Juvenile Justice Reform

From the press release: the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) invites qualified individuals to apply under its fiscal year (FY) 2010 Fellowship Program on Tribal Juvenile Justice.
The fellowship represents an opportunity for professionals, practitioners, researchers, or trainers with expertise in tribal youth justice to assist OJJDP in strengthening its partnership with federally-recognized tribes to enhance juvenile justice and serve tribal youth and their families.
The application deadline is July 19, 2010.

The Coalition for Juvenile Justice (CJJ) is seeking proposals for workshops on eliminating Disproportionate Minority Contact (DMC) -- follow the link for criteria and submission guidelines. Proposal deadline is 5 p.m., EST, on July 22, 2010.
 
These 75-minute workshops will be delivered at CJJ's national conference, to be held in Jersey City, New Jersey, on October 23-25, 2010. Two state partners are co-hosting: the New Jersey Association of County Youth Services Commissions and the New Jersey Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Committee (the New Jersey "state advisory group," or SAG).
 
From the press release: "The conference will highlight practical and proven solutions for reducing and eliminating racial and ethnic disparities in juvenile justice, utilizing approaches developed and/or evaluated for their effectiveness. The conference will be preceded by a one-day training on October 22, offered by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), State Relations and Assistance Division (SRAD)."
Questions? Please email Mark Ferrante, CJJ Director for Leadership and Training Programs.

• Above is a one-minute video from the Campaign for Youth Justice (CFYJ) on jailing kids in adult prisons (follow the link and scroll to last item) that was picked up by 191 broadcasters, according to Youth Today. Congratulations to CFYJ on getting the message out.

Reclaiming Futures sites have been appealing to their communities for caring adults to help teens with drug and alcohol problems who are in trouble with the law. A community event in Forsyth County, NC recently made the TV news (the Honorable William B. Reingold is pictured at left), the paper, and also netted a positive editorial from the Winston-Salem Journal.  [LATER: Reclaiming Futures Forsyth County also appeared in a second paper, the Winston-Salem Chronicle. To see it, follow the link, then click on "Archive" and choose the paper for June 17, 2010. Then navigate to page 3. The article is titled, "A Different Approach."]
And our Bristol County, MA site also made the paper a few weeks ago with a community meeting of its own on helping drug-involved youth. 
Great work, everyone!
P.S. Want to bring attention to juvenile justice reform in your community? Check out this communications toolkit for justice initiatives from the Center for Court Innovation and the Bureau of Justice Affairs.

[The following post, on the state-level interpretation of the Supreme Court decision banning life without parole for juveniles who commit crimes short of homicide, is reprinted with permission from a May 28th blog post on Youth Today. You can get more background on the decision in this post from the National Juvenile Justice Network. -Ed.]
Youth Today already posted a story on the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Graham v Florida, and our subscribers can look for a more in-depth look at its ramifications in our June issue. But here’s yet one more point we think should be made about the aftermath of the decision.
There are 37 states that have life without parole sentences for certain juveniles and now must replace with new sentencing provisions. The court mandated that juveniles have a “meaningful opportunity” for release.  
 
JJ Today has contacted many people, all of whom were willing to pontificate on what they think would be the best way for states to change those laws. Suggestions include: review sentences after inmates turn 30, review them after 10 years of the sentence, and try all juveniles in juvenile court.
 
Not one person wished to discuss what they felt would be the worst revision they could tolerate.  As Terrance Graham’s attorney Bryan Gowdy put it, there is a point at which a really high term of years or wait for parole would be the “functional equivalent” of a life sentence.

Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment

• Ever wish you had a good guide to give parents of teens with alcohol and drug abuse issues about what treatment is, how to find the right treatment program, how to pay for it, and how to cope? Now you can link folks up with the Treatment Guide e-Book, a great guide from The Partnership for a Drug-Free America. A good supplement is the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment's (CSAT), "A Quick Guide to Finding Effective Alcohol and Drug Addiction Treatment" (via SAMHSA's Recovery Month).
• Now that teen heroin use has suburban parents all freaked out (or should), the media is finally discovering how big a barrier insurance (or lack of funds) can be to providing youth with addiction treatment they desperately need (via Portland Prevention).
• The annual National Youth Risk Behavior Survey administered by the Centers for Disease Control survey found that an alarming 1 in 5 high school students said they'd abused prescription drugs, i.e., taken them without a prescription. Nevertheless, alcohol (72%) and marijuana (37%) are still the favorites.

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) has released additional funding opportunities for 2010 -- this time, focused on different aspects of data and evaluation.  
You can apply to: 

• Evaluate what works in addressing girls' delinquency. (There's a dearth of evidence now, so you have a chance to be a pioneer.) Amount: $200,000 to $400,000 for a project period of up to three years. Deadline: July 8, 2010. 
• Propose a research project to evaluate what works in responding to juvenile delinquency. Amount: $200,000 to $500,000 for project period of up to three years. Deadline: June 29, 2010. 
• Help OJJDP compile and disseminate statistics relevant to the juvenile justice field. Amount: up to $2.4 million, total, for three years. Deadline: July 6, 2010. 
• Establish a National Juvenile Justice Evaluation Center to assist OJJDP grantees (and communities in general) in building local capacity to effectively design and implement evaluations of juvenile justice interventions. Amount: up to $1.5 million for three years. Deadline: July 9, 2010. 

The Coalition for Juvenile Justice (CJJ) will be holding its 2010 Midwest Region Conference in Chicago, July 9-11. 
The conference will include sessions on  the impact of adolescent brain development research on policy and practice; the role of restorative justice in reducing Disproportionate Minority Contact (DMC) reduction; media and stakeholder's perspectives on effective messaging, and more. (You can see a draft agenda here.) 
Registration is now open through July 2nd -- a great bargain at $50!

If you are involved in running a juvenile drug court, do you ask any of the following questions when you get UA results back for your clients? And do these affect how you or the court sanctions the young person? 

• "How positive is s/he?"
• "Are his/her levels increasing or decreasing?"
• "Does the result mean s/he just used?" 

Those are the wrong questions to ask -- and are especially concerning if teens are being sanctioned based on the answers to these questions -- according to "Urine Drug Concentrations: The Scientific Rationale For Eliminating The Use Of Drug Test Levels In Drug Court Proceedings," by Paul L. Cary, director of the Toxicology and Drug Monitoring Laboratory at University of Missouri Health Care in Columbia Missouri. Though this fact sheet was published by the National Drug Court Institute in January 2004, it's still relevant today.
Here's my gloss of the article:

On Monday, April 19th 2010, Nassau County’s Family Court Deputy County Attorney’s Office was advised that the county was restructuring the department. Our Juvenile Treatment Court prosecutors, Gregg Roth and Arianne Reyer, were advised their services were no longer needed as of Friday, April 30th. Arianne was later given a temporary reprieve, but Gregg is gone.
This move was devastating to the treatment court and to the Reclaiming Futures initiative here, which had built a cohesive working group over the last three years. Just as when I was younger and my brother left home for the military, it had never occurred to me that anyone would ever leave our team. I am left feeling abandoned and alone with Gregg’s departure, just like I did when my brother went off to the Army. Our Nassau County Juvenile Treatment Court/Reclaiming Futures Change Team is family, and one of us is no longer here.