Juvenile Justice Reform

Cambiar, the Spanish word for change, was appropriately chosen as the name of a program in New Mexico that is attempting to transform the juvenile justice system and the young people in the system along with it.

Featured in a recent Daily Beast article “How to Curb Our Mass Incarceration Epidemic,” the Cambiar program at the J. Paul Taylor Center focuses on reform over punishment for inmates, who the center refers to as “clients.”

This transformation to reform, rather than punish, is modeled after Missouri’s juvenile justice system where most teen offenders are in prison schools or work programs, with access to family therapy. Reports indicate that 75 percent of Missouri’s youthful offenders get a year of education each year they are incarcerated—three times the national average. This has led to a startling improvement: 65 percent of offenders in that system are not rearrested within three years of release.

The Cambiar program is aiming for the same positive results—all of its clients have access to education and mentors, something that Reclaiming Futures champions, implements and sees results with:
“The staff here mentors students, teaches real high school classes, provides a clear system of rewards and punishments that excludes extreme approaches like solitary confinement—all tactics that resulted from a 2006 agreement with the ACLU that sheds light on systematic abuses endemic in juvenile systems.”
The Center also strives to provide an environment that nurtures positive peer culture, with the teens learning to do everything together as a unit. Having a support system, the Center believes, is key towards reforming young people:
“They [the Taylor Center] changed to smaller units where the kids were in groups of 12 rather than in large pods. They worked toward regionalization to try to get the kids closer to their families so they could have support from their families,” Sandra Stewart, director of Juvenile Justice Services in New Mexico, said.
Stewart also emphasized that the transformation of the Taylor Center is due to its focus on learning, mental health counseling, and mentoring over lockdowns and punishments.

The author of this article, Soledad O’Brien, interviewed several clients at the Taylor Center as part of her documentary film “Kids Behind Bars,” which airs Sunday, April 12 at 7 p.m. PST on Al Jazeera America:
“’Honestly, like, I've always liked to learn. It was always there but I never actually took the time to sit down. I never had the will. I never had someone to push me and when I came here, like I said, some staff here helped me out with that,” he said. Since I interviewed him, he got out and has completed a 90-day probationary period.”
Learn more about the Cambiar program on the State of New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department (CYFD) website.

Susan Richardson has recently announced her plans to leave the position of national executive director of Reclaiming Futures to return to her home state of North Carolina, and we are grateful for her years of excellent leadership. Yesterday, Reclaiming Futures appointed Mr. Evan Elkin as national executive director, effective May 11, 2015.

Emerging leaders age 17-25 interested in juvenile justice reform will convene at the 2015 Juvenile Justice Youth Summit, co-hosted by The Coalition for Juvenile Justice (CJJ) and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) (OJJDP).

The two-day summit—"The Time is Now: Creating Change with Young Emerging Leaders"—takes place July 23-24, 2015 in Washington, DC.

According to the event announcement, “these next generation leaders gain a better understanding of the current juvenile justice system, examine trending reform topics, and participate in various skill-building, hands-on activities.” Agenda topics include: juvenile justice 101; keeping young people out of adult courts, jails, and prisons; and positive youth development. Additional interactive activities will connect these young leaders with key influencers:

• Hill Day on July 23, 1:30pm - 3:30pm ET - Attendees receive training on legislative advocacy, develop talking points, and visit their members of Congress or their staff to discuss juvenile justice reform and urge them to act on the issue.

• Job Shadowing on July 24, 1:40pm - 3:40pm ET - Attendees will be matched with a juvenile justice professional who is working in a role/issue of their interest. Attendees will shadow the professional for a few hours to get a sense of what a career might look like in that field.

Help identify emerging leaders in juvenile justice, and encourage them to register for the 2015 Juvenile Justice Youth Summit. We can help foster the next generation of leaders who will ultimately impact the future of juvenile justice.

Registration Details

Registration is now open. Register by April 30 for get the early bird discount rate.

• Early registration period: March 12 - April 30, $65 -- All
• Regular Registration Period: May 1 - May 31, $85 -- CJJ Member, $105 -- Non-Member
• Late Registration Period: June 1 - June 26, $110 -- CJJ Member, $120 -- Non-Member

Accommodations

All participants that register during the early registration period or using the non-member rate will receive a complimentary CJJ membership.

CJJ has a room block reserved at The Liaison Hotel for $189/night. To make your reservation you can call (866) 233-4642 or click here. Please reference the "Coalition for Juvenile Justice" group when making reservations or provide the following reservation ID: 15CJJ.

Questions?

Contact Jonathan Litt, CJJ's Field Relations Associate, at litt@juvjustice.org.

Approximately 30 percent of the country’s incarcerated youth are young girls—a rapidly growing group whose needs are not being met, according to significant research and practice indicating the juvenile justice system is catered towards boys.

Photographer Richard Ross has sought to display this through images. Over the past eight years, Ross has visited more than 200 facilities in 34 states and been given rare access to interview and photograph more than 1,000 young people in detention.

His work has resulted in two books Juvenile in Justice and the more recently released Girls in Justice—a close look at the daily lives of young women in juvenile facilities.

PBS NewsHour recently interviewed Ross on his latest collection of powerful photos, sharing a photo essay with commentary from Ross:

Ross said most of the young females he interviewed had remarkably similar stories. Few had committed serious crimes, and many had been the victims of either sexual or physical abuse before their arrest…
The stories he’s heard have been heartwrenching. Among countless stories of physical, sexual and emotional abuse, one 14 year-old girl recounted being raped at age 3, another admitted to being suicidal.
When asked what surprised Ross most about his project, he didn’t hesitate: “How many times I’ve cried,” he said.
See the full photo essay and interview on PBS.

Juvenile Justice Reform

• How Prison Stints Replaced Study Hall (Politico)
  In 2012, the U.S. Department of Justice filed suit to stop the “taxi service” in Meridian’s public schools, where 86 percent of the students are black. The DOJ suit, still unresolved, said children were being incarcerated so “arbitrarily and severely as to shock the conscience.”

• Crime & Delinquency Council selects S.D. for ‘Pay for Success’ (Times of San Diego)
  “NCCD strongly believes that Pay for Success creates a real possibility for sustained, positive change in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems,” said Kathy Park, acting president of NCCD. “We are proud to work with these three extremely dynamic programs to see if this innovative financing will work for them.

• New Bill Would Change How Minors are Tried as Adults (News 4 Jax)
  A bill making its way through the state legislature would cut down on how often State Attorneys can charge juveniles as adults. Under the proposal, it would take a grand jury to charge anyone under the age of 13 as an adult. Prosecutors would only be able to charge 14 and 15 year olds as adults in cases of murder, manslaughter, and sexual assault.

Jobs, Grants, Events and Webinars

• Please share the Reclaiming Futures Opportunity Board with your colleagues in the juvenile justice, adolescent substance abuse and teen mental health areas. It's free to browse and post!

Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment and Mental Health

• Teens in Detention Centers Find Voice, Rehab in Youth Theater (Herald Media)
  On a small stage, seven local teens stood in scrubs -- their backs to an audience of about 75. One by one, they turned around, each somber or angry or both as they told stories of juvenile lockdown and the reasons that got them there. Drugs, truancy, rules, respect, depression and decisions … each story is laced with regret -- each author feels misunderstood -- and most tell of trouble at home.
• Medical College awards $250,000 to reduce youth alcohol, drug abuse (BizTimes.com)
  The Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin (AHW) Endowment awarded $250,000 over two years to reduce the prevalence of alcohol and other drug abuse among youth in northwest Wisconsin’s Rusk County. The Medical College of Wisconsin is the steward of the AHW Endowment as it works to catalyze health improvement within the state.

• New Data: Ind. Teens Trying Pot More Often Than Alcohol and Cigarettes (WNDU.com)
  Dr. Elmaadawi is concerned mainly for teen use. He says there is proven research marijuana can be healing to cancer patients and others suffering from chronic pain, but use for teens is dangerous. He says those who try the drug before age 18 are 67% more likely to continue using. The number drops to 27% for adults who try it for the first time.

The Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth (CSFY) has released the first-ever set of guidelines to protect the rights of young people facing possible life imprisonment. Titled “Trial Defense Guidelines: Representing a Child Client Facing a Possible Life Sentence,” this 24-page report has been endorsed by a wide range of attorneys, child advocates and juvenile justice experts.

Sparked by the findings of the U.S. Supreme Court in the landmark 2012 Miller v. Alabama decision, the guidelines call for a “national standard to ensure zealous, constitutionally effective representation” for all juveniles facing a possible life sentence, citing Miller’s holding that trial courts must “take into account how children are different and how those differences counsel against irrevocably sentencing [children] to a lifetime in prison.”

The guidelines are based on 11 foundational principles including “children are constitutionally and developmentally different from adults,” “children must not be defined by a single act,” “juvenile life defense requires a qualified team trained in adolescent development,” and “juvenile life defense requires communicating with clients in a trauma-informed, culturally competent, developmentally and age-appropriate manner.”

Split into the following nine parts, these guidelines aim to strengthen and improve defense in juvenile life cases:

• Defense Team Composition and Ethical Duties
• Defense Counsel Qualifications and Responsibilities
• Investigator Qualifications and Responsibilities
• Mitigation Specialist Qualifications and Responsibilities
• Sentencing
• Plea Agreements
• Post-Sentencing Responsibilities
• Defense Team Compensation
• Training

“The Trial Defense Guidelines recognize that children need to be treated as children when facing a possible life-in-prison sentence,” said Marsha Levick, chief counsel and deputy director at the Philadelphia-based, nonprofit Juvenile Law Center, in an email. “The guidelines also will ensure a child receives a meaningful, individualized sentencing hearing before imposition of a sentence.”

CFSY collaborated with attorneys and advocates from across the nation to create the guidelines. Visit the CFSY website for more information and access the full guidelines online.

Juvenile Justice Reform

• Juvenile Justice Reform Bill Passes House (South Dakota Public Broadcasting)
  The state House of Representatives passed a bill revising the juvenile justice system in South Dakota. It focuses on alternatives to incarceration and seeks to keep kids in their communities. Senate Bill 73 comes as a result of a work group that met last year. The group found that South Dakota has one of the highest rates juvenile incarcerations, and the bill aims to reduce those numbers. Representative Brian Gosch is a prime sponsor of the measure. He says it creates a presumption of probation.

• Texas Voters Support Criminal Justice Changes, Survey Shows (JJIE)
  Texas voters support sending nonviolent drug offenders to treatment instead of jail, according to an opinion poll from Right on Crime, a national campaign for criminal justice reform. Voters also support decriminalizing school truancy, according to the poll.

• Positive Youth Justice, Part Four: William F. James Ranch, Santa Clara County, Calif. (The Chronicle of Social Change)
  Last month, The Chronicle of Social Change began “Positive Youth Justice: Curbing Crime, Building Assets,” a series that imagines an entire continuum of juvenile justice services built on the positive youth development (PYD) framework. We accomplish the “creation” of that continuum by profiling successful programs and organizations all over the country. Today, we look at Santa Clara County, Calif., which takes a PYD approach to working with incarcerated juvenile offenders.

• Nevada to close its only max security juvenile detention center (Reno-Gazette Journal)
  Nevada's only maximum security juvenile correction center is closing after the private non-profit contractor hired to run it repeatedly ran afoul of safety and civil rights requirements, state officials said Tuesday.
  

Jobs, Grants, Events and Webinars

• Please share the Reclaiming Futures Opportunity Board with your colleagues in the juvenile justice, adolescent substance abuse and teen mental health areas. It's free to browse and post!

Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment and Mental Health

• Raising the legal age for sale of tobacco would keep teens from smoking, panel says (The Washington Post)
  Raising the age for sale of tobacco across the United States could prevent substantial numbers of teenagers from beginning a smoking habit, an influential panel of scientists reported Thursday.

• Young Adult And Teen Suicide Rates Nearly Double In Rural Areas Compared To Urban Areas (Medical Daily)
  In the past, rural teens have been more likely to kill themselves as compared to their urban counterparts. Is the same true today, now that technology has woven us together more tightly? Sadly and surprisingly yes: Between the years 1996 and 2010, a new study finds, the rates of suicide among teens and young-adults ranged twice as high in country settings compared to city areas. In fact, the suicide rate in rural areas is nearly double that in cities... and rising.
• Marijuana may smoke your long-term memory (CBS News)
  Teenagers who smoke marijuana daily may have lingering memory problems and structural abnormalities in the brain, even after they stop using the drug, a small study suggests.

• New App Helps Doctors Catch Suicide Risk (NBC News)
  Doctors and other health professionals have a new tool to help fight suicide -- an app that helps them ask the right questions and check the symptoms of someone who might be at risk. Nearly half of people who die from suicide have seen a health professional of some sort in the month before their deaths and there are ways to find out who might be at risk and help them, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) says.

The National Center for Juvenile Justice (NCJJ) has released Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 2014 National Report, the fourth edition of a comprehensive report on juvenile crime, victimization, and the juvenile justice system.

With seven in-depth chapters, the 2014 National Report provides an insightful view of young offenders and victims, and what happens to those who enter the juvenile justice system in the United States:

• Juvenile Population Characteristics
• Juvenile Victims
• Juvenile Justice System Structure and Process
• Law Enforcement and Juvenile Crime
• Juvenile Offenders in Court
• Juvenile Offenders in Correctional Facilities

This seven-chapter report, sponsored by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, provides sought-after answers to frequently asked questions about the nature of juvenile crime and victimization, as well as the justice system's response. Each chapter presents important and complex information in easy-to-understand, nontechnical writing with supplementary graphics and tables.

Key highlights:

• The juvenile arrest rate for Violent Crime Index offenses is at a historically low level.
• The number of murders committed by juveniles is at its lowest point in at least three decades.
• The juvenile court delinquency caseload reached its lowest level since at least 1990.
• Female juveniles account for a larger share of the delinquency caseload than at any point in the last two decades.
• The juvenile residential placement population reached its lowest level in nearly two decades.

The NCJJ encourages reading the full report when time permits, stating that “Each section offers something new, something that will expand your understanding, confirm your opinions, or raise questions about what you believe to be true.”

The goal of the report is to provide juvenile justice practitioners, policymakers, and the public with the information needed to react appropriately to the needs of youth in the system while also protecting the community. It successfully provides the context needed for debates regarding juvenile justice and the direction of its future.

View the full report on the NCJJ website.

Juvenile Justice Reform

• How Communities are Keeping Kids Out of Crime (CS Monitor)
  Seeing the charge of aggravated robbery involving a gun, a judge at the Lucas County, Ohio, juvenile court held him in pretrial detention for two weeks. Then she found out what weapon he had pulled: a BB gun. Over the next few weeks, while he remained locked up, she learned that Treyvon had a number of characteristics that took him out of the category of high risk for reoffending – a stable home life, his involvement in football and basketball, and a lack of gang involvement. So the judge let him live at home while on probation and take part in a local program that offers mentoring and other social services.

• Md. lawmakers consider housing for youth charged as adults (The Washington Post)
  After 10 years as chief of the St. Mary’s County Detention Center, Capt. Michael Merican is in a situation he says isn’t just difficult, it’s impossible. Merican pays close attention to the needs and well-being of 200 inmates, but one causes him constant worry: a terrified 17-year-old boy.

• White House-sponsored event at UMBC probes help for students in juvenile justice system (Baltimore Sun)
  "We've been doing this work now for decades as we've worked to support children who are first-time offenders," said UMBC President Freeman A. Hrabowski III, "and we believe the model has the potential to help children and families around the country."

• Transforming the Juvenile Justice System (The Take Away)
  Judge Denise Cubbon, the lead judge of the Lucas County Juvenile Court, in Toledo, Ohio, breaks that mold. Along with her Court Administrator, Deborah Hodges, Judge Cubbon has become a champion for change, for some of the country's most vulnerable offenders: Children.
  
• Unlocking the digital classroom for kids in lock up (Marketplace.org)
  Since July 2013, San Diego County Office of Education has spent nearly $900,000 on computers, printers and software for its secure juvenile facilities. Soon every one of the 200 kids here will have access to a Chromebook in class. All the teachers are being trained to run a digital classroom and add tech to the curriculum.
  

Jobs, Grants, Events and Webinars

• Please share the Reclaiming Futures Opportunity Board with your colleagues in the juvenile justice, adolescent substance abuse and teen mental health areas. It's free to browse and post!

Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment and Mental Health

• For addicted N.J. teens, filming their stories saved their lives (NJ.com)
  The "Boys of Bate" is a story of hope and transformation, and for the 18 New Jersey teenagers who made the movie, work on its filming and production helped them to face their addictions and save their lives.

• Mental health: Gaps remain in juvenile mental health care (Las Cruces Sun News)
  "Nationally, between 60 to 70 percent of kids in the juvenile justice system have a mental health disorder and roughly 90 percent have experienced at least one traumatic event," said Terri Williams, deputy secretary of the Kansas Department of Corrections in a news statement from July 28, 2014.
• All Kinds of Therapy New Website for Behavioral Health and Substance Abuse Treatment Launches Today (WKRG.com)
  All Kinds of Therapy is an innovative, user-friendly website that focuses on providing an interactive directory for residential treatment, wilderness therapy, therapeutic boarding schools, and addiction treatment for clients ranging in ages 10 - 30. Additionally, all residential interventions on the site have a wide variety of specializations including psychiatric assessments, anxiety, ADHD, autism spectrum disorders, severe learning disabilities, drug rehabilitation, failure to launch, adoption, or recovery.

Last Thursday, WNYC—one of New York’s flagship public radio stations—and Vera Institute of Justice partnered to host the event: The Current State of Institutionalization: Addressing the Mental Health Crisis Behind Bars.

The event was part of WNYC’s current series “Breaking Point: New York’s Mental Health Crisis” which is a four-part series, hosted by WNYC reporter Cindy Rodriguez, examining the connection between poverty, mental health and the criminal justice system.

Thursday’s event kicked off with opening remarks from New York City First Lady Chirlane McCray and included a panel of experts to discuss the following key topics:

• Systemic issues driving the over-representation of people with serious mental illness in courts, jails, and prisons in New York and across the nation
• The impact of mental health on public health and safety
• Types of reforms to the mental health and justice systems necessary to address the crisis

The event was livestreamed and is now available to view in full. Watch it now to hear from the panel, moderated by Rodriguez and featuring the following experts:

• Ezekiel Emanuel and Dr. Dominic Sisti, authors of the recent commentary “Bring Back the Asylum” in the Journal of the American Medical Association

• Francis Greenburger, founder and president of the Greenburger Center for Social and Criminal Justice

• Robert Bernstein, director of the Bazelon Center

• David Cloud, leader of Vera’s Justice Reform for Healthy Communities initiative