Juvenile Justice Reform

The girl is maybe 15 years old. She is standing in the back of a building, or maybe it’s an alley way.  She has her arms wrapped around her body and her teeth are chattering.  When the officer approaches and tells her to leave the alley way she shakes her head and refuses.  The officer moves in closer and reiterates his order to leave. Suddenly the girl is lunging at him, screaming, “Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me! Get away from me!”  She is pushing her hands out at him, then pointing her finger at the officer, ordering him to keep his distance. We hear the officer say, “Whoa, hold on there. You listen to me young lady, I’ll arrest your ass if you don’t settle down. You want that? You want to go to jail?”
Officers watching this scene unfold during Strategies for Youth trainings often express their discomfort by laughing at the girl’s sudden, and seemingly unprovoked transformation into an accuser.  “She’s acting like my wife,” one will say and the ensuing chuckles help dissolve the tension in the classroom.
When asked to proffer a diagnosis of what mental health problem the girl is experiencing, the male officers typically call out, “Psychotic,” “Schizophrenic,”  “Bipolar,” or they just shake their heads.   When asked, what they would  do with a girl behaving like this, most officers express the belief that they would arrest her for disorderly conduct, at the very least.
If there are any women officers in the room, they generally won’t volunteer their diagnosis. But when asked, they’ll uniformly say, “She has PTSD [post traumatic stress disorder]” or they’ll speculate, “The girl’s probably been raped.”

Looking for a credible source of information about what programs work for teens in the juvenile justice system, adults in the criminal justice system, or for crime victims?
Your search just got a little easier. Today, the Office of Justice Programs at the U.S. Department of Justice launched a new website, www.crimesolutions.gov,designed to be a "one-stop shop for programs that work in criminal justice, juvenile justice and crime victim services."
According to the OJP press release, the site "includes information on more than 150 justice-related programs and assigns "evidence ratings – effective, promising, or no effects — to indicate whether there is evidence from research that a program achieves its goals." And its searchable database includes programs for "corrections, courts, crime prevention, substance abuse, juveniles, law enforcement, technology and forensics, and victims."
The juvenile section of the site is divided into four categories:

• Child Protection/Health
• Children Exposed to Violence
• Delinquency Prevention
• Risk and Protective Factors

Looking for substance treatments for youth in the juvenile justice system? Check under "Child Protection/Health.
Besides dividing program results into "effective," "promising," and "no effect," you'll also see common -- and interesting -- questions, linked to answers.
My favorite was, "What is the national juvenile recidividism rate?" I've been in the field long enough now that it's been years since I've wondered (not seeing the forest for the trees). So I clicked on the answer and learned that there is no official national statistic for juvenile recidivism, because of the wide variability of juvenile justice systems from state to state.

Isn't it great when you see a young person beat the odds? You know what I mean -- you'll read a story or see a video about a teen who struggled with drugs, alcohol, and crime, and somehow overcame all of that (and probably more) ... and it just makes you feel fantastic, doesn't it?
Well, it should. But Karen Pittman, CEO and Founder of the Forum for Youth Investment, has an even more inspiring idea, which she shared in an interview at the Reclaiming Futures Leadership Institute held in Miami in May:
 

 
You can also see Karen's full presentation at the Reclaiming Futures Leadership Institute here. 

Positive youth development is a key part of Reclaiming Futures. But what the heck is "positive youth development?" According to juvenile justice researcher Dr. Jeffrey Butts, it blends what we know about adolescent development and what we know about effective services.
But don't take it from me -- here's a brief interview on the subject that I did with Dr. Butts at the Reclaiming Futures Leadership Institute held in Miami in May:

 
Bonus: here's how to implement positive youth development in the juvenile justice system.
 

This week, I've got a monster roundup of news, grant opportunities, and conferences related to the juvenile justice system and (a little) about adolescent substance abuse treatment and behavioral healthcare for kids. Here goes:

• Reclaiming Futures Nassau County: Football Star Andrew Quarless Speaks to Juvenile Drug Court Graduates
• U.S. Supreme Court Says Age Matters When it Comes to Miranda Warnings
  Miranda warnings must be given by police when a suspect is being interrogated in a custodial setting. What's considered custody or the degree to which a suspect is being restrained are what matters here: in this case, a 13-year-old in North Carolina was interrogated on school grounds by a police officer about alleged crimes committed off-campus. He was not read his Miranda rights; his lawyers argued that his subsequent confession was therefore inadmissible. North Carolina's Supreme Court said his age wasn't relevant -- arguing, as I understand it, that the youth was not in a custodial situation and could have left. In a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court disagreed, writing that, “It is beyond dispute that children will often feel bound to submit to police questioning when an adult in the same circumstances would feel free to leave.” (Hat tips to the Juvenile Law Center and the National Juvenile Justice Network.)

At age 17, I was found guilty of three felonies and, in addition to this, tried as an adult in Idaho. Without having gone into the juvenile justice system I would be in prison or dead.
I spent time in a number of adult and juvenile facilities in the state. With experience in both adult corrections and juvenile corrections, I can tell you a few things that affected me throughout my incarceration.
To be honest, the adult side of corrections was much easier to handle in a number of different ways. In the Ada County Jail, in western Idaho, I was put in a single cell and was in the highest security part of the facility. My days were spent reading books, sleeping, watching TV, having one hour of exercise a day in a concrete courtyard and talking to other inmates, figuring out how to be a better criminal.
It came as a big shock when I was finally placed in the Juvenile Corrections Center, in St. Anthony, in eastern Idaho. I wasn’t allowed to sleep all day and my days were structured with school, chores, physical fitness and counseling. Instead of the jailers catching me for things that were against the rules my peers were the ones holding me accountable. At first, I resented my peers for this because in jail this was considered “snitching” and if you snitched you would be beaten up.

[NOTE: The date and time of the webinar have been changed to June 27th at 2 p.m. EST. -Ed.]
Via the National Reentry Resource Center:

The U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) recently released the solicitation for Second Chance Act grant applications to state and local governments and federally recognized Indian tribes for juvenile reentry planning and demonstration projects (Section 101 of Public Law 110-199). This funding is available to help jurisdictions plan and implement programs and strategies to reduce recidivism and ensure safe and successful reentry of juveniles released from prisons, jails, and juvenile detention facilities back to the community.
The deadline for submitting an application is July 11, 2011 at 11:59 p.m. ET.
To download the solicitation, click here
To help potential applicants respond to this solicitation, the National Reentry Resource Center will hold a free webinar on Monday, June 20th at 3:00 p.m. ET. June 27th at 2:00 p.m. EST. Representatives from OJJDP will explain the details of the solicitation and answer questions from applicants. To register for the webinar, click here.

U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner may not have broken any laws by texting lewd photos of himself to younger women he didn’t know.
In many states, however, teens who send pictures of themselves to their own girlfriends or boyfriends can be prosecuted for child pornography.
Allyson Pereira calls that hypocrisy. She should know. She’s spent six years dealing with the consequences of “sexting” one topless image of herself to an ex-boyfriend.
Allyson was 15 at the time, and the boy said he’d date her again if she’d send him the photo. But he was playing her. According to Allyson, he sent the private image to his entire contact list.
For the next three years at Wallkill Valley Regional High School in northern New Jersey, she was bullied and ostracized. Paint cans were thrown in her family’s pool. A tire was rolled down their driveway, smashing a glass door to the house.
“It’s actually made me stronger,” she said in an interview last with Juvenile Justice Information Exchange, “but there were times when I really was suicidal. If it hadn’t been for my family and one or two friends, I wouldn’t be here today.”
“I can’t even tell you what it was like to live with that,” her mother says. “These kids can be so cruel to each other.”
But Allyson and her family were afraid to report the situation to police because Allyson could have been prosecuted for sending child pornography — of herself.

[Testimony given April 2011 by John Roman, Ph.D., before the Council of the District of Columbia Committee on Human Services. Reprinted with permission from The Urban Institute. -Ed.]
Good morning. My name is John Roman and I am a senior fellow in the Justice Policy Center at the Urban Institute, where I have studied innovative crime and justice policies and programs for more than a decade. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today about integrating innovative practices to better serve juveniles involved with the justice system and to improve public safety.
Using Lessons from Recent Innovations to Create a Holistic Approach to Intervening with Juveniles
Over the last decade, across the United States, there has been tremendous interest in reforming juvenile and criminal justice systems to both improve their performance and to improve public safety by reducing crime and delinquency among adjudicated youth. What I would like to describe today is how those innovative practices—the Reclaiming Futures initiative, drugs courts and other alternatives to commitment, and Project HOPE—might be integrated to maximize their effectiveness and minimize costs.
In the first phase of Reclaiming Futures, begun in 2002, multidisciplinary teams in ten communities worked collaboratively to enhance the availability and quality of substance abuse interventions for youth involved with the juvenile justice system. All ten projects relied on judicial leadership, court/community collaborations, interorganizational performance management, enhanced treatment quality, and multiagency partnerships to improve their systems of care for youthful offenders with substance abuse problems.

From JUVJUST:

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) has released the solicitation, "Technical Assistance Program To Address Commercial Sexual Exploitation/Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking.” The solicitation calls for proposals that provide technical assistance to OJJDP grantees and other organizations addressing commercial sexual exploitation and domestic minor sex trafficking of girls and boys.

Applicants must register and submit their proposals by July 5, 2011. 

From the solicitation:

This program will support an organization and/or a consortium of organizations to provide technical assistance to OJJDP grantees and other organizations addressing commercial sexual exploitation (CSE) or domestic minor sex trafficking (DMST) of girls and boys. The program will offer education and training, expert consultations, peer-to-peer networking opportunities, resources, and other tailored assistance to effectively respond to diverse communities addressing the sexual victimization of girls and boys.