Juvenile Justice Reform

Juvenile Justice Reform

• Nearly Half of U.S. States Enact Juvenile Justice Reforms (JJIE.org)
  Nearly half of U.S. states have made great strides in the past eight years toward reducing the prosecution of juveniles in the adult criminal justice system or preventing youths from being placed in adult jails and prisons, a report released Thursday found.
• ‘Raise the Age’ Advocates Tout New Report on Juvenile Justice (NewsObserver.com)
  The NC Insider is reporting that advocates for raising the age at which North Carolinians are tried in adult courts are touting a new national study that notes that 48 other states have enacted legislation to prevent older teenagers from being prosecuted in adult courts.
• When Babysitting Joins Forces With Zero Tolerance (JJIE.org)
  Sometimes on a Friday night, when there’s nothing better to do and the streets are quiet, indigenous kids in this town 100km (some 60 miles) north-east of Perth, Western Australia, might hang out at the local police station. They’re often not there by choice, but they don’t really mind sticking around either.
• Florida Struggles To Craft Juvenile Sentencing Policy (Miami.CBSLocal.com)
  As state legislators have tried and failed to craft a juvenile-sentencing law that conforms to landmark U.S. Supreme Court rulings, a national advocacy group is calling Florida a “clear outlier” among states for its hard-line approach to trying juveniles as adults.

Nearly 1 in 5 youth (17%) at the door of the juvenile justice system meet criteria for substance abuse disorders; in detention, 39% do. According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, only 1 in 16 young people with substance abuse disorders get into treatment. 
That's unfortunate, because while we need to hold teens accountable for their actions, simply locking them up does not work.
Effective adolescent substance abuse treatment can help teens stay out of trouble, make our communities safer, and save money.
The Reclaiming Futures model unites juvenile courts, probation, adolescent substance abuse treatment, and the community to reclaim youth. Together, they work to improve drug and alcohol treatment and connect teens to positive activities and caring adults.
Please call 503-725-8911 to learn how to bring the six steps of the Reclaiming Futures to your community:

A new video from JJIE's Juvenile Justice Resource Hub explains how community-based alternatives can be more cost-effective and have better outcomes for teens than incarceration. Via the video:

All kids make mistakes; some get in trouble with the law. Instead of having a chance to learn from their actions, though, they're often sent to costly, dangerous facilities that make them more likely to commit new crimes.
What else can we do? Plenty. Many cost-effective program options, known as "community-based alternatives," have already been developed and tested that serve youth safely in the community instead of incarcerating them in jail-like facilities. Many alternatives have also been developed to divert youth from almost any point in the juvenile justice system.

Every year, approximately 250,000 youth are tried, sentenced or incarcerated as adults in the United States, and the results can be devastating.
Tracy McClard knows first hand.
Tracy lost her 17-year-old son, Jonathon, to suicide when he was sentenced as an adult to life in prison. Her loss sparked a passion about youth justice and helped launch National Youth Justice Awareness Month (#YJAM).
October marks the 6th annual National Youth Justice Awareness month and offers an opportunity to come together and engage our communities on youth justice issues, particularly the harmful impact of prosecuting children in the adult criminal justice system.
The Campaign for Youth Justice, supporter of Youth Justice Awareness Month, urges you to get involved. There are several ways to raise awareness, build collective action, and strengthen relationships with other advocates during National Youth Justice Awareness Month:

• Create a buzz. Be a social media partner by spreading the word. You'll be the first to receive alerts and Facebook & Twitter tips on getting the buzz going. Let them know you're in: Email Angella Bellota at abellota@cfyj.org.
• Share. Are you hosting an event, a virtual action, or doing outreach activities during the month of October? Let the Campaign for Youth Justice know. They are looking to spread the word about events around the country: again, email abellota@cfyj.org.

Juvenile Justice Reform

• Justice Department Pushes New Thinking on Kids and Crime (npr.org)
  Robert L. Listenbee, administrator of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, advocates for understanding adolescent brain development to stop what experts describe as a "school-to-prison pipeline."
• Bipartisan Support for Criminal Justice Reform (vera.org)
  The current moment of government shutdown might seem the antithesis to bipartisanship. But one area in which bipartisanship is in evidence might offer some hope: criminal justice reform.
• Nearly Half of U.S. States Enact Juvenile Justice Reforms (jjie.org)
  A new report from the Washington-based Campaign for Youth Justice finds that nearly half of U.S. states have made great strides in the past eight years toward reducing the prosecution of juveniles in the adult criminal justice system or preventing youths from being placed in adult jails and prisons.

Preventing drug use before it begins, especially among our youth, is a cost-effective way to reduce substance abuse and its negative consequences. A great way to achieve this is by encouraging an overall healthy lifestyle, which is exactly what the Hocking County Juvenile Court (HCJC) did this summer in Ohio.
HCJC partnered with North’s Fitness Center, a local gym, to invite 14 court-involved young people to exercise in their facility at no cost for the duration of the six-week summer program called “Crush-It Fitness”.
Similar to programs like SPORT and InShape, Hocking County’s Crush-It Fitness was designed to channel the youth’s free time into something positive and guide them toward a healthier lifestyle—a tactic that can be very effective to prevent substance abuse and reduce recidivism.
A celebration ceremony was held on Sept. 12, 2013 to recognize the young people who completed the program. They received t-shirts and positive affirmations. Participants gave mixed reviews on the program—mandating exercise is tough business! But, a combination of logistic and planning feedback came in that will help Hocking County succeed if they continue the “Crush-It Fitness” program in summer 2014.

Juvenile Justice Reform

• Complex Trauma Among Youth in the Juvenile Justice System: Impact and Implications (Corrections.com)
  Youth who have experienced complex trauma—repeated and various forms of victimization, life-threatening accidents or disasters, and interpersonal losses at an early age or for prolonged periods—have difficulties forming attachments with caregivers and self-regulating emotions.
• Family Seeks Change in Law to Protect Students (JJIE.org)
  The government has a duty to protect prisoners from harm. It also has a duty to protect people who have been involuntarily committed for mental health treatment. Yet that same duty doesn’t apply to the government when it comes to protecting students in school, according to case law.
• Grant to Help Men Leaving Juvenile Justice System (The Boston Herald)
  The U.S. Labor Department is giving Massachusetts an $11.7 million grant for a project to increase employment and reduce repeat crimes for men leaving the state's juvenile justice system. The grant will first go to serve 535 men ages 16-22 in Chelsea and Springfield who are leaving the juvenile justice system. It will provide education and pre-vocational training to help them get jobs.
• When Young Offenders–and Their Teacher–Say Goodbye (Kids in the System Blog)
  Last month, due to a lack of funding, the juvenile lock-up where I taught a weekly “life skills” workshop was shuttered. According to my very rough calculation, in the year that I worked there I had about 400 young men of all races and socioeconomic backgrounds pass through my group. Of those, about half came and went frequently, often gone for a couple of months to less than a week, and then re-offended to find themselves right back where they started.

The National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN), a program of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s Center for Mental Health Services, has released six online briefs that discuss the key elements of a trauma-informed juvenile justice system. The NCTSN website explains:

This collection of Briefs written by experts invited to the NCTSN Trauma-Informed Juvenile Justice Roundtable, address topics essential to creating trauma-informed Juvenile Justice Systems. These Briefs are intended to elevate the discussion of key elements that intersect with trauma and are critical to raising the standard of care for children and families involved with the juvenile justice system.
In Trauma-Informed Juvenile Justice Roundtable: Current Issues and New Directions in Creating Trauma-Informed Juvenile Justice Systems (2013) (PDF), Carly B. Dierkhising, Susan Ko, and Jane Halladay Goldman, staff at the National Center for Child Traumatic Stress, discuss the Juvenile Justice Roundtable event, describe the current issues and essential elements of a trauma-informed JJ system, and outline possible new directions for the future.
In Trauma-Informed Assessment and Intervention (2013) (PDF) , Patricia Kerig, Professor at the University of Utah, discusses how trauma-informed screening and assessment and evidence-based treatments play integral roles in supporting traumatized youth, explores the challenges of implementing and sustaining these practices, and highlights practice examples for integrating them into a justice setting.
In The Role of Family Engagement in Creating Trauma-Informed Juvenile Justice Systems (2013) (PDF) , Liane Rozzell, founder of Families and Allies of Virginia Youth, discusses the importance of partnering with families, explores strategies for doing so, and emphasizes ways that justice settings expand their outreach to supportive caregivers by broadening their definition of family.
In Cross-System Collaboration (2013) (PDF) , Macon Stewart, faculty at the Center for Juvenile Justice Reform (CJJR), outlines practice examples for continuity of care and collaboration across systems, a vital activity for youth involved in multiple service systems, drawing from the CJJR’s Crossover Youth Practice Model.
In Trauma and the Environment of Care in Juvenile Institutions (2013) (PDF) , Sue Burrell, staff attorney at the Youth Law Center, outlines specific areas to target in order to effectively implement this essential element, including creating a safe environment, protecting against re-traumatization, and behavior management.
In Racial Disparities in the Juvenile Justice System: A Legacy of Trauma (2013) (PDF) , Clinton Lacey, Deputy Commissioner of the New York City Department of Probation, outlines the historical context of racial disparities and highlights how systems can move forward to reduce these racial disparities, including by framing the issue so that practical and pro-active discussion can move beyond assigning blame. 

Juvenile Justice Reform

• Underage Suspects Are Apt to Confess to Crimes They Didn’t Commit. Here’s Why. (Slate.com)
  Why so many false confessions? Juvenile suspects are generally more deferential to authority—at least in the context of a police interrogation—and less likely to understand the consequences of confessing to something they didn’t do.
• [OPINION] Time to Affirm What We Mean by ‘Juvenile’ (The New York Times)
  Recent Supreme Court rulings on juvenile sentencing raise issues that go beyond what’s at stake in Miller v. Alabama. They also present an opportunity to affirm what we mean by “juvenile.” New York State may soon be the only state in the country that processes all youth as young as 16 in the criminal justice system, regardless of the severity of the offense.
• Health and Incarceration: A Workshop Summary (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation)
  The health disparities that exist in our communities are concentrated in the population that cycles in and out of our jails and prisons. Justice-involved populations have very high rates of physical illness, mental illness, and substance use disorders. And their health problems have significant impacts on the communities from which they come and to which, in nearly all cases, they will return.
• [OPINION] A Court Just for Juveniles in N.Y. (The New York Times)
  Teenagers prosecuted in adult courts or who do time in adult jails fare worse in life and can go on to commit more violent crimes than those who are handled by the juvenile justice system. Neuroscience research has found that these young offenders don’t weigh risks the way adults do, making them prone to rash judgments that can land them in trouble with the law.

It's not too late to add your voice in support of National Recovery Month 2013 and promote the benefits of prevention, treatment and recovery for mental and substance use disorders.
Forsyth County Reclaiming Futures is leading the way this September in Winston-Salem, N.C. with:

• A city proclamation, signed by Mayor Allen Joines,
• A free community event on September 28, with food, music, activities, and exhibits
• Wonderful photography through the lenses of teens in treatment.

I encourage you to visit Facebook to see the powerful images of teens' choices, their motivations for recovery and hopes for the future.