Juvenile Justice Reform

Juvenile Justice Reform

• Florida Case Stokes Debate About Juvenile Justice (Wall Street Journal Law Blog)
  In Florida, a 13-year-old boy is being accused of killing one of his younger brothers and sexually-abusing a half-brother, stoking a debate there about how courts should handle juveniles charged with violent crimes, according to a story by the Associated Press.
• Judge Changes Plea Deal after teen Tweets Displeasure (Wave3.com)
  A teen's determination leads to changes in a plea deal in a sexual assault case. The judge who opened up her juvenile courtroom to the public after a Savannah Deitrich tweeted about the case announced changes late Friday afternoon.
• Senator Durbin Announces More Than $5.6 Million In DOJ Funding To Enhance Illinois Justice Programs (ENewsParkForest.com)
  U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) today announced that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has recently awarded a total of $5,671,165 in grants to support the establishment or enhancement of several justice system programs in Illinois. These programs provide support and services to a number of Illinois communities through research and education initiatives, as well as legal assistance and support services.
• Solutions Sought for Disparity Among Shelby County's Youth in Juvenile Court System (The Commercial Appeal)
  It's not clear why the percentage of African-American youths referred to the juvenile court system in Shelby County Tennessee is 3.4 times the rate for white juveniles. Do they commit more crimes? Or does the way police apply their discretionary powers play a role?

In conjunction with the release of Advances in Juvenile Justice Reform: 2009-2011, we sat down with Sarah Bryer to discuss the report and the future of juvenile justice reform. Sarah is the director of the National Juvenile Justice Network (NJJN) and has worked in the juvenile and criminal justice fields for more than 20 years.
RECLAIMING FUTURES: Your organization, the National Juvenile Justice Network (NJJN), has just released a great report on recent work to reform the juvenile justice system in states across the country. Tell us about it — what spurred you to put it together?
SARAH BRYER: It’s called, Advances in Juvenile Justice Reform: 2009-2011, and it’s actually the fourth in a series of similar publications that we’ve done since 2006. It was a lot of work — after all, it’s 63-pages of capsule summaries of reforms from 47 states in 24 categories. It’s not exhaustive, but it’s still fairly representative. But we put it together — thanks to support from the MacArthur Foundation’s Models for Change initiative — because we wanted to document that jurisdictions all over the country are finding ways to roll back punitive, ineffective approaches to youth in trouble with the law, and redirect resources to cost-effective, community-based alternatives, including treatment services.
RF: Who is Advances for? What audiences did you have in mind?

The devil is always in the details and sometimes details are like trying to put lipstick on a pig. The recidivism rate for Georgia juveniles is a case in point.
One-in-two juveniles leave the system and do not return within three years. But one-in-two are back within three years, usually because of a new crime, violation of a court order or a probation offense. There is a cash cost for that level of failure and there also is a human cost.
When the Special Council on Criminal Justice Reform convened this summer it heard primarily generalities about juvenile justice from expert analysts. When the Council met this week it was taken into the weeds, deeper into data, and some members had their eyes opened a bit wider.
“The question is what do we do from here and how do we improve the recidivism rate,” said Hall County Superior Court Judge Jason Deal. “The recidivism rate is around 50 percent and that’s not acceptable.” State Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver described the one-in-two recidivism rate as “very scary” and Douglas County District Attorney David McDade asked, “Are we spending our dollars in a way that protects public safety? That’s the whole driver for me.”

Just six years ago, Hillsborough County and its county seat, Tampa, led the state in the number of juveniles arrested for nonviolent or minor offenses. County commissioners were dismayed by not only the costs this created for their court system, but also for the rap sheets now carried by thousands of juveniles–arrest records can sometimes create obstacles to college education or employment.
To ensure that the juvenile justice system was focused on delinquents in true need of intervention, in 2011 the county created a diversion program specifically for first-time juvenile offenders accused of one of eight low-level misdemeanors.
Eligible juveniles must not have any prior delinquency issues, take responsibility for their actions, and comply with the program’s requirements, which can involve restitution or formal apologies.

Juvenile Justice Reform

• Illinois to Improve Conditions at Youth Prisons (St. Louis CBS Local)
  Illinois is promising to improve safety at its youth prisons and offer inmates better educational and mental health services. The Department of Juvenile Justice agreed to the improvements after the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois threatened to sue.
• U.S. Families Fret at Juvenile Justice System in Crisis (The Raw Story)
  Relatives of jailed young Americans called Tuesday for reform of a juvenile justice system they say fails to help young people and is biased against youth of color. “More than two million children are arrested every year in the United States and the numbers continue to rise, despite the decreasing incidence of true criminal offenses,” according to the study released by the Justice for Families program at the research organization DataCenter.
• Imprisoned Teens Found More Likely to Re-offend (Jacksonville.com)
  A new report shows that children and teenagers locked up for breaking the law have become 6 percent more likely to commit another crime than they were in 2003. The figures come from a study conducted by the Pew Center on the States at the request of a commission appointed to propose an overhaul to the juvenile-justice system in Georgia.
• GIVING BACK - Troubled Youths get Chance to Serve Community through DJJ Initiative (TheTandD.com)
  A group of local youths spent Friday morning working with officers at the Orangeburg County, SC Department of Juvenile Justice as part of Restoring Carolina Through Youth Service. The program is a statewide initiative that gives young people who have made poor choices an opportunity to give back through community service.
• Juvenile Court Records can Follow Kids to College (The Morning Call)
  Juvenile court records could begin following youthful offenders to college after a state appeals court decision in the child pornography case of a Whitehall Township teen. The Pennsylvania Superior Court upheld a Lehigh County judge's decision to notify the boy's university that he had admitted looking at and trading child pornography over the Internet.
• Michael Griffiths: The TT Interview (The Texas Tribune)
  Michael Griffiths never really retired after 15 years as head of juvenile services for the Dallas County Juvenile Department. He taught online courses at his alma mater, Sam Houston State University, and consulted on juvenile issues, and he even handed out programs at Texas Rangers games. On Monday, Griffiths will become the new executive director of the Texas Juvenile Justice Department.

In 2001, my 13 year old son, Corey, was sent to what the New York Times called, “the worst juvenile prison in the country.” What crime had he committed that earned him this hellish journey? He stole a $300 stereo out of a pick-up after he smashed out the window with a crowbar. His sentence was 5 years in the one of the most brutal facilities in the U.S.
The families of children who are system involved are often thought of as “lazy,” “uneducated,” “uncaring” and worse. But a new report by Justice for Families (J4F) gives us a much different picture of families and relies on substantial data rather than outdated myths and stereotypes. I was given a second chance to make different decisions for my youngest daughter, nearly seven years later. Today, that daughter is in her second semester of college, having earned a 3.7 GPA in her first semester and has never again been involved in the system. Sadly, for my son that second chance never came. Today, he is living on taxpayer money, serving a 12 year sentence in a state prison.
In 20 sites across eight states, Justice for Families, the Data Center and our local partners led by families of kids involved in the system, conducted two dozen focus groups and took exhaustive surveys from more than 1,000 families who were involved in the juvenile justice system. We conducted a media review that looked at hundreds of articles discussing families and juvenile justice. Lastly, we conducted an extensive literature review of promising approaches led by systems and community based organizations. Families designed the focus group and survey questions and collected and analyzed the data, proving that families are capable, they do care and they do, indeed, want to be involved.

The Illinois Supreme Court issued a strongly worded endorsement this week for zealous lawyering for kids—the same kind of zealous lawyering that adults routinely expect for themselves. In In re Austin M., Austin M. successfully appealed his delinquency adjudication, convincing a majority of the Illinois Supreme Court that a lawyer cannot simultaneously assert and defend his juvenile client's innocence and also claim to be seeking the truth "the same as the court and the same as the prosecutor." Characterizing this dual mission as "hybrid representation," the Court held that a lawyer cannot serve as both defense counsel and a guardian ad litem on behalf of a child charged with delinquency.
Since the time that Juvenile Law Center opened its doors, we have worked to prevent lawyers from betraying their young clients. While this is important for all defendants, it is particularly so for youth in whom we want to instill a belief in fairness and the rule of law. These kids must also know that they have an advocate that they can confide in—and that the lawyer won't breach confidentiality in the lawyer-client relationship. They must have a lawyer they can return to when they have complaints about the system—this won't happen if they perceive the lawyer as just another arm of the system. A society that has granted children constitutional rights should be concerned when lawyers themselves undermine those rights.

Over the past couple months I’ve had the privilege of contributing weekly to Reclaiming Futures Every Day. I’ve learned about a majority of topics pertaining to the juvenile justice system including how genders are treated differently throughout the system, how illegal substances play a role in adolescents’ lives, the importance of attending school regularly and even the prevalence of illegal substances in our nation’s schools.
Above all, I learned just how complex the juvenile justice system is. There seems to be countless different influences impacting children’s futures from their economic status to educational circumstances. And the circumstances leading up to arrests are not the only factors influencing youths’ futures in the juvenile justice system. How adolescents were treated throughout processing and sentencing played significant roles as well.
Providing reliable positive role models is one simple method that contributes to juveniles being successful throughout and after they make it through the system. In addition to creating positive relationships with adults, it’s important to address the basic needs of the children processed in the juvenile justice system because those unmet needs can often lead to larger issues. Providing needed resources can alleviate pressures that lead to kids committing violations that land them in trouble.

Juvenile Justice Reform

• Cops Fan Out To Schools (New Haven Independent)
  For three days last week cops all over New Haven, CT descended on every school for the beginning of the academic year. It was a new push to connect cops with kids—one that Assistant Chief Luiz Casanova pledges to make a year-round citywide campaign.
• New Juvenile Justice Program Shows Early Promise (Statesman.com)
  Texas officials call them the worst of the worst. But at first glance, the eight teenage boys slouched at stainless steel tables, in gray polo shirts and khaki pants, might pass for a bunch of sullen high-schoolers almost anywhere in Texas. The youths are the focal point of an initiative by state officials to curb violence inside Texas' state-run youth lockups.
• Sweet Tweet: Keri Hilson Inspires Girls at Juvenile Justice Center (act.MTV.com)
  Keri Hilson wants to make a difference! We all remember when she got involved with AIDS Walk New York for the MTV Staying Alive Foundation team, and now Keri has Tweeted about her latest do-gooder act. 
• From Detention Cells to the Stage (CNN.com)
  Over the past decade, the Synchronicity theater group has returned to Georgia juvenile detention centers several times a year to help girls write plays about drug addiction, rape, abusive parents and cheating boyfriends, but also plays about finding love and making amends.
• After Supreme Court Ruling, PA Grapples With Juvenile-Lifer Questions (TheCrimeReport.org)
  With more juvenile lifers in prison than any other state, Pennsylvania lawmakers are taking the first steps to consider what changes are needed in state law now that the U.S. Supreme Court has struck down laws that require juveniles convicted of homicide to be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, reports the Scranton Times-Tribune.

In “Criminalizing Normal Adolescent Behavior in Communities of Color: The Role of Prosecutors in Juvenile Justice Reform,” Kristin N. Henning focuses on the disparity of treatment of youth when race is a factor.
Youth have long held special status in the justice system. Teens tend to make questionable decisions which can lead to very negative outcomes, due to their difficulty weighing both short and long-term consequences. But, via the report:

As youth mature, they age out of delinquent behavior and rarely persist in a life of crime. Because children and adolescents are more malleable and amenable to rehabilitation than adults, the Supreme Court has recognized youth as a mitigating factor in the disposition of even the most serious criminal behavior by adolescents.