchen sink and the water as dopamine. In the brain's natural state, the faucet, or nerve cell endings, are always leaking some dopamine, and the drain is always slightly open, vacuuming some of the chemical back into the cell. Methamphetamine turns the faucet on high. Cocaine closes the drain. Bath salts, researchers discovered, do both at the same time. With the faucet on and the drain closed, the water overflows. In other words, the drug was flooding the brain.

 
Juvenile Justice Reform

• DJJ Offenders Meet Their Victims In New BARJ Program (WLTX.com)
  Tuesday there was a ribbon cutting ceremony at the Department of Juvenile Justice's Broad River Road complex in South Carolina as officials announced the implementation of a program called Balanced and Restorative Justice, or BARJ. The program allows young offenders to collaborate with their parents, the victim and officers to come up with solutions to their crimes.
• New Term for U.S. Supreme Court Prompts Reflection on Children's Rights (Juvenile Law Center)
  Since 1917, the first Monday in October has been the official opening day of the annual term of the United States Supreme Court. For the first time in many years, there are no cases currently set for review that raise large questions about children’s status under the Constitution. So … it seems like a good time to pause and reflect on how children and youth have fared in recent years.
• Feds End Monitoring of Juvenile Justice Spending (OnlineAthens.com)
  The Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice has satisfied federal auditors that it no longer requires intensive monitoring, members of the state agency’s board learned Thursday. The monitoring began last winter when officials from the U.S. Department of Education issued citations to the state agency for how it was handling $3.3 million in federal funds earmarked for schooling children in detention.
• [OPINION] Florida is Poorly Equipped to Deal with Juveniles Accused of Murder (Jacksonville.com)
  The twists and turns in the case of 13-year-old Cristian Fernandez show how ill-equipped Florida is to deal with juveniles in such cases. A recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling in an Alabama case leaves the young man facing charges for murder for which there are no applicable penalties.

Child Trends recently released two fact sheets examining practices that had positive, negative or neutral impacts on boys and girls: What Works for Female Children and Adolescents: Lessons From Experimental Evaluations of Programs and Interventions and What Works for Male Children and Adolescents: Lessons From Experimental Evaluations of Programs and Interventions.
Child Trends evaluated 115 random assignment intent-to-treat intervention programs for boys and 106 for girls, and published findings broken down in a number of outcome areas including Academic Achievement & School Engagement, Delinquency, Mental Health & Internalizing, Physical Health and Nutrition, Reproductive Health and Substance Abuse.
Overall, both boys and girls responded well to mentoring--this type of intervention showed positive results in academic achievement. However, boys and girls differed in several other areas. Via the boys’ report:

Law enforcement leaders recently banded together to highlight an important – but perhaps surprising –issue in public safety: school discipline.
San Bernardino County, CA District Attorney Michael Ramos, Sheriff Keith Royal, president of the California State Sheriffs’ Association, Sacramento Police Chief Rick Braziel, Ceres Police Chief Art de Werk, and the president of the California Police Chiefs Association all recently gathered in California to highlight ineffective school discipline policies that actually detract from public safety.
The officials noted that suspending and expelling students for minor offenses increases the number of youths out of the supervised school environment and on the streets, where they are far more likely to engage in troublemaking or even criminal behavior. The law enforcement coalition further pointed out the link between suspensions and dropping out of school, impacting both crime rates and educational gains.
The Sheriffs, Police Chiefs, and District Attorney spoke out after a report released by Fight Crime: Invest in Kids found high rates of suspension for low-level misbehavior. The group contrasted these poor outcomes with the positive gains and cost savings possible with alternative, more traditional school discipline measures which often involve restorative justice.

As a college educated man, Reginald Dwyane Betts reflects on his 8 ½ years of incarceration in county jail during a C-SPAN interview with Cure Violence’s Eduardo Bocanegra, a Violence Interrputer. In this interview, Betts speaks about growing up in prison and his book, "A Question of Freedom: A Memoir of Learning, Survival, and Coming of Age in Prison."
Betts, an honor student and class treasurer at Suitland High School, was incarcerated at the age of 16 for armed carjacking. He was the only juvenile in the county jail.
Though prison is a disturbing reality for a 16 year old, Betts described his time behind bars as a learning experience where he gained a deeper understanding of the world around him. “As much as prison was a terrible place, it was the most diverse place I had ever been,” he explained. Being in prison gave Betts a chance to speak with African-American elders and he was able to understand a history of failures and successes in his own culture. He considers himself fortune for having a desire for knowledge and learning which allowed him to grow as a person, even in the confinement of prison.

Youth exiting juvenile justice residential placements are often thrust back into their home communities without a support system leading to high rates of recidivism and likely pushing the youth deeper into the juvenile justice system. Eckerd recognized this missing link and funded Florida’s first aftercare service for youth in the 1990’s. This service was subsequently noticed by the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice and instituted statewide. Since that time, Eckerd has expanded aftercare services throughout Florida and in other states to include North Carolina and Texas. Eckerd’s Juvenile Justice Aftercare services provide transition and case management support for youth and families prior to and upon exit of residential treatment programs. Millions in cost savings from subsequent residential and detention placements have been realized, and outstanding outcomes have been achieved to include:

• Social Skills Improvements 85%
• Mental Health Improvements 89% (NC and TX)
• Youth Satisfaction 100%
• Parent Satisfaction 100%
• Recidivism 16% (FL)

In a new report examining the juvenile justice system’s treatment of girls, Francine Sherman finds that while juvenile courts have made progress in employing evidence based practices as a whole, girls are still being more harshly punished than boys. The report, “Justice for Girls: Are We Making Progress?” is available in full on UCLA’s website (direct PDF download). I’ve pulled the main findings from the report and included them below:

In 2012, twenty years after the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act instructed states to assess their systems for gender responsiveness, girls continue to be detained and committed for offenses that would not result in similarly harsh treatment for boys.
However, we are at the beginning of a more developmentally centered and data-driven age in juvenile justice in which systems have the tools to be more reflective and intentional in policy and practice.
The increased use of data in juvenile justice systems is particularly promising given the hidden nature of so much of the gender-based inequity in justice system practices.
Although we appear to be repeating past mistakes by sweeping girls into the system when they are victims of domestic violence, the system itself is more aware of girls’ needs, the outcry is quicker and more informed, and practices are measured against a progressive movement away from secure confinement for youth.

When S.D., the initials used in court records to describe him anonymously, applied for admission to Temple University in 2011, he answered "No" to the question on the application about whether he had ever been convicted of a crime.
What he didn't say (and wasn't asked about) was a juvenile "referral" for disseminating child pornography. The juvenile court that heard his case (and to which he admitted one of two charges related to sharing child porn online) ordered, among other things, that Temple be notified of his record. But because S.D. objected, the court stayed its ruling with regard to notifying Temple. This month, a Pennsylvania appeals court ruled that, under Pennsylvania law, Temple should have been informed (and that other colleges should be informed in such situations).
Temple still doesn't know who S.D. is because his lawyer on Wednesday filed another appeal, which will keep the stay of notification in place. S.D.'s lawyer said that his client did enroll at Temple, but he declined to confirm whether today he is enrolled at Temple or another college. S.D.'s lawyer also said that his client, even after the juvenile court's findings, would have been correct to answer "No" to Temple's question about a conviction, because a juvenile finding in Pennsylvania is not the same thing as a criminal conviction.