Juvenile Justice Reform

The other day I watched the A&E program Beyond Scared Straight for the first time. I'm familiar with the original 1979 Academy Award winning documentary, Scared Straight!, that inspired many states across the country to institute similar programs in an attempt to deter juveniles already involved with the criminal justice on some level from a future life of imprisonment. These kids are taken on a tour of a jail and introduced to prisoners who recount horror stories of their time behind bars. The hope is that once given a taste of the grim reality of prison life, these 13-19 year old kids will want to go "straight" and avoid incarceration. Executive produced by the director of the original, Arnold Shapiro, this new "reality" series is the highest rated original program in A&E's history.
The show has been met with harsh criticism. In an op-ed for the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange, director of Justice Programs at Governor's Office for Children and Families in Georgia, Joe Vignati wrote: "The scared straight approach is an inappropriate and unacceptable means for disciplining children. This approach has been shown to cause short -and long-term harm and actually INCREASES the likelihood of re-offending among some participants."
A January op-ed for the Baltimore Sun titled "Scary -- and ineffective," written by Laurie O. Robinson and Jeff Slowikowski, two Justice Department officials, sites research that says those who participated in a scared straight type program were 28 percent more likely to offend than youths who had not participated. The Campaign for Youth Justice is calling for the show to be pulled from A&E.
In the episode I saw, there was a young man named Brandon who lived in Detroit. Brandon sported a tattoo on his right forearm of a skull and the word "Heartless" underneath and said he lived by the creed "MHD," which stands for "Money, Hoes, Drugs." Money brings women, and drugs bring money, Brandon explained. The worst he had ever done, he admitted, was shoot someone.

Raleigh, N.C. (September 14, 2011) -- North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue today announced a partnership between state agencies and two North Carolina foundations that will expand the successful Reclaiming Futures program from a model to a statewide initiative that helps youths in the juvenile justice system beat problems with drugs and alcohol. This tested and proven program will help put teenagers on a path toward finishing high school ready, for a career, college or technical training.
"This program takes my priority of making government more efficient, taps into the expertise and resources of the private sector and uses them for the most important purpose imaginable - protecting the future of our young people," Governor Perdue said. "This is an investment in turning young lives around." 
 

Over the last few decades, the victims' rights movement has been effective in highlighting the needs and concerns of victims of crime. This movement –- born out of the women’s right era of the early 1970s -– continues to pick up steam as states amend laws and policies to give victims more defined rights and services. However, as the victims' right movement has evolved, so must its recognition of and treatment of victims.
When you hear the word “victim,” seldom do you associate that with young African American men. Society, through sensationalist media reporting, scapegoating and rhetoric-laden politicking, has done a thorough job of painting what a “perpetrator” and a “victim” look like. One of those paintings uses more color than the other.
The irony of such mischaracterization is that young black males are victimized at a higher rate than any other demographic. According to the U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics Criminal Victimization in the United States, 2008, blacks are victimized at a personal crime rate of 26.6 percent in comparison to whites, who are victimized at a personal crime rate of 18.6 percent –- yet when victims are talked about, this population doesn’t enter the discussion.

Going into my senior year in high school, I worked an entire summer from sun-up to sundown to save enough money to help my mother buy me a car. When I finally got that car, it was broken into not long afterward. I felt angry, stranded, violated, sad and a whole host of other emotions, but for whatever reason, I never felt like a victim.
Why not? I had obviously just been victimized.

 
In July, Mississippi began restricting the process for charging 17-year-olds, by requiring that almost all juveniles under age 18 charged with a misdemeanor or non-violent felony be tried in juvenile courts. Violent felonies committed by juveniles still are permitted to be handled by the adult justice system.
This policy is facing opposition from those within the state who feel it will reduce effective treatment of juvenile offenders. In reality, however, Mississippi is joining 38 other states which include 17-year-olds in the class of those treated as juveniles—and which reap the benefits of such a classification.
The first benefit is that it is generally a better idea to minimize (or even avoid) incarceration for misdemeanors and minor non-violent felonies. Costly jail cells should be reserved for those who pose a risk of violence to the public. Sending 17-year-olds guilty of minor crimes to juvenile courts, where they are more likely to receive probation or non-residential treatment, will reduce unnecessary criminal justice costs without jeopardizing public safety.
Secondly, 17-year-olds are still amenable to reform and rehabilitation in the way that younger juveniles are—and to a greater degree than adult offenders. Juvenile courts are the best option for recognizing reform methods applicable to each juvenile offender and ensuring comprehensive, successful treatment. These options are far more accessible to juvenile courts, and they increase the likelihood that a 17-year-old offender may become a law-abiding, productive citizen in the future.

Reclaiming Futures depends for its success on the creation of multi-disciplinary teams at the local level. We ask participating jurisdictions to begin with a judge, probation officer, treatment provider, community representative, and project director. We encourage communities to expand from there, and most do -- after all, there's usually a lot more players who need to be at the table to make significant, lasting reforms.
But many jurisdictions -- whether they're engaged in Reclaiming Futures or some other juvenile justice reform effort -- stumble when it comes to including prosecutors. Yet their support and participation can be key.
That's why we're offering this webinar, "Working with Prosecutors," presented by Susan Broderick, J.D., on September 22, 2011 at 11:00am PDT / 2:00pm EDT.  UPDATE: Ms. Broderick's webinar has been archived on this page - just search for her name or by the title of the webinar.

• Promising Practice: Helping Young People into Employment
  LA Fitness founder Fred Turok spearheaded "Transforming a Generation," a program that provides on the job training and has helped 1,400 young people into jobs or higher education.
• Two OJJDP Grants Cut for Lack of Funding
  The Comprehensive Anti-Gang Strategies and Programs and Evaluation of the Second Chance Act Juvenile Mentoring Initiatives were worth $750,000. Both grants were not awarded due to spending cuts in 2011. (Hat tip to Youth Today)
• NIATx Training: Billing Third-Party Payers
  This learning collaborative will focus on giving behavioral healthcare providers, including adolescent substance abuse treatment providers, the skills they need to bill third-party payers for their services. Application deadline has been extended to September 23.
• New Guide for Community Collaboration
  The National Collaboration for Youth has created "Invitation to the Big Picture: Implementing a Local Collaboration for Youth in Your Community," a guide to identifying or forming an association of local child- and youth-serving agencies. Please use and share this guide with your national and local networks. (Hat tip FYI)

 
[The following post was written for a Georgia-based publication, but I thought it likely applied to other states.  PLEASE NOTE: the fake mug shot at left was posed for by the photographer, who is not related to the author of this post. -- Ed.]
Late one night, one of my sons was picked up by police in the parking lot at a Wal-Mart in downtown Atlanta. Video cameras showed he was with a group of young people who “forgot” to pay as they strolled out of the store with a cart full of camping equipment.
He was waiting at the car for his friends to finish shopping and claimed he had no idea they didn’t intend to pay for their goods. Police arrested the entire group, leaving it up to the courts to sort the innocent from the guilty. After a frantic middle of the night phone call where he INSISTED he was innocent of shoplifting, we bailed him out of jail with $1,500 in cash, and about a month later the case was heard by a judge and the charges against him were dismissed.
Despite the fact that he was never charged with a crime, his mug shot from the Fulton County Jail lives on forever and it’s the first thing that pops up when a potential employer does a Google search. Ouch! That’s when we discovered the convoluted and difficult process of getting a record expunged. Not everyone is eligible for expungement, but it’s worth the time and effort.  This kind of thing can haunt you the rest of your life as you apply for jobs, ask for financial aid or fill out a rental agreement.
Seems like double jeopardy for the person involved.

A recent report from the National Juvenile Justice Network (NJJN), titled, "Bringing Youth Home: A National Movement to Increase Public Safety, Rehabilitate Youth and Save Money," documented the extraordinary number of states and jurisdictions (at least 24) that are closing or downsizing their youth correctional facilities, due to budget cuts, legislation, lawsuits, and pressure from reformers. (Download the report for tips on ways to downsize wisely.)
This is a good thing, because it means taxpayers can save money or avoid the high cost of incarceration, and reallocate those monies to community-based programs that are more effective at helping young people turn their lives around.
Right on the heels of the NJJN report comes a new report from Jeffrey A. Butts and Douglas N. Evans from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice's Research and Evaluation Center in New York, titled, Resolution, Reinvestment, and Realignment: Three Strategies for Changing Juvenile Justice. In it, they ask:

• Do these reforms represent a permanent shift in policy and practice, or are they merely a temporary reaction to tight budgets and low rates of violent crime?
• Will policymakers maintain the reforms if and when crime rises and budgets rebound?

• Report: Tribal Youth in the Federal Justice System
  Cosponsored by OJJDP and the Bureau of Justice Statistics, this report is now available online. The report describes findings from a study that explored issues surrounding American Indian youth who are processed in the federal justice system, and discusses the prevalence, characteristics, and outcomes at each stage of the justice system.
• From PBS: Stats and Facts on Juveniles Tried as Adults
  Evidence that deterrent effects are minimal or nonexistent, and that, trying juveniles in criminal court may result in higher rates of reoffending.
• Juvenile Offender Becomes Advocate for Youth At-Risk
  Starcia Ague helped push through a law in the state of Washington that allows Class A juvenile felony records to be sealed, at the discretion of the judge, as long as youth have a clean record for five years after their release.

[Now that school's about to start, it seems like a great time to reprint this post, which originally appeared on Beacon Broadside and in the Huffington Post. It is appears here with the permission of the author. --Ed.]
Now that all the high school graduations are over and the backyard barbecues celebrated, I'm finally coming down from the contact high of all that youthful exuberance and optimism.
It's easy to get swept up into those good feelings. But now as I move into summer's quieter months, I can't help thinking about the high school students I taught in a county penitentiary and what "commencement" meant for them.
Success never came easily to my students. Why should it? They came from lives wrecked by poverty and discrimination. It tried to wreck their spirit, but it never could, not completely. In that way my students weren't any different from the kids at our local high schools -- like their peers, they believed that life was there for the shaping. That faith in success, though, didn't always translate onto the streets. So they got caught up in crime, got arrested, did their time.