Juvenile Justice Reform

Juvenile Justice Reform News

• One of the two juvenile court judges involved in the Pennsylvania kids-for-cash scandal pleaded guilty on April 29th. (Missed the story? We linked to a story in The New York Times last year about the two judges who apparently accepted money to funnel kids into a private juvenile detention facility.)
• It doesn't really cover juvenile drug courts, but the Organization of American States (OAS), American University, and others have just published an overview of a survey of drug courts in 12 countries, giving an interesting (and positive) international picture of the intervention.
• Helping kids in trouble with the law be successful means helping them be successful in school and on the job. So you might be interested in this paper from The Urban Institute, "Improving Education and Employment for Disadvantaged Young Men: Proven and Promising Strategies."  It reviews the "evidence base on programs and policies such as youth development for adolescents and young teens; programs seeking to improve educational attainment and employment for in-school youth; and programs that try to 'reconnect' those who are out of school and frequently out of work, including public employment programs." Next, it reviews promising and proven strategies for helping affected youth. (Hat tip to @isaac_outcomes.)

Funding for Training Juvenile Drug Court Teams

Got experience helping juvenile drug courts implement the 16 strategies needed to run an effective drug court? The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) is looking for a provider to "build the capacity of service delivery" for juvenile drug courts nationally "through providing online, Web-based, and face-to-face individual and group training sessions."
Interested in applying? "The provider should have substantial experience conducting assessments of technical assistance needs, developing and conducting training on the [s]trategies, effectively communicating and collaborating with drug courts, and conducting post-training evaluations." Deadline is June 15, 2010. 

The National Reentry Resource Center recently sent out the following announcement for not one but two grant opportunities through the Second Chance Act that apply to juveniles.

[The following post is about the Changing Lives Through Literature (CLTL) program. It originally appeared in different form on the CLTL Blog, Changing Lives, Changing Minds, and is reposted here with the permission of the author and the publisher. You can learn more about Bristol County, Massachusetts’ experience with the program here. -Ed.]
 
Recently, I had the chance to interview Michael Habib, who facilitates the Changing Lives Through Literature (CLTL) program for teens in Fall River, MA. Because I volunteer with young offenders in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, I wanted his advice on a few questions:

• What tips do you have for other juvenile reading programs?
• How do you get kids to open up?
• What do you do when they don’t do their assigned work?

It's not news that teens in the juvenile justice system often have trouble in school. But you might be interested in this issue brief from NDTAC*, which summarizes the relevant research on the link between low literacy and delinquency -- and on the probable positive impact that literacy programs have on reducing recidivism. (The research to date, unfortunately, is more suggestive than conclusive.) The brief makes a forceful case for addressing the educational needs of youth in the justice system.
You might also be interested in NDTAC's Transition Toolkit 2.0. Here's what NDTAC says about it:
[The] second edition of NDTAC’s Transition Toolkit brings together strategies, existing practices, and updated resources and documents on transition to enable administrators and service providers to deliver high-quality transition services for children and youth moving into, through, and out of education programs within the juvenile justice system.
Simple communication efforts and the implementation of basic transition processes, such as timely records transfer, can have a dramatic impact on a student’s engagement in school and avoidance of further incarceration. As such, the focus of the Toolkit is on the administrative processes, coordination efforts, and communication practices within the juvenile justice system. The Toolkit offers ideas and tools that administrators can use to improve the basic functioning of their treatment and institution-based programs, with a primary focus on programs related to the educational needs of youth and those who directly provide education services. 

This week, we've got a bonanza of resources, conference presentations, and toolkits related to the juvenile justice system, adolescent substance abuse treatment, and working with troubled youth generally. 
Presentations from Juvenile Justice Conferences You Missed

Still suffering heartburn because you weren't able to make it to that fantastic juvenile justice conference this year? No worries. You can find many of the presentations online. For example:

• Presentations from the Coalition for Juvenile Justice 2010 onference. (Hat tip to Mark Fulop.)
• The 2010 Blueprints conference can help update you on what really works in preventing youth violence.
• Even if you're not a grantee of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), you can find interesting material posted from a recent orientation OJJDP held for new grantees: for example, there's a presentation on how to evaluate your program, another that covers "tools to improve services and program performance," a review of the findings from the National Survey of Children’s Exposure to Violence (NatSCEV), and of course, an overview of OJJDP grant programs.

 
When children you love and care for end up involved with the juvenile justice system, their journey could lead to months or years that slowly extract mental and physical energy from you. That’s why it’s paramount that you surround yourself with natural supports and a safe haven.
 
As parents and caregivers, our natural instinct is to nurture. An inexperienced child – perhaps even our own flesh and blood -- tugs at our hearts. Regardless of the title you hold, or how the child is related to you, you will need to carve out quality time for yourself. I’m sure some of you will laugh at the absurdity of this idea, but in the long run, our young people’s self-made problems from their past can and will come back to haunt our present.

[Last December, I posted a bare-bones summary of the groundbreaking "Pathways to Desistance" study on serious juvenile offenders underwritten by the MacArthur Foundation, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), and eight other funders. This is the first in a series of posts by the two researchers overseeing the study that describes their results with more precision and in more detail. --Ed.]
The Pathways to Desistance study is a multi-site, longitudinal study of serious adolescent offenders as they transition from adolescence into early adulthood. Between November, 2000 and January, 2003, 1,354 adjudicated youths from the juvenile and adult court systems in Maricopa County (Phoenix), Arizona (N = 654) and Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania (N = 700) were enrolled in the study. The enrolled youth were at least 14 years old and under 18 years old at the time of their committing offense and were found guilty of a serious offense (predominantly felonies, with a few exceptions for some misdemeanor property offenses, sexual assault, or weapons offenses). These are the types of serious adolescent offenders that often drive debate about how well the juvenile justice system works to control crime and rehabilitate youth. 

Juvenile Justice System Funding News

• The U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Justice Programs (OJP) has launched a Grants 101 web page to assist applicants.
• Also, the Bureau of Justice Assistance has announced a Second Chance Act grant for state, local, and tribal reentry courts. The target population includes youth released from juvenile detention facilities. Application deadline is June 3, 2010. (Hat tip to the National Reentry Resource Center.)
• The Employment and Training Administration announced the availability of approximately $20 million for two grants to prepare young adult (ages 18 to 24) offenders and high school dropouts in high-poverty, high-crime communities for employment. Only national and regional intermediaries with experience conducting multi-site projects and experience serving young adult offenders will be eligible. The Department expects to award two grants of $10 million each, covering a six-month planning period and two full years of operation. Grantees will be required to competitively select local sub-grantees to operate the program in a minimum of five high-poverty, high-crime communities across at least two States.  Application deadline: May 10th.  

Positive Youth Justice Report

According to a new report that my organization, the Coalition for Juvenile Justice (CJJ), just published, the future for youth involved with the justice system could be dramatically improved by applying the principles of positive youth development (PYD) practice to the juvenile justice system and its services.
The report -- Positive Youth Justice: Framing Justice Interventions Using the Concepts of Positive Youth Development, written by Jeffrey A. Butts, Gordon Bazemore and Aundra Saa Meroe -- explores the tremendous potential of helping court-involved youth develop their pro-social strengths and attributes, and increase their abilities to contribute to healthy, safe family and community life.