Juvenile Justice Reform

How do you reduce the number of kids going into the juvenile justice system? Overhaul school disciplinary policies.
Here's a quick overview of research on the problem, a great video that puts a human face on the issue in Connecticut, and some things you can do.
Just yesterday, the Council of State Governments Justice Center released Breaking Schools’ Rules: A Statewide Study of How School Discipline Relates to Students’ Success and Juvenile Justice Involvement. The report is based on a groundbreaking study of nearly 1 million secondary school students in Texas. (Researchers were able to control for over 80 different variables because they had individual-level records from schools and juvenile court for every single youth in the study.)
Though it's methodologically very careful in its conclusions, it does show that:

• nearly 60 percent of all students in the study were suspended or expelled between 7th and 12th grades;
• African American students and children with "particular educational disabilities" were disproportionately affected -- especially for infractions where administrators had discretion over what sanctions to apply; and
• students who were suspended or expelled were more likely to end up in the juvenile justice system the following year.

But there's grounds for hope, because researchers also found that:

• suspension and expulsion rates varied widely beween schools, even among schools that were similar in terms of their students' racial compositon or economic status.

This suggests that schools can handle behavior problems differently, and with fewer negative outcomes on the youth.
[More after the jump --]

 
 
[The following post originally appeared July 14, 2011, on the Connected by 25 blog, published by the Youth Transition Funders Group. It's an unusual example of students advocating against harsh discipline policies that feed the juvenile justice system. - Ed.]
 
Young people are gathering on the steps of Chicago Public Schools today, along with parents and teachers, calling for an overhaul of the district school discipline policy. The rally is organized around the release of a new report, Failed Policies, Broken Futures: The True Cost of Zero Tolerance, produced by Voices of Youth in Chicago Education (VOYCE). 
 
VOYCE, a youth organizing collaborative, has approached school discipline through a cost-effectiveness analysis, using the $700 million budget shortfall as a very powerful hook. It's so powerful it has brought the Chicago Teacher Union to the table with CTU Vice President Jesse Sharkey speaking at the rally. Too often teachers are in support of pushing students out of the classroom. Yet the national struggle to come to terms with diminished resources is changing the dynamics.

The report offers a compelling argument that that the current practices are not financially or educationally effective:

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth across America are facing a crisis in the juvenile justice system as a result of harmful discrimination in their homes, schools and communities. Recent studies demonstrate that continued harassment of LGBT youth in their schools place them at a higher risk for involvement with the system. LGBT youth are more likely to skip school to avoid victimization and in the process face truancy charges.
Additionally, other LGBT students end up in the system on assault or disorderly conduct charges after they try to defend themselves against bullying by their classmates. In other instances, LGBT youth are disproportionately targeted by school officials for punishment, often referring them to juvenile court for conduct that is more appropriately handled in school. These experiences unnecessarily prolong the involvement of LGBT youths in the juvenile justice system and often expose them to more restrictive dispositions. In an effort to reduce the number of LGBT youth in the juvenile justice system, more must be done to combat discrimination and harassment in schools.

• New York Times: Rethinking Addiction’s Roots, and Treatment
  Increasingly, the medical establishment is putting its weight behind the physical diagnosis.
• Letter to the Editor Asking for Mentors in Rowan County
  Reclaiming Futures' call to action that works.
• Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) Releases 2011 National Drug Control Strategy
  Criminal justice continues to be a focus area.

[For a brief interview with the author on prosecutors and adolescent substance abuse in the juvenle justice system, watch the video below the section break. -Ed.]
Adolescent substance abuse is currently the biggest public health problem facing our country, according to a study released in June by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University.1 The report explains that efforts in the past decade that curbed underage drinking and drug usage may be losing their effect; the authors caution: “we can no longer write off adolescent substance use as bad behavior, as a rite of passage or as kids just being kids. The science is too clear, the facts are too compelling, the consequences are too devastating and the costs are simply too high.”2
 
What the Research Says
Alarming news, yet not surprising to those of us working in the field of juvenile justice (JJ). A 2004 study found that nearly 80% of juvenile offenders between the ages of 10-17, in juvenile justice systems are under the influence of alcohol or other drugs while committing their crimes, test positive for drugs, are arrested for an alcohol or drug offense, admit having a substance use or addiction problem, or share some combination of these characteristics.3 Therefore, most juvenile court prosecutors are confronted with issues relating to substance use on a regular basis.

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) calls for poster and media presentations for its upcoming national conference, “Children’s Justice and Safety: Unite, Build, Lead.” The conference will be held on October 12–14, 2011, at the Gaylord National Hotel & Convention Center in National Harbor, MD.
The poster session will feature visual presentations of recent program initiatives, research findings, and other information of interest and importance to the juvenile justice, delinquency prevention, and victimization communities. The media room will feature audiovisual materials (including TV and/or Internet-based PSAs, news segments, and training videos) from OJJDP-funded initiatives and programs.
Submissions must be postmarked on or before Friday, August 5, 2011.
Resources:
Learn more about OJJDP’s National Conference at http://www.ojjdp.gov/2011conference.
Apply to participate in the poster sessions at http://www.ojjdp.gov/2011conference/PosterCriteria.pdf.
Apply to participate in the media room at http://www.ojjdp.gov/2011conference/MediaCriteria.pdf.

(Via JUVJUST.)
Photo: southyrolean under Creative Commons license.

 

 
The Coalition for Juvenile Justice (CJJ) is alarmed to report that federal juvenile justice funding will once again be dramatically reduced if Congress adopts the FY 2012 funding proposal put forth by the U.S. House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies (CJS).  [Click on chart above for larger image. Chart courtesy of Reclaiming Futures, based on data provided by CJJ. -Ed.]

 
Programs authorized under the federal Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA) and the Juvenile Accountability Block Grant Program (JABG) spur innovation and excellence in juvenile justice at the state and local levels and provide safeguards for children and youth involved with the justice system. Historically, appropriations for these programs have been modest, at an average of less than $225 million per fiscal year. 
 
For more than 35 years, states have leveraged these programs and proven in small and big ways that federal juvenile justice programs reduce juvenile offending, help youth transition safely to adulthood and save taxpayer money. Examples of these measurable results can be found in a Coalition for Juvenile Justice (CJJ) fact bulletin titled Safeguarding the Future: Strategic Investments to Secure the Safety of America’s Youth, Families and Communities.  
 
Yet, despite clear evidence that federal funding to states is effective at preventing and reducing delinquency, Congress continues to signal an abandonment of its commitment to community safety by making drastic cuts to federal juvenile justice programs. Since FY 2002, federal investments in programs to prevent and reduce delinquency have decreased by 50%.  The FY 2011 budget bill cut federal juvenile justice programs by an additional 17%; in real terms more than half of the states are suffering reductions as high as 32%. The FY 2012 House proposal would further reduce the JJDPA Title II progras by more than $20 million and would completely eliminate funding for the JJDPA Title V and the JABG programs. The effect would be an additional 50% to federal juvenile justice programs, and bring the total reduction over the last decade to 75%. See CJJ’s Historical Juvenile Justice Federal Funding Chart.

When this presentation was given at the Reclaiming Futures Leadership Institute in May 2011, it received some of the highest praise our workshops have ever gotten. Here's a sample:

"One of the absolute best workshops I have attended in 36 years of youth work."

"Very knowledgeable, coupled with true passion for the work!"

"Great presentation!"

"Good speaker.  Answered questions well.  Good use of video and other ways to engage the group throughout the presentation."

"Great session.  Strong ideas."

"EXCELLENT!!"

"Amazing presenter and presentation.  Powerful."
 

So we're offering it now as a webinar on July 19, 2011 at 11am PDT / 2pm EDT.  Hurry up and register, though: we only have 125 slots!
Read on for more info >>

• Webinar on Disproportionate Minority Contact
  The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s National Training and Technical Assistance Center will host the webinar, “Disproportionate Minority Contact: Issues and Trends at the National, State, and Local Level,” on August 3, 2011 at 2 p.m. (EDT). The webinar will describe the issues that state and local communities face when trying to reduce disproportionate minority contact.  
• Department of Justice: Licensed Growers, Dispensers of Medical Marijuana Could Be Prosecuted
  A new policy memo issued by Deputy Attorney General James Cole says state law is no protection for growers and dispensers of medical marijuana. However, the Justice Department stands by its 2009 directive against investigating patients and caregivers in compliance with state law.

Flogging conjures up grotesque images. American slaves flogged by their overseer. Conscripted sailors flogged by their masters. Such an idea wouldn’t get any traction in a civilized society like ours, right? 
Maybe. John Jay College of Criminal Justice Professor Peter Moskos has floated a proposal to replace each year of prison with two lashes. His motives seem pure—he believes the American prison system is completely dysfunctional and that millions, maybe billions, could be saved with this simple change in punishment, with no effect on public safety.
 
Putting aside for a moment the moral baseness of the idea and that pesky Eight Amendment proscription against torture, cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment (flogging has to be four-for-four on that one), let’s consider if it would even work.
 
There is a long and fascinating law and economics literature on the relative merits of severity versus certainty as ways to prevent crime. The idea is straightforward. The main aim of punishment is to set society's costs of incarcerating a criminal in prison equal to the benefits of keeping that person from running amuck on the streets. (Rehabilitation can also correct, but that is a separate issue).
 
Flogging, in this case, is just a different way of meting out a severe punishment that substitutes intensity for duration. The big question, then, is whether criminals will commit new crimes once back on the streets after being flogged --  new crimes that certainly would have been prevented by incarceration in an expensive prison cell.