Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment

And this is it, folks, the end of our countdown! We've already shared the top 25, top 20, top 15, and top 10. And now, here are the top 5 blog posts of 2012!
5. Scared Straight Programs Are All Talk
After "Scared Straight" became popular in the 1970s, a number of research reports evaluated children who went through the program compared to control groups and found that many of the youth who attended “scared straight” programs were actually worse off than the youth who had no intervention.
4. Punishment vs. Rehabilitation and the Effects of Trauma on High-Risk Youth
Studies show that 75 percent of youth in the juvenile justice system have experienced traumatic events; 50 percent have endured post-traumatic stress symptoms.

Juvenile Justice Reform

• A Flash Mob for Juvenile Justice Reform, Family Engagement and More (NJJN.org)
  Update from Youth Justice Leadership Institute Alumna, Rukia Lumumba: "To provide more visibility to the raise the age issue, I coordinated a flash mob in Times Square for YJAM (Youth Justice Awareness Month) in collaboration with my agency (the Center for Community Alternatives) and the Correctional Association of New York. Approximately 15 advocates and youth participated in the flash mob, which was viewed by hundreds of people in Times Square."
• Letter: Juvenile Justice Sees Progress (TheAdvocate.com)
  Some good news about Louisiana’s success on the juvenile justice reform front was announced last week in the results of a nationwide study. While the news did not make headlines in state media, it is certainly noteworthy and indicative of the state’s reform progress. The study examined implementation of proven programs for juvenile offenders and indicated Louisiana as one of the five top states in adopting programs proven to be most effective in dealing with delinquent or violent youth and their families.
• Back on Track after Being Behind Bars (FindYouthInfo.gov)
  Returning to society after being incarcerated isn’t easy. Yet a group of formerly incarcerated youth that recently met with U.S. Department of Education (ED) Secretary Arne Duncan and Assistant Secretary for Vocational and Adult Education Brenda Dann-Messier are refusing to let their past lives determine their future. They’re overcoming challenges and building better lives for themselves through grit and resilience.

Continuing our countdown of the top blog posts from 2012, here's 15 - 11.
15. Bryan Stevenson at TED2012 on Injustice, Juvenile Justice System, Need for Reform
"How can a judge turn a child into an adult?" That's a question lawyer Bryan Stevenson has spent years asking. 
14. Rethinking Juvenile Justice: Promoting the Health and Well-Being of Crossover Youth
A recent report by the Conrad Hilton Foundation found “membership in the crossover group to be a strong and consistent predictor of less desirable [adult] outcomes,” including heavy use of public services, high likelihood of criminal justice involvement, lower educational attainment, and extremely high use of outpatient mental health treatment.
13. The Relationship Between Substance Abuse and Teen Crime
Consistent and substantial evidence exists that supports the relationship between substance abuse and criminal behaviors in youth.

This has been quite a year for our juvenile justice blog. Not only has readership more than doubled (thank you!) but we've partnered with a number of great organizations and journalists to provide you with more frequent analysis, research and ideas for reform.
As last year, our articles explaining why "Scared Straight" tactics do more harm than good, continue to be some of our most-read and shared posts. But this year, we also took a look at the effects of trauma on kids, raise-the-age efforts and the Supreme Court decision to ban life without the option of parole for juveniles. 
This week, we're doing a countdown of the top 25 stories from 2012.
25. Mentoring: Best Practices for High Risk Youth
Mentoring has been shown to reduce drug and alcohol use and help justice-involved teens get back on track. Jessica Jones share five best practices for a successful mentoring program.
24. Inside the Juvenile Justice System: A Look at How the System Works
While readers may be familiar with the criminal system through tv shows, the juvenile system is less well-known and understood. The County of San Diego explains the juvenile system.

Juvenile Justice Reform

• The Crime Report's Person of the Year (TheCrimeReport.org)
  A New York University law professor who persuaded the Supreme Court to extend its ban on mandatory sentences of life without parole (LWOP) for juveniles to young people convicted of murder—and thereby dramatically transformed the landscape of juvenile justice—is The Crime Report’s choice for Criminal Justice Person of the Year in 2012.
• Georgia Juvenile Justice Reform Recommendations Would Lock Up Fewer to Save Millions (AJC.com)
  Georgia should save taxpayers tens of millions of dollars a year by diverting some juveniles away from detention facilities and into community-based programs, according to a group tasked with reviewing the state’s criminal justice system. The state’s Special Council on Criminal Justice Reform for Georgians recommends reversing some of the harsher policies of the 1990s on how Georgia punishes its youngest offenders.
• Discussing Juvenile Justice with "Pure Politics" In Kentucky (RightOnCrime.com)
  Last month, Right On Crime’s Jeanette Moll traveled to Kentucky to present research on juvenile justice to stakeholders involved in reforming several aspects of the state juvenile system — including how it handles status offenders. A task force in Kentucky is studying the issue, and it is looking for lessons from Texas’s experience.
• Department of Justice Enters into Agreement to Reform the Juvenile Court of Memphis and Shelby County, Tennessee (Justice.gov)
  The Department of Justice announced that it has entered into a comprehensive memorandum of agreement with the Juvenile Court of Memphis and Shelby County, Tenn., to resolve findings of serious and systemic failures in the juvenile court that violate children’s due process and equal protection rights.
• Improving Juvenile Justice (MiamiHerald.com)
  Florida Department of Juvenile Justice officials and staff are traveling around the state to educate stakeholders and citizens on the reach of its new “Roadmap to System Excellence” plan. What the plan does is sets Florida on a new path in this endlessly fraught area of juvenile delinquency and its prevention. As president/CEO of the Florida Network, I stand with DJJ secretary Wansley Walters and this bold plan.
• Harsher Discipline Often Dispensed to Minority, Disabled Students (NationalJournal.com)
  Students of color and those with disabilities receive harsher punishment in schools, punishments that are often a precursor to their entry into the juvenile justice system, The Washington Post reports. Each year, more than 3 million children are expelled or suspended from schools, according to Civil Rights Data Collection figures released last spring by the Education Department. During analysis of 72,000 schools in the 2009-10 academic year, at least 240,000 students were referred to law enforcement.

Thank you to Jessica Jones for delivering a welcome message to the new sites in North Carolina receiving $888,000 in support from a public-private partnership that is working to break the cycle of drugs, alcohol and crime for teens.
 
 

Juvenile Justice Reform

• State Turns Attention to Juvenile Justice Reforms (AJC.com)
  A special state council in Atlanta will recommend repairs for a juvenile justice system that spends $91,000 a year for each bed in its state detention centers. Council members point to the enormous expense of incarcerating young offenders in a state “youth development campus,” or YDC, while producing poor results, as evidence that the system isn’t working.
• Juvenile Judge: My Court Was Inundated With Non-Dangerous Kids Arrested Because They ‘Make Adults Mad’ (ThinkProgress.org)
  The United States is not just the number one jailer in the world. It also incarcerates juveniles at a rate that eclipses every other country. Evidence has long been building that schools use the correctional system as a misplaced mechanism for discipline, with children being sent to detention facilities for offenses as minor as wearing the wrong color socks to school.
• Arrests, Juvenile Detention, and High School Dropouts in Chicago (ChicagoMag.com)
  Descriptively, our data reveal that of the Chicago public school students who steered clear of the juvenile justice system, 64 percent went on to graduate high school. In contrast, a mere 26 percent of arrested students graduated high school. Of those young adults without a criminal record who graduated high school or obtained a GED, 35 percent enrolled in a 4-year college. Yet for arrestees, 16 percent subsequently enrolled in a 4-year college.
• York Co. South Carolina Juvenile Justice Kids Collecting Food for Hungry (HeraldOnline.com)
  For the first time this year, DJJ is collecting nonperishable canned goods to distribute to four York County, South Carolina charities for the holidays. The drive, which started Nov. 1, ends Friday. Aiming to become part of a “community of givers,” DJJ teamed up with the county solicitor’s office, Coca Cola and Best Buy to find a “creative” way to bolster donations that are common this time of year, said Amahl Bennett, DJJ director.
• Governor Wants To Merge Juvenile Justice & Corrections (KCUR.org)
  Kansas Governor Sam Brownback wants to merge the state's Juvenile Justice Authority with the Department of Corrections. The governor says he’ll propose an executive reorganization order in the coming legislative session to merge the two agencies.
• New Ga. Juvenile Justice Chief Focuses on Problems (SFGate.com)
  When five young men slipped out of a juvenile detention center a month and a half ago in Augusta, stealing a car and leading police on a chase, it was just the latest in a string of setbacks for officials trying to turn around Georgia's system for young criminals.
• Strengthening Florida's Juvenile Justice System (TBO.com)
  There is a lot to like about the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice's new "Roadmap to System Excellence," the topic of town hall meetings last week in Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties. Members of the Florida Juvenile Justice Association, who deliver services across Florida, ranging from prevention through reentry and everything in between, know that with every well-intentioned plan, the devil is often in the details.

We welcome Lucas County, Ohio, to Reclaiming Futures!
In the news clip above, Project Director LaTonya Harris, explains how new funding will transform their juvenile drug court by coordinating services so young people have access to better treatment and support beyond treatment.
Lucas County, Ohio, will receive $1.32 million in funding from the Office of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), over the next four years, to improve and enhance their juvenile drug courts by integrating the Reclaiming Futures' model into the court.

On December 10, 2012, the North Carolina Department of Public Safety announced new investments in a public-private partnership with the Duke Endowment and the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust to reform the state's juvenile justice system. Together the foundations are contributing $888,000 to bring Reclaiming Futures to six additional communities in North Carolina.

On December 11, 2012, Reclaiming Futures announced a $5.27 million award from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention to improve drug and alcohol treatment for teens in trouble with the law in the following communities: 

• Lucas County, Ohio
• Forsyth County, N.C. 
• Duval County, Fla.

The funding will also provide training and technical assistance for the existing six federally-funded Reclaiming Futures sites in addition to these three new communities.
Reclaiming Futures brings together judges, probation officers, treatment providers, families and community members to focus on three common goals for teens: more treatment, better treatment and community connections beyond treatment, in 37 sites across 18 states.

Juvenile Justice Reform

• A Handful of States Lead the Way on Juvenile Crime Prevention (TheCrimeReport.org)
  States are "surprisingly slow" in adopting proven methods to deal with violent or delinquent youth and their families, a national juvenile justice conference was told today. Failure to use the programs has been shown to result in higher crime rates and higher costs.
• Healing Words: Creative Writing Programs as Therapy for Kids in Detention (JJIE.org)
  Many programs incorporating elements of creative writing have been set up across the nation’s juvenile halls and treatment facilities, with the National Endowment for the Arts recognizing creative writing workshops like Massachusetts’ Actors’ Shakespeare Project and the Los Angeles-based InsideOUT Writers.
• St. Clair County Gives Child Court Cases Special Treatment (BND.com)
  Court cases involving children will be handled by a new team at the St. Clair County, Illinois, State's Attorney's Office. St. Clair County State's Attorney Brendan Kelly created the Children's Justice Division, headed by assistant state's attorney and new mother Anna Young.
• Foundation Strives to Create Legacy for Juvenile Justice Reform (JJIE.org)
  The nonprofit MacArthur Foundation has spent more than $100 million since 2004 on developing blueprints for reform within the juvenile justice systems of 16 states. Earlier this week, its reform initiative, Models for Change, brought together nearly 400 judges, advocates, probation officers and other juvenile justice professionals for two days of workshops in Washington, D.C.