Juvenile Justice Reform

From the Council of State Governments' Criminal Justice/Mental Health Consensus Project comes news of a webinar you might be interested in. Here's the press release:
 


Webinar - Maximizing The Impact Of Juvenile Justice Interventions: The Importance Of Risk/Needs Assessment

 
Emerging research demonstrates that punishment and sanctions do not deter juvenile reoffending and, in some cases, may even increase it. This research shows that juvenile justice agencies are more effective when they base interventions on a youth's level of risk for re-offending and specific "criminogenic needs" (factors that contribute to the youth reoffending that can change over time), and apply these interventions in a way that is responsive to individual learning styles. This is known as the "Risk-Needs-Responsivity" principle. To promote this principle, agencies should identify youths' level of risk for reoffending and specific criminogenic needs by adopting and properly implementing an evidence-based risk assessment tool.
 
This webinar will review the foundational concepts of risk assessment and its implementation in juvenile justice agencies. Topics to be covered include how to select a tool, how risk assessment differs from mental health screening, how the approach should differ depending on the juvenile justice setting, and some key points for effective implementation.
 
 
Presenter
Gina M. Vincent, Ph.D. Dr. Vincent is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, and Co-Director of the National Youth Screening and Assessment Project. Dr. Vincent has received funding from NIDA, NIMH and the MacArthur Foundation for studies relevant to youth risk for reoffending, mental health problems, and substance abuse. She has published, lectured, and presented research at over 100 international and national conferences and juvenile justice facilities in the areas of juvenile callous-unemotional traits, implementing risk/needs assessment, and mental health symptoms in juvenile justice.
 
 
Date: Thursday, May 5th, 2011, 2:00-3:00pm EST
 
To register, please click here.
  

Do delinquent teens see criminal activity as something positive? 
Many adults assume that they do. However, research by Rachel Swaner and Elise White, published in 2010 by the Center for Court Innovation, suggests that for some youth at least, their attitudes and values are not anti-social at all. Though the youth outcomes in their study were not terribly positive, it underscores the need to provide youth with opportunities to do positive activities that reinforce their positive values. 
The study, titled, "Drifting Between Worlds: Delinquency and Positive Engagement among Red Hook Youth,"  involved a small sample of 44 youth in a housing project in Red Hook, Brooklyn. About half participated in Youth ECHO, a positive youth development program that enlisted the youth themselves in choosing community problems to tackle, and creating guerrilla marketing campaigns to address them. 
A few highlights from the study:

 
 
I've written before about CeaseFire, an organization funded by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation that approaches violence as a public health problem. It uses "violence interrupters" -- individuals who've been in gangs and involved in street violence themselves -- to work the streets to learn about potential trouble and intervene with the individuals where possible.
Now a film, "The Interrupters," has been made about the work of three of CeaseFire's staff. Check out the trailer above -- I think you'll find it riveting, scary, and inspiring.
[UPDATE May 5, 2011: The film was not a production of CeaseFire, but was made independently by Steve James and Alex Kotlowitz.]

 

Adapted from JUVJUST:
The Juvenile Law Center, with support from the MacArthur Foundation's Models for Change initiative, will host a second round of the three part webinar series on the Information Sharing Tool Kit.
When: Part I of the webinar will be held May 4, Part II on May 13, and Part III on May 16. All webinars will be held 9am-10:30am PST / 12pm-1:30pm EST.

What: The tool kit was created to help jurisdictions improve their information and data sharing procedures for youth involved in multiple systems. The webinars, developed through a collaboration with the National Center for Juvenile Justice, will introduce participants to three kinds of information and data sharing—for individual case planning and decision making; for law, policy, and program development; and for program evaluation and performance measurement.
Resources & Registration: download the tool kit, register for the webinars, or watch archived webinars.

>>More about the information-sharing tool kit.
>>A guest post from Lourdes Rosado of the Juvenile Law Center (and one of the authors of the Models for Change Tool Kit) on protecting juveniles from self-incrimination - you can even download a guide from the Juvenile Law Center.

 
Last fall, youth in the Juvenile Recovery Court in Clark County, WA, got a chance to tell their stories on film. Six participants received training in "digital storytelling" and, with the help of court staff and a prevention specialist, they turned their 250-word personal stories into powerful video presentations. Check out the video above for an example.
You'll notice that the youth, "Mitchell," didn't choose to talk about recovery, but chose to explore instead a religious split in his family, and what it means to him. To learn more about how youth chose topics or the strategy the staff used in helping youth with their stories, check out my interview with them.
And don't forget, we have a webinar next week on this topic:

From the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ):

The Juvenile and Family Law Department of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges is applying for project funding through the Community Policing Development Program operated by the United States Department of Justice. To better inform our application, we are asking juvenile court professionals and related stakeholders to complete this short survey.
 
This survey should take less than five minutes to complete, and no identifying information will be collected. If you know of someone that may be able to inform the survey further, please forward this e-mail along.
 
>>Take the survey.
 
If you have any questions regarding this survey, please contact
Shawn C. Marsh, Ph.D. at smarsh@ncjfcj.org or 775-784-8070.
 

Hat tip to Christa Myers.

I doubt that there is an influence on the development of antisocial behavior among young people that is stronger than that of the family. (Steinberg, 2000)[i]
 
The most successful programs are those that emphasize family interactions, probably because they focus on providing skills to the adults who are in the best position to supervise and train the child. (Greenwood, 2009)[ii]
 
Thanks to many independent reviews, consensus documents, and meta-analyses of the evidence base on how to work effectively with juvenile offenders, there are numerous signs that the specialty has achieved a certain level of maturity.[iii]
 
A significant part of this new generation of work in the field pertains to the accumulated and rigorously derived findings about the role of families, family relationships, and parenting practices as key aspects of the creation and maintenance,[iv] as well as the reversal of antisocial and other problem behaviors.[v]
 
For some time, we’ve “known” that it can be beneficial to involve families more substantively and consistently in working with juvenile offenders, as evidenced in this quote: “In this era of an increased focus on public sector accountability, one of the important questions posed to policymakers and elected officials may be ‘Why are you waiting so long to support families?’ ” (Duchnowski, Hall, Kutash, & Friedman, 1998[vi]).

 
Adapted from an announcement made by the National Reentry Resource Center - there's a component regarding youth in the justice system:
 

The webinar "Principles of Tribal Reentry" focuses on the essential principles for designing and developing culturally relevant reentry systems supportive of released offenders and the tribal communities to which they return. Presenters will discuss the important components of tribal-based reentry programs and those in non-tribal jurisdictions where American Indian/Alaska Native(AI/AN) offenders may be serving time in an adult or juvenile facility. This free webinar will also discuss important governmental, programmatic, policy and cultural factors affecting AI/AN reentry programs.
 
 
Presenters
Ada Pecos Melton, President & Owner, American Indian Development Associates
Daniel Mittan, Director of Court Services, Choctaw Tribal Court
 
 
When
Tuesday, April 26, 2011 12:00 pm PST / 3 pm EST
 
 
How to Sign Up
Register here.

Last fall, youth in the Juvenile Recovery Court in Clark County, WA, got a chance to tell their stories on film. Six participants received training in "digital storytelling" and, with the help of court staff, and a prevention specialist, they turned their 250-word personal stories into powerful video presentations. Their efforts were given great coverage in the Dec. 27, 2010 issue of The Columbian. 
Below is a joint interview with the three people who made this amazing project happen for these youth: Bradley Finegood, LMHC (at left, above), who coordinates Clark County's Superior Court therapeutic specialty courts; Angela Zahas, a county prevention specialist (far right, above); and Anna Lookingbill, the Juvenile Recovery Court's resource coordinator (see middle, above). 
 
 
Q: What is digital storytelling? How is it different from making a video?
 
Anna:  There's two layers to digital storytelling. The first is the technical component, such as learning the software. (We used low-cost or free software, such as a free audio program called Audacity, and Microsoft's photo editing program.)
 
But there's also a pretty significant component around, "What's the story you want to tell?" How do you tell it in a way that has emotional impact on people? 
 
So when you teach it, it’s a layered thing – there's a technical piece, plus storytelling.
 
Brad: It was a small initial investment that will continue to pay dividends. Once Angela was trained on digital storytelling, it could be replicated. We could train others at a low cost – outside of human capital – for what could be an extremely powerful project. There's no fees we have to pay, no manuals we have to buy – so it just made a lot of sense. It's a long-term buy-in to people’s recovery.
 
On a side note, the kids who went through this started out extremely closed, but they opened up, smiled, they shared – so that’s something priceless when you talk about youth from the juvenile justice side of it. 

Applications to attend the fifth annual Summer Institute on Youth Mentoring July 18 – 22 on the campus of Portland State University in Portland, Oregon, are now available. As a general theme, the 2011 Summer Institute will focus on mentoring youth who have contact with child welfare or juvenile justice systems.
 
What is the Summer Institute on Youth Mentoring?
The institute offers a distinctive educational opportunity for experienced mentoring professionals, with intensive presentations and interactive discussions on the latest developments in theory and research on youth mentoring led by prominent, internationally recognized research fellows.