Gender-Specific

It was like a giant switchboard, the kind you see in 30s and 40s movies, a bevy of operators plugging in a crisscross of wires, taking calls, making connections, a cacophony of chatter.
That image came to me recently as I walked into the lobby of the MassMutual Center in Springfield, Mass. The only difference was that the conversations filling the hall were about the same thing: girls and young women in the juvenile justice system.
We were there — teachers, social workers, lawyers, mentors, youth workers, college students and professors — for the Through Her Eyes conference sponsored by the Center for Human Development, a regional social services agency. This annual gathering, now in its seventh year, came about when a number of professionals expressed concern over the increased number of at-risk young females in “the system,” and the need for “best practices” to help this growing population. The Center for Human Development stepped up to address their concerns with the first Through Her Eyes conference in 2004.
This increase isn’t just a regional issue, however. It is a nationwide trend. According to the Institute on Women & Criminal Justice the number of women in prison has grown 832 percent in the past three decades. (The male population grew 416 percent during the same period.) Of this population African American girls and young women are the fastest growing group. The Department of Justice reports that black females are 2.5 times more likely to be arrested than Hispanics and 4.5 times more likely than whites.

David Onek, senior fellow at the Berkeley Center for Criminal Justice, recently spoke with Gena Castro Rodriguez about the unique needs of girls in the juvenile justice system. Castro Rodriguez is the executive director of the Youth Justice Institute and has worked with youth in the juvenile justice system for the past 18 years. 
In this Criminal Justice Conversations podcast, Castro Rodriguez explains that girls have a very different experience with the juvenile justice system than boys. In particular:

• Girls get involved in the juvenile justice system for, with, or because of another person (often a romantic partner)
• Girls have multiple contact with the system, often working their way up to serious crime

• On TV: "Young Kids, Hard Time"
  On Sunday, November 20 at 10 pm EST, MSNBC will premiere a one-hour documentary that throws back the veil on the reality of young kids serving long sentences in adult prisons. (Hat tip to the Campaign for Youth Justice.)
• Reform: D.C.'s juvenile justice system could be restructured
  Council member Jim Graham, charged with overseeing the city's Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, is considering a radical change to the agency via, "job development programs, we would have literacy, we would be dealing with this marijuana addiction, having mental health because a lot of these kids are abused. It would be different."
• Civil citations are key to Florida's juvenile justice reform
  On July 1, 2011, Florida law began requiring counties to establish a local civil citation process for youth that requires them to admit to the offense, perform community service and possibly participate in intervention services. The non-recidivism rate is 93% in one FL county that has been using this program for two years.
• New community care option for girls in Baltimore
  Girls going through the juvenile justice system now have an alternative to detention while waiting to be adjudicated - an alternative that’s been available to boys for years. Some can now attend a youth monitoring program that allows them to live at home and attend a reporting center.

Juvenile Justice System News (Mostly)

• Work in the juvenile justice system? Seen kids hammered for minor drug offenses because they occurred within 1,000 feet of a school? Well, those laws may not work very well. In 2008, the Prison Policy Initiative (PPI) did a thorough analysis and critique in one Massachusetts community, called The Geography of Punishment: How Huge Sentencing Enhancement Zones Harm Communities, Fail to Protect Children. (Also, if you happen to have a used Mac laptop you want to give away as a tax-deductible gift, PPI could use one for its many volunteers. Just use the contact form on the PPI website to learn more.)
• Here's a sobering Washington Post editorial on the sexual violence and exploitation endured by young girls on the margins of our society. And guess where many of these girls end up? The juvenile justice system. (Hat tip to Nancy Gannon Hornberger and the Act-4-JJ Facebook page.) Corroboration comes from a new study for the National Institute of Justice showing that poly-victimization is pervasive among girls in the juvenile justice system, based on a sample of girls in South Carolina.

Curious about whether the risk assessments used in the juvenile justice system are appropriate for girls? Wonder if the one used in your jurisdiction measures up?
The Girls Study Group, set up by The Office of Juvenile Delinquency and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), recently examined 143 juvenile risk assessment instruments with those very questions in mind, and compiled their results in an online database.
This is timely, given that a recent study by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency indicated that risk assessments have gotten less effective in recent years, and an article in a journal last year that argued that juvenile risk assessments lagged behind research on how best to use them. (Photo by Thuy Pham.)

• Interested in what restorative justice looks like when it's implemented in juvenile court? Here's a long article about two restorative justice programs in Oakland: one uses a peer court to address low-level offenders; the other works with kids leaving detention after many months.
• Want data on the well-being of kids in your state? Want to know how your state ranks compared with others? Check out the KIDS COUNT Data Center just launched by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, which also released its KIDS COUNT Databook for 2009.

Every now and then, I'll post links to intriguing and important stories you might have missed. Here's a few I've collected in the past few days: