Blog

• Mississippi Security Police, the private company that runs the juvenile detention center for the Missisippi county sued earlier this week by the Southern Poverty Law Center, held a press conference yesterday vigorously denying all allegations. The lawsuit charges that youth offenders were physically and emotionally abused and kept in verminous, unsanitary living conditions without access to mental health care. Here's video of the press tour of the juvenile detention facility and details of the company's responses to the suit. (It should be noted that the county is the defendant in the lawsuit; the private company is not named.)
• The St. Petersburg Times has thorough coverage of decades-old horrors and abuses at the Florida School for Boys that came to light late last year, when former students at the reform school, now in their 60s, found each other on the internet and went public with their accusations. UPDATE: In its weekly roundup, Youth Today reported that an investigation is "going nowhere," according to the former Florida state employee who pushed for an investigation into the scandal and the school's 32 unmarked graves.

Back in February, I mentioned the ACLU's description of a juvenile detention center in Wyoming as "a lawsuit waiting to happen," and a class-action lawsuit against the detention center in New Orleans, where youth are often locked in their cells for 20+ hours a day, and rats and mold are present.
Now, Harrison County, Mississippi, has been sued because of conditions in its privately-run juvenile detention center. Allegations include staff abusing youth emotionally and physically, and squalid, overcrowded living conditions, including insect infestations, "widespread" scabies and staph infections, 23-hour-a-day lockdowns, and no access to mental health care.
We'll see what happens -- a representative of the firm that runs the Harrison County detention center denied there were major issues -- but the overall trend is not encouraging. Why do we think we can -- or should -- treat children this way? 

• In an editorial last week, The New York Times supported the reauthorization of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA).
• The Times also pointed out the critical necessity of drug treatment for prisoners in the interests of public health and cutting crime. (In related news, the number of black offenders in U.S. state prisons for drug charges dropped 21.6% between 1999-2005, whereas the number of white drug offenders shot up 42.6%. Even so, blacks are still drastically overrepresented in state prisons. Meanwhile, the number of people in federal prison for drug offenses -- blacks, whites and Latinos  -- increased over the same time period.)

I’m excited because we’ve hired Mark Fulop, M.A., M.P.H. (pictured at left), to serve as the Partnership and Development Director for Reclaiming Futures. As you’ll see from the interview below, Mark’s got an interesting background and an intriguing take on our mission. (And be sure you check out his insightful way of looking at sustainability.) –Benjamin  
BC: What made you want to join the Reclaiming Futures team?
 
Mark: It’s a project that focuses on the strengths of young people and concurrently does not let the community off the hook for their responsibility for their kids. It says, “Your work isn’t done until every young person entering the juvenile justice system with a substance use issue is met with opportunity and not obstacles.”
 
And that's inspiring because it means Reclaiming Futures takes up the human rights challenge of youth--the way we as a nation
disempower youth by labeling them as “at-risk” or “troubled." That disempowerment can be seen in dropout rates, substance abuse rates and incarceration rates. When I realized Reclaiming Futures' deeper vision and ethos was to tackle this issue, I didn’t hesitate to join the team. 

Here's several useful tools and resources on best practices in juvenile justice, mental health, substance abuse treatment, and juvenile brain research:

• A brief but useful overview of best practices in juvenile justice from The Future of Children, covering model programs in prevention, community-based interventions, and institutional settings. Aimed at state-wide reform. (This link courtesy of Youth Today.)(Related post: Effective Practice in Juvenile Justice - and More: Roundup)
  

• An excellent guide to using adolescent brain research to advocate for juvenile justice reform from the National Juvenile Justice Network (courtesy of Free Efren). 

• From a great article in the Winter 2009 issue of the American Bar Association's Criminal Justice, we found out about a new tool to combat disproportionate minority contact in the justice system: racial impact statements. Iowa now requires that these statements be drawn up whenever new legislation is proposed that affects sentencing, probation, or parole.
• In this editorial, The New York Times says it's wrong to jail parents too poor to pay for detaining their children. What do you think?

 
Want to see changes in the adolescent substance abuse treatment system? Families are the key.  If change is to occur, then families have to be part of the solution. Yet too often, they’re left out of the conversation. 
 
That might be about to change.

Okay, my headline's an exaggeration. But here's a few news items that make me wonder how we got to a place where teen-aged behavior is dealt with so punitively: 

• Students in Alabama will be punished for possessing "Smarties" candy because middle-schoolers have figured out they can crush them to a powder, then use it to make themselves look like they're smoking. They're not being taken to court, but the reaction seems overblown. 

Kelly Graves has a question for you.
Kelly, who is Associate Director & Research Assistant Professor at the Center for Youth, Family, and Community Partnerships at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, is a Community Fellow associated with the Reclaiming Futures site in Guilford County, NC. Her agency will be offering a youth leadership series for teens in the justice system with alcohol and drug issues and is beginning its planning now.
So: any advice for Kelly on a good (ideally evidence-based) youth leadership curriculum aimed at youth with substance abuse issues who are also in trouble with the law? 
Feel free to contact Kelly directly, or leave a comment below. 
I'll share anything I learn.