Juvenile Justice Reform

In low-income communities already reeling with double-digit unemployment, news that your state plans to trim several million dollars from juvenile corrections might not cause much outcry except for the loss of jobs. But consider the implications.
With states from Florida to California closing youth prisons, thousands of young people needing jobs, education services or drug treatment will be coming home. Yet little of the savings will go into funding such programs. Instead, youth advocates across the country fear that teens-in-trouble will be essentially cut adrift. This could add new pressures to already-stressed communities and leave many to balance public safety against the needs of young offenders and their families. 
Certainly, the $5.7 billion spent each year to lock up some 90,000 kids could be better spent. Recidivism rates are miserable – in many cases, worse than adult corrections – despite costs that can top $200-a-day for each incarcerated youth. What works with most court-involved teens, experts say, is a combination of family therapy, drug or mental health treatment, and employment. None of those things, however, are on the books.

Want to serve as a peer reviewer on the U.S. Department of Justice's Coordinated Tribal Assistance Solicitation for fiscal year 2011? 

The U.S. Department of Justice is currently recruiting Indian country professionals to serve as peer reviewers for the FY 2011 Coordinated Tribal Assistance Solicitation. Applicants should be knowledgeable about tribal cultural beliefs, traditions, and practices, and must be able to demonstrate expertise in an issue relevant to the grant applications being reviewed. Topics will include community policing, tribal court development and administration, child sexual abuse, elder abuse, juvenile detention and reentry programming, developing and operating housing programs for victims of violence against women, and more.

Interested individuals already in the OJP Peer Reviewer Database need only make sure their current profile is up to date, reflecting any applicable tribal experience. Individuals new to the peer review process may submit a copy of their curriculum vitae or r—êsum—ê for consideration to Vicky.Tsaparas@usdoj.gov. All non-federal reviewers will be compensated for their work. CTAS will close on April 21, 2011, at 9:00 p.m. E.T.; however, peer reviewer recruitment will continue in support of funding opportunities available in the Office of Justice Programs.

More Information:

>> Tribal justice and safety
>> Peer review requirements
 

In December, I met with Sarah Bryer, Executive Director of the National Juvenile Justice Network (NJJN), and asked her what it was planning for the coming months. You can see her answer in the video above -- tools for local sites to help them push juvenile justice reform during the fiscal downturn. 
 
Now, the NJJN is about to launch a new Fiscal Policy Center. Here's what they say about it: 

When it comes to assessing young people in the juvenile justice system, does the difference between “risk assessment” and “needs assessment” seem overly academic or technical to you?
It's actually very important.
Why? Because the lack of clarity about this distinction, and the tendency to conflate risk of delinquency with treatment need are obstacles to establishing a more strength-based and therapeutically informed attitude and process in juvenile justice systems around the country.

I've written several times about the excellent work done by Dr. Mark Lipsey, his colleagues, and the Center for Juvenile Justice Reform (CJJR) at Georgetown to help local jurisdictions do a better job of providing evidence-backed services in their juvenile justice systems. Here's your chance to benefit. 
Background
Dr. Lipsey's research team drew on almost 50 years' worth of studies on what works in juvenile justice to develop principles of effective programming.
Then they partnered with Georgetown's Center for Juvenile Justice Reform (CJJR), led by Shay Bilchik, to create the Juvenile Justice System Improvement Project (JJSIP), which -- according to the official announcement from CJJR -- "embeds [those principles] within the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders as developed by Dr. James C. Howell and John Wilson. In doing so, the JJSIP provides a framework for improving juvenile justice practice throughout the entire juvenile justice continuum."
Your State Can Benefit
Three states will be chosen to participate in an intensive training, followed by 18 months of technical assistance to implement this approach.

How many juvenile drug courts are there in the United States?  The Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT) at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Admininstration (SAMHSA) wants to know by March 17, 2011.
Here's the announcement -- please note that you do not need to be a CSAT grantee to qualify or participate:

We are writing to request your help with an important data inquiry. In order to enhance SAMHSA/CSAT’s programmatic and advocacy efforts concerning adolescent substance abuse treatment and recovery, we are seeking to update our knowledge concerning the number of juvenile drug courts in the United States.
 
To help us close this knowledge gap, we are asking all of our current JTDC grantees to reply to this email with a listing of any juvenile drug courts that you and your organization are aware of. Please complete and return the attached template with your reply.
 
The term “juvenile drug court” means a specially designed court calendar or docket within a juvenile court to which youth having problems with alcohol and/or other drugs are referred; a separate or special jurisdiction court is neither necessary nor encouraged. The juvenile drug court judge maintains close oversight of each case, and both leads and works as a member of a team that comprises representatives from treatment, juvenile justice, social services, school and vocational training programs, law enforcement, probation, the prosecution and the defense.
 
Please complete the attached document and send your replies to (adlist@jbsinternational.com) no later than March 17, 2011. Thank you in advance for any assistance with this important inquiry that you and your agency can provide!

(Hat tip to Christa Myers.)

• Is the Juvenile Justice System "Improving Lives or Devastating Them?" U.S. Attorney General Asks
  Attorney General Eric Holder wants to see the juvenile justice system shift from prosecution and punishment to prevention and intervention, as he made clear in a March 7th speech to the National Association of Counties Legislative Conference. Among other things, he pointed to the evidence showing that "scared straight programs" are ineffective, and the high rate of sexual victimization of detained youth. 
   
• States Try Fewer Youth in Adult Court  
  Only a few states -- New York and North Carolina among them -- continue to treat 16-year-olds as adults when it comes to the justice system. Money's an issue, because it's more expensive to try them in the juvenile justice system. However, a new analysis from the Vera Institute of Justice finds that the fiscal benefits outweigh the costs.
• States Back Away From Punitive Drug Laws
  The high cost of imprisoning low-level drug offenders is adding momentum to efforts to reform punitive drug laws that incarcerate people without addressing their underlying treatment problem.

A few weeks ago, my colleague, Jeff Butts, discussed here the implications of our recent study of rates of psychiatric disorder in almost 10,000 young persons at various levels of penetration of the justice system. (Here's the original study: "Psychiatric Disorder, Comorbidity, and Suicidal Behavior in Juvenile Justice Youth.")
He drew attention to our finding that, when evaluated in a standard way, approximately 35% of young persons at system entry (i.e., entering the juvenile justice system via probation or family court processing) met criteria for a mental health or substance use disorder.

In that work, we relied on a well-validated, computerized, instrument which aggregates a youth’s answers to specific questions about symptoms to generate a set of provisional psychiatric disorders (the DISC-IV). But what happens about identifying mental health problems in settings where such research activities are not in place?

The New York Times reported March 5 that the national trend of trying teens as adults in criminal cases is reversing. Almost all states have raised, or are raising, the age teens are tried as adults. The opposition to this trend argues that it is too costly to try teens as minors.

The generally accepted assumption is that states save money by trying teens in adult criminal court, rather than in juvenile courts. But is this assumption really true in the long run? What is the real cost of trying teens as adults?

Certainly, in the short-term, the more involved and supportive approach of juvenile courts may cost more than criminal courts. Juvenile courts emphasize treatment rather than punishment. That focus can mean that more people are employed in the care and rehabilitation of offenders in juvenile court than in the adult counterpart. 
These costs, however, yield long-term benefits. Youth and society benefit from supportive rehabilitation. And states can make back the money from that initial investment. A recent study by the Vera Institute on the cost of raising the age of juvenile jurisdiction in North Carolina found that with an investment of $70.9 million a year to include 16 year olds in juvenile court, the state would accrue “$123.1 million in reoccurring benefits to youth, victims, and taxpayers over the long term.”

Georgia is set to become the go-to state for delinquent juveniles trying to escape the system.  If legislation is not passed in this session of the General Assembly, Georgia will become the only state without pending legislation to enact the new Interstate Compact for Juveniles (ICJ), an agreement that allows for the transfer of delinquent juveniles and runaways between states.

The potential implications are enormous.  Without an agreement with other states, Georgia will have no mechanism for sending delinquent kids from other states back home or for registering teen sex offenders who cross the border into Georgia, according to Rick Masters, General Counsel for the Interstate Commission for Juveniles, in Lexington, Ky., the governing body of the ICJ,

The ICJ replaces and updates a compact established in 1955 that Georgia was a member of.   Currently, Georgia still operates under the framework for the old compact, but the transition period expires on June 30, 2011.  After that date, Georgia will no longer be able to do business with member-states of the ICJ.