By: MARC SCHINDLER AND AMANDA PETTERUTI
Late August, often considered the dog days of summer, is the time of the year when parents of school-age kids start to wonder if the break is perhaps a little too long; a little too unstructured. Those with the resources take off for vacations. Those without the means are left behind to continue to hope kids can fill their days in meaningful ways. It seems like summer has always created some anxiety for adults, who worry that youth will end up in trouble if they don’t have enough to do. Part of that worry may be justifiable: We all want young people engaged in positive activities that can enrich their lives and connect them to opportunity. On the other hand, it’s worth asking if that anxiety is in part rooted in a stigmatization of youth? Do we, as adults and as a culture, get just a little bit nervous when we see groups of kids out and about in the summer, hanging around, doing not much of anything? Are we simply more anxious about kids in the summer because, well, we see more of them outside more often than we would in the winter months? In years past, the Justice Policy Institute braced itself for the inevitable “kids gone wild” story of the summer that would usher in all kinds of knee-jerk reactions rooted in hysteria rather than evidence. Year after year, headlines filled with examples of dramatic high-profile crimes that seemed to justify all kinds of anti-youth responses like ineffective curfews and deeply problematic stop and frisk procedures. Thankfully the typical hysteria seems to have made way for more rational, developmentally appropriate conversations about youth behavior. More often, news outlets these days are discussing the fact that our justice system locks up too many people and reporting on more cost-effective alternatives to incarceration as a necessary, sane direction. But some of our ongoing narratives and assumptions about kids in summer — particularly in our cities — suggest that stigmatization persists despite some advances in the perceptions and treatment of adolescents. We don’t know for sure that summer crime waves even exist. In fact, recent reporting states, “Crime does not spike when temperatures begin to sizzle. Rather, police in the Baltimore and Washington corridor say there is a seasonal shift in the type of criminal acts being committed.” In other words, there is a shift to behaviors like vandalism, bicycle theft, breaking into unlocked cars and crimes of opportunity. The data show that millions of young people across race and social classes engage in these types of activities, and that when young people are connected to school, work and meaningful relationships, they will move past these misbehaviors. Yet a quick Google search pulls up numerous stories connecting “summer,” “boredom” and “crime,” stoking the fears of roving, restless youth. Our language continues to promote the idea that kids, without the intervention of well-intentioned adults, automatically gravitate to trouble. That narrative has consequences for kids and communities. Baltimore, in an attempt to protect its young people, recently expanded its curfews laws that broaden the opportunity to criminalize youth. Opponents point out picking up youth for things like hanging out past 10 p.m. does little to advance efforts to promote safety and target more serious behavior with already limited resources. And while officers are given discretion about whether or not to stop kids, other jurisdictions and communities already know that “discretion” too often means “profiling” for kids of color. In itsstory on the Baltimore curfew law, The New York Times reports that although only 30 percent of the residents of Kansas City are black, about 75 percent of youths held on curfew violations last year were black. Clearly there are troubled neighborhoods and communities that need positive investments to promote health and safety, and to connect young people to the kinds of support that all of us needed as kids to transition to adulthood. But that is a need and effort that goes beyond the warmer months of the calendar. But as adults and parents, do we need to examine our motivations for wanting kids programmed all summer and for every minute of the day? Do we want kids engaged in the summer because we fear that if left to their own devices, they automatically default to unruly gangs of teens? And, if we’re very honest, what kids are we most worried about (or afraid of)? Again, our memories of our own youth and the data show that while mischief can happen in the summer and during the school year, that’s a far cry from the kinds of crimes that would justify contact and any kind of prolonged involvement with the justice system. As we think about these issues, we should be willing to give kids the benefit of the doubt. The latest research also tells us that by shifting to a paradigm that supports positive, appropriate programming that improves outcomes by building on young people’s strengths, expanding their capacity to live interesting, enriched lives and giving them the opportunity to make good decisions. we’re supporting the kinds of programs that help kids and communities. So rather than fearing the long days of summer, maybe we can start conversations that embrace it as a time when young people can begin to exercise their freedom, with some guidance and periodic oversight from caring adults. Our perceptions, language and actions should focus on channeling freedom and connecting youth to opportunity, which at the end of the day is the best thing we can do to help our young people stay on the right track and to create safer communities for all of us. Marc Schindler is Executive Director of JPI. Amanda Petteruti is Senior Research Associate of JPI. THE WEATHERFORD DEMOCRAT
The Parker County Community Learning Center is truly a one-of-a-kind organization. Dedicated to helping youth ages 18-21 who have been involved in the juvenile justice system, CLC provides opportunities for its participants to get their lives straight and help them on to a new, more productive path through the Serve, Earn and Learn program. Those eligible must be residents of Parker County, have previous involvement in the juvenile justice system and have no convictions in the adult system. In 2012, the program received a $1.5 million grant from the Department of Labor. But now, with that grant coming to an end, program coordinators are hoping for more participation in order to reapply for another grant. “There are currently 77 participants involved in the CLC, and we have a goal of around 180 in order to maintain the grant,” said Kimberly Durst, program recruiter. Through Serve, Earn and Learn, students attend the program four days a week, with half of the time spent in the classroom and the other half in a supervised work setting. Currently, two of the major projects ongoing for students are the Mount Pleasant Colored School and the cabins at Lake Holland. On Monday, students were out at Lake Holland installing vents, priming windows for painting and hauling old wood to make room for bunk beds. The group hopes to have the camp prepped and ready for rental by winter. By: JUDGE GEORGE TIMBERLAKE, RET.
Sex offenders are people, too. You probably won’t see that on bumper stickers soon, but it is the sentiment I try to convey when explaining my views of how our society should respond to sexual offenses committed by children. It’s one thing to tell an audience that research studies show young sex offenders respond well to treatment and — when reached with appropriate therapy — are not likely to offend again. But research and data don’t carry the impact of a personal story. As part of the follow up to the Illinois Juvenile Justice Commission’s recent report on juvenile sex offenses, we have begun interviewing young people who have been adjudicated for a sex offense to see how conviction and registration statutes have changed their lives. We also want to know more about how the victims have been affected. What follows is the story of one young male, his sister and their family. Of course, their names, locations and current employments have been disguised. The mother heard some news coverage at the time of our report release and called us to offer help and to tell their story as representative of the harm that can be done by sex offender registries. Let’s call the participants Mike, Mary, Mother and Father. According to Mother, the marriage fell apart due to Father’s anger issues and the messy divorce dragged on for three years in the courts. They had loud arguments, and the tension in the home was palpable. Everyone was affected, and Mike was in counseling to help him cope. The long battle had taken its toll on a 12-year-old boy with issues of his own. He was ADHD, introverted and socially isolated at school and had been in special education since the first grade. About the time that the divorce was final, Mother found photos of naked children on Mike’s computer, and one of those children was Mary. Greatly alarmed, she immediately made an appointment for Mike with his therapist. Mike revealed that he had found his father’s pornography when he was 8-years-old and became addicted to Internet porn. He didn’t know that it was wrong and at that age, he was not attracted to adult women and gravitated to pictures of kids closer to his own age. Under state law, the counselor was a “Mandated Reporter” and called the police who came to the home very quickly. They asked to see Mike’s computer, and he gave them permission. By this time, he was quite tech savvy and felt that the police could not find his stash of porn. They did. Mike was arrested and taken to detention for a few days, but his adjudication came months later because he was arrested for a new crime. He broke into an unoccupied house and used the computer to access web porn. He was discovered when the owners arrived to show the house to a prospective buyer. Mike ran out the door, left his bike in the front yard and headed for home. An hour later, A SWAT team arrived to arrest him. Mike was placed in detention for a week but was transferred to a private psychiatric hospital when he became suicidal. He survived. By this time, his school district had sent him to an alternative high school where he was surrounded by chronic drug users and other bad influences. Mother determined the only way to save him would be placement in a residential treatment program. She looked unsuccessfully for affordable and effective residential treatment nearby. It would nearly bankrupt her, but she decided an expensive and distant facility was the only way to save Mike’s life. Mother sent both siblings — separately — to a teen nature treatment facility out of state. Mike stayed 16 weeks, and Mary stayed 12. Although each reported that it was tough, Mike now thinks that it was a turning point. He stayed in the other state and attended boarding school after the nature program. These facilities cost a fortune, and Mother’s sacrifice included all of her retirement savings and selling the family home. Friends helped some, but she teeters on bankruptcy today. When Mike returned home, the local police discovered he had a Facebook page and arrested him for a felony violation of failure to include the Facebook information on the registry form. He had done so many times in the past but just forgot during his most recent registration with local police. When he was arrested, the police turned it into a public spectacle by parading him out of his workplace at the busiest time of day. Nothing inappropriate was found on his computer, phone or camera, and he has passed all of his drug tests while on probation. He pleaded to a misdemeanor, but because he was now 19, it became a public criminal record. Although his juvenile court record is confidential, this new charge must be explained each time he applies for a job, college admission or for an apartment. Needless to say, his job record is spotty. He is attending college part time and working low wage jobs when he can get them. He cannot petition to be removed from the registry because his violation was within five years of adjudication. Mike is now 22 and has complied with all probation requirements and is eligible for discharge from probation in a few months. But he still will have to abide by the registry requirements, and his misdemeanor at age 19 still will be a public record. He is thinking a move to a state without a registry may be the only way he will be able to live a normal life. And what about Mary? She is enrolled in a university and is doing well. She is happy, well adjusted and appreciates the therapy which she received. And she loves her brother. I do not describe this situation as a victimless crime. Life has been far from perfect for Mary, and other children in the Internet photos likely did not receive the kind of support and counseling that helped Mary. In Mike’s case, no risk assessment instrument was used nor was any juvenile sex offender specific treatment provided. Had Mike been assessed early and given good treatment, this case may have had a shorter life. Instead, his actions at age 12 have left him deeply depressed, ashamed and fearful 10 years later. This is just one of many, many poignant stories about young offenders and their victims. Along with data and research, they can help explain to the public why registries do not make us safer. Registries do create thousands of outcasts without connections to normative environments, and that damages public safety. By stepping forward to explain their experiences, Mike, his mother and sister hope to encourage changes that will benefit other families in the future. Changing public attitudes will take a combination of time, research, public education, and retelling of similar stories about youngsters like Mike, who are people, too. By Dick Mendel THE EVIDENCE BEHIND EVEN THE MOST HIGHLY-REGARDED TREATMENT MODELS FOR COURT-INVOLVED YOUTH ISN’T NEARLY AS STRONG AS ADVERTISEDFourteen years ago, I authored my first major report on juvenile justice, “Less Hype, More Help: Reducing Juvenile Crime, What Works – And What Doesn’t,” marking an exciting milestone in my career. The report was released at a full-bore press conference at the National Press Club, where I got to present my findings, and it generated a modest swirl of news stories across the country. Better yet, it earned me my first and only interview on national television. Well, kinda sorta national television — MSNBC. But looking back at the report today, re-reading the first few pages, I feel as much sheepish as proud. I feel sheepish because the report opens with what, in the cold sobriety of hindsight, I can only describe as a naïve, hyperbolic tale about the wondrous transformation available to our nation’s juvenile justice systems if only they would adopt the handful of so-called evidence-based treatment models. (Read the opening passages of “Less Hype, More Help.”) I was reminded of “Less Hype, More Help” this month by the rollout of a JJIE’s new online Resource Hub on evidence-based programs and practices, and by Gary Gately’s feature story JJIE published Wednesday about evidence-based programming. Both are well-written and packed with information — well worth your time. But reading them only heightened my sense that discussions of evidence-based juvenile justice remain, well, naïve and hyperbolic, just as I was in 2000. I know better now, and in this column I want explain why my unqualified praise for these gold-standard models was misplaced. Don’t get me wrong. There is an important place in juvenile justice reform for carefully crafted treatment models with hard evidence from randomized trials. And there’s an even more important place for rigorous outcomes measurement and data-driven decision making. But my suggestion that we can revolutionize juvenile justice in this country by replacing the current system with plug-and-play programs was a fantasy back in 2000. And it remains a fantasy today. This is true for several reasons. First, no effort to reform juvenile justice should begin with a treatment program, evidence-based or otherwise. That’s putting the cart before the horse, a loser’s bet. Juvenile justice operates as a system, not a collection of programs. While programs are important, even the best program models will come to no avail if they are embedded within dysfunctional systems prone to making bad decisions in untimely ways about how to serve and sanction court-involved young people. The second problem is definitional: Who decides what is or isn’t evidence-based, and using what criteria? Lists identifying effective, proven or promising adolescent prevention and treatment models have proliferated rapidly in recent years, but — due to the lack of any consensus in the field on how to define “evidence-based” — they vary widely in their criteria for inclusion. Some set the standards of proof so low that many recommended models lack any reliable evidence of effectiveness. Third, rules requiring exclusive or heavy reliance on evidence-based models necessarily exclude many home-grown or idiosyncratic strategies that are rooted in communities but lack the pedigree of a rigorous, carefully controlled evaluation study. That kind of research is expensive, beyond the means of many community agencies and grassroots organizations that have a keen interest in — and untapped capacity to support — youth in high poverty neighborhoods where most juvenile court cases arise. Such rules can also stifle innovation, which is critically needed given the still-small array of interventions with powerful evidence of effectiveness and our still-limited scope of knowledge of what work best for youth facing different types of risks and needs. All of these issues pose vexing challenges to the evidence-based movement in juvenile justice. In this column, I want to focus attention on another, less appreciated problem facing the evidence-based programs movement. That is the seldom discussed fact that the research behind even the most highly-regarded intervention models isn’t nearly as strong as many assume (or allege). Unconvincing Evidence for Prevention ModelsIn 2006, the editors of Youth Today (a bi-monthly newspaper on youth development now published by the Center for Sustainable Journalism, the same organization that publishes JJIE) sent me to cover a national conference about evidence-based models for reducing delinquency and adolescent substance abuse. Three years later, Youth Today hired me to write a series of columns featuring new research on what works and doesn’t work in youth development. These assignments gave me a chance to examine the evidence on model programs more closely, not just on juvenile justice interventions but also delinquency prevention, child welfare and other children and youth programs. The more I looked, the more concerned I grew. For instance, one of my Youth Today columns in 2010 touted a highly-regarded Australian model called “Positive Parenting Program,” or Triple P, a community-wide strategy for reducing child abuse. Unlike other community-wide approaches to reducing child abuse, which yielded “limited or no evidence of effectiveness,” Triple P showed encouraging results in a host of overseas research studies. And a 2009 evaluation in South Carolina found that counties that implemented Triple P had far better results than non-participating counties in terms of overall maltreatment rates, foster care placements and emergency room visits stemming from child maltreatment. Swayed by these studies, I informed Youth Today readers that the Triple P model “can make a dramatic and cost-effective difference.” Not so much, it turns out. In 2012, an independent review of the available research found “no convincing evidence that Triple P interventions work across the whole population or that any benefits are long-term.” In most cases, the available studies were methodologically weak and involved very small samples. And all but one was authored by personnel affiliated with the Triple P model. Then this spring, University of Cambridge criminologist Manuel Eisner published a working paper delineating “Seven Reasons to Be Skeptical” about the about Triple P study in South Carolina. In 2007, two years before releasing their results, scholars working on the South Carolina evaluation publicly detailed their study design, including the sample to be studied, research protocols and outcome measures. Yet when their final paper appeared, many of these parameters had changed without explanation: a different age range of children, a different time period for comparison, a different unit of analysis. Worse yet, the final study reported on just three of the 11 outcome measures identified in the research plan, and it added a new measure that wasn’t included in the initial research plan. These kinds of “post-hoc” changes are telltale warning signs in evaluation research, offering easy opportunity for researchers to cherry-pick the data they choose to report. Meanwhile, the Triple P study did not acknowledge any conflicts of interest, as required, even though the study’s first author was a Triple P consultant and the second author was the founder of Triple P and director of a thriving for-profit business dedicated to replicating the model internationally. Sadly, problems with post-hoc changes, data cherry-picking and conflicts of interest are not limited to Triple P or to child abuse prevention. Over the past dozen years, serious critiques have also been published questioning the research behind several of the most widely touted school-based models for preventing delinquency, substance abuse and/or smoking. These critiques find that scholarly papers evaluating model prevention programs — typically written by the developers and promoters of the models — have frequently employed dubious methods and selective reporting to justify positive findings. Among the models whose research has been subjected to sharp criticism are Life Skills Training, the Seattle Social Development Model, Project Alert and the Midwest Prevention Project, all of which have been touted as proven or effective on lists of evidence-based practices maintained by Blueprints for Violence Prevention, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Department of Education, National Institutes of Drug Abuse,and/or Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The model developers have ardently defended their research, of course, and raised some persuasive points. Yet, to an informed lay observer like me, the critics have the better of the argument: Troublesome methodological anomalies do seem pervasive in the research behind a number of prevention models widely recognized as evidence-based. While these kinds of anomalies do not prove intentional misconduct — unconscious bias is far more likely — the result nonetheless is research that tips the scales in favor of the models being studied and presents an unrealistic and inflated portrait of their impact. (Some of the models have since been downgraded or removed from some lists.) Dennis Gorman, a scholar at Texas A&M who has written many studies critiquing the research on evidence-based prevention models, concludes that “Much of what goes on in the analysis of these school-based prevention programs is simply not consistent with the type of rigorous hypothesis testing that one associates with the term ‘science.’” In fact, a few years ago, Gorman and a colleague published a paper about Drug Abuse Resistance Education (or DARE), one of the few models that has been found to be ineffective based on evaluation research. The paper found that, using statistical techniques commonly employed in studies supporting many other models, they could show that DARE, too, was evidence-based — even though any objective reading of the evidence finds that the DARE model has little or no effect on participating youth. Questions About MST ResearchNot surprisingly, questions have also been raised about the research into model programs aimed at reducing crime and delinquency among those already involved in lawbreaking behavior. In 2005, veteran social research scholars Anthony Petrosino and Haluk Soydan examined 300 evaluation studies of intervention programs designed to reduce criminal behavior. They found that studies conducted by the developer of the model being examined showed large reductions in recidivism (average effect size of nearly one-half a standard deviation), while studies conducted by independent evaluators found an average effect size of exactly zero. As Eisner puts it, “There is evidence of a worrying pattern in criminological evaluation research and that systematic bias is one possible explanation that we can’t afford to ignore.” To date, there has been less scrutiny of the research behind the two types of models that have produced strong results in reversing delinquency and other problem behaviors among troubled adolescents: cognitive-behavioral therapy, and family-focused treatment approaches such as FFT, MTFC and MST. So far as I’m aware, the research behind the leading cognitive behavioral therapy models has not been subjected to an exacting review regarding research methodology or potential bias introduced by model developers evaluating their own models. (As with the prevention models, developers have conducted much or most of the experimental research for several of the leading CBT models.) Likewise, I have not seen any serious methodological critiques of Functional Family Therapy or Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care. However, Multisystemic Therapy (MST) was examined in a 2005 study by a research team lead by Julia Littell, a social work scholar at Bryn Mawr College. Littell identified a number of weaknesses in the MST research, and after employing a statistical technique called meta-analysis to synthesize the results from multiple studies, she characterized the research on MST as “inconclusive.” The available evidence, she found, “does not support the hypothesis that MST is consistently more effective than usual services or other interventions for youth with social, emotional, or behavioral problems.” MST developer Scott Henggeler and other scholars affiliated with MST authored a sharp rebuttal, questioning Littell’s analysis and citing their own research showing that weak results in MST are typically tied to lack of fidelity to the MST model, rather than weakness in the model itself. Indeed, studies by MST-affiliated researchers consistently show that results are far better in MST programs with high adherence to the MST model than those with lower adherence, and MST’s sponsors have developed elaborate processes to promote adherence in MST replication sites. However, Littell remained unbowed in her criticism, countering in a follow-up essay that the treatment adherence measure employed by MST researchers to measure fidelity was ill-defined, and that the other criticisms of her study were replete with “logical and factual errors.” Littell also noted that Henggeler and his colleagues face an enormous conflict of interest as both the promoters and evaluators of their own model. Citing publicly available data, Littell reported that MST had reaped $55 million in research grants through 2004, and that MST Services Inc., the for-profit enterprise established by Henggeler and his team to support MST replication, collected $400 to $550 in licensing, training and consulting fees for each of the 10,000 families then served by MST each year. Time for Higher Research StandardsLacking advanced statistical training, I am not qualified to score the debate between Littell and the MST promoters. If I were a betting man, I’d wager that if implemented carefully and targeted to youth fitting the profile for which it is intended, MST is most likely a highly-effective intervention. I’d be less confident to bet that MST would outperform similar interventions without the brand name (or evidence-based) imprimatur. Indeed, a comprehensive analysis commissioned by the Center for Juvenile Justice Reform in 2010 found that MST and Functional Family Therapy "fall well within the range of other family programs” and that “some no-name programs produced effects even larger than those found for the model programs.” The point is not that we should abandon or turn away from the movement toward evidence-based models like MST. That would be foolhardy. The rapid proliferation of empirical evidence about what works and doesn’t in addressing delinquent behavior has been one of the most important and promising developments in juvenile justice in recent times, and the emergence and spread of carefully crafted intervention models backed by scholarly research is an entirely welcome development. Indeed, several states (likeConnecticut, Florida, Louisiana and Ohio) have made achieved impressive results by replicating evidence-based models on a large scale — improving youth outcomes, reducing recidivism and saving taxpayers’ money. But continuing to ignore the valid empirical questions being raised about the research supporting these models would be equally foolhardy. To employ a baseball analogy, we’ve only reached first base in our research about evidence-based juvenile justice. We need many more models, and we need to develop a much deeper understanding of what works, when, for which youth and under what circumstances. And, critically, we need higher standards for research. We need more transparency. Fourteen years ago the emergence of models with any evidence of effectiveness was newsworthy, and the spread of such models was paltry. Today, these program models are household names in our field. Together, they have become a growth industry in the field, and they now consume hundreds of millions of dollars per year in state and local funds. This isn’t little league any more. A Love Letter to Evidence-Based Practices for Combating Juvenile Crime(The opening passage of "Less Hype, More Help") Today, several of the models touted in “Less Hype, More Help” are widely known, such as Multisystemic Therapy (MST), Functional Family Therapy (FFT) and Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care (MTFC). But back then few people had heard of these approaches. Hence my temptation to trumpet them so boldly. Or part of my temptation. I was also seduced, like many others since, by the aura of precision and certainty these evidence-based models inject into discussions of juvenile justice. My opening passage oozed with the smug certitude often bred by the imprimatur of peer-reviewed science. I started with a question: “What if we could take a chronic juvenile delinquent, a kid who has been arrested five, six, 10 times, and instead of sending him away for a year to juvenile prison for $40,000 or $50,000 (only to come home with a 50 to 70 percent chance of re-offending) ... what if instead of that we could keep him at home, spend less than $5,000 working with him and his family over four or five months and cut the likelihood that he’ll re-offend in half?” And then another: “What if, for a chronic delinquent who is just too unruly to stay with her parents, instead of sending her to a group home or youth prison we could spend just a little more to place her into a specialized foster home for six to nine months, work with the child and coach her parents and reduce the amount of time she can expect to be incarcerated by 75 days over the next two years?” And then a third: “What if, for chronically disobedient elementary school children, we could spend just $1,500 for a two-pronged program — video-based parenting skills training and classroom-based social competence training for the child — and reduce problem behaviors dramatically (by 30 percent or better) in 95 percent of all cases, significantly reducing the number who will be arrested later as juveniles?” Then came the punchline: “Well, you can stop asking, ‘What if?’ We can. We can. And we can.” If only it were that simple. CINCINNATI (Angela Ingram) Teens took a hard look at violence and the effects it could have on their future Friday. They met with Cincinnati's police chief and a panel of judges for a youth summit. In a time when police see younger and younger children committing violent crimes the kids found a positive way to spend the afternoon. They had questions about how to avoid getting caught in the juvenile justice system. Aristotle Buie, a high school student, said, "I asked the questions I asked because I was concerned for myself and for some of my friends." Aristotle was aware that his actions now could affect his goal of becoming a lawyer later. He and dozens of other young people who were at the youth forum addressed the problem of gun violence. Judge Fanon Rucker of the Hamilton County Municipal Court said, "Some of the young people are asking what type of programs are out there for the youth. What initiatives the police department and the juvenile court have in order to address or to stop the gun violence. I mean very, very thoughtful questions that show that the kids are engaged." The panel of judges, social service workers, and Cincinnati's police chief were also there to encourage the teens. Chief Jeffrey Blackwell said he tried to get to young people before they take the wrong path. Once they enter the justice system there's a 70 percent chance that they will stay in it. "My goal as a chief is to be preventive and not reacting to kids once they already get into trouble. So the more that we can spread the message of self-love and appreciate your neighborhood and having good character, that's what we want to preach," said Blackwell. Adults who volunteered their time hope the teens achieve great things and they take in every piece of advice. The groups that organized the event said the next forum focuses on entrepreneurship and helping the teens get jobs. Follow Angela Ingram on Twitter @newslaw1 and LIKE her on Facebook. Read More at: http://www.local12.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/teens-address-issue-gun-violence-at-youth-forum-15829.shtml ATLANTA | Parents and youths who are not happy with how the juvenile justice system operates now have someone to listen to them.
The Department of Juvenile Justice announced the Office of the Ombudsman last week. Through this new position, Commissioner Avery D. Niles hopes teens in the juvenile justice system and their families will have an easy path to problem resolution. “The ombudsman position is DJJ’s agency-wide ‘problem-solver,’ responsible for reviewing complaints related to the treatment of youth, examining their grievances for policy compliance and attempting to resolve all claims in a fair and judicious manner for our residents,” he said in a press release. The Juvenile Justice Reforms law, enacted Jan. 1, aims to remove low-level offenders — including truants, runaways or other nonviolent delinquents — from detention facilities and help the ones left to receive therapy or counseling to avoid further arrests. Making these changes reduces costs and concentrates the resources on those remaining. In the past, the department has faced understaffing and high turnover rates. In turn, these issues make it harder to maintain the correct officer-to-youth ratio, according to a performance review from the Georgia Department of Audits and Accounts, resulting in a less safe environment. Gang-related issues, fights and officer misconduct were reported in facilities across the state, with a disproportionately high number in the Augusta Youth Development Campus. Investigating these problems would continue to be handled internally, but the ombudsman offers another path for these cases. Most grievances crossing the ombudsman’s desk will come from outside the department, including concerns from parents and family members, but inmates can submit complaints if they believe a previously filed complaint was not addressed properly. Debbie Carter will be the ombudsman, and she believes the office’s creation adds to other resources in the department. Most cases she handles will be simple and easily resolved, she said, such as a mistake in visitation forms. This office simplifies contact between the Department of Juvenile Justice and families, Carter said, and she looks forward to building trust between the two groups. “I’m hoping the parents and the youths will feel more comfortable because they do have this single point of contact,” she said. “I’m hoping that by having this unit, we can kind of just form a relationship with the public and parents so they can see we are here for fairness.” By John Lash
“Whoever has experienced the power and the unrestrained ability to humiliate another human being automatically loses his own sensations. Tyranny is a habit, it has its own organic life, it develops finally into a disease.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The House of the Dead In the U.S. we usually consider prisons and jails to be violent places, as if there were no alternative. We imagine that because violent people are sent there it is a foregone conclusion that violence will happen. What we often overlook is the contribution of correctional systems and staff to the atmosphere, and our failure to hold them accountable (since they work for us) makes us culpable. The conditions of prisons and jails are the direct result of what we allow. The U.S. Department of Justice on Monday released a long awaited report on the conditions of youth between 16 and 18 held at Rikers Island in the East River of New York City. Comparing conditions there to “The Lord of the Flies,” U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bhara, declared Rikers to be “a broken institution for adolescents” that will “produce broken people.” Who was responsible for the chaos? The report found that the city has violated the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution through a systemic failure to protect youths from harm “that is the result of the repeated use of excessive and unnecessary force by correction officers … as well as high levels of inmate-on-inmate violence.” The violence between inmates was found to be the result of improper supervision and suppression of reports about assaults of all sorts. The report also focused on the overuse of punitive segregation, a technical term for solitary confinement, especially with mentally ill children “at an alarming rate and for an excessive periods of time.” Unlike many states, New York automatically charges 16- and 17-year-old kids as adults, putting them under the purview of correctional authorities and allowing them to be placed in the notorious facility. They, along with 18-year-olds, are segregated from the other approximately 10,000 prisoners on the island. Instead of affording them protection though, the concentrated housing of youth has contributed to an increase in violence. Factual findings of the report included:
Systemic deficiencies that support the deeply entrenched culture of violence were also noted. Inadequate reporting and investigation of violence of all sorts is common, as is a lack of discipline for staff and inmates who perpetrate violence and a general lack of supervision of inmates. Another factor was the regular placement of the most inexperienced guards in the adolescent housing areas and schools. Inmates were frequently beaten for falling asleep in class, cursing at guards and other minor infractions. One student who fell asleep in class was punched in the face by a guard using handcuffs as brass knuckles. When he cursed at her she dragged him into the hall and along with several other guards beat, kicked and maced the boy. Sometimes after kids were beaten they would be taken to a holding area where another group of officers, often investigators, would beat them again. A teacher interviewed for the investigation heard thumps and screams while the student was beaten, and heard the boy “crying and screaming for his mother.” Non-correctional staff are discouraged from reporting such incidents. As another teacher reported, staff know to “turn their heads away, so that they don’t witness anything.” There is some hope of change, The new head of the city’s corrections department is Joseph Ponte . HIred by Mayor De Blasio earlier this year, Ponte arrived from Maine, where he garnered a reputation as a reformer. The report notes that Ponte was not working for the city when the abuses occurred, and that federal investigators were given access to tens of thousands of pages of records as well as the facility for interviews. Still, the culture of violence is, as Bharara said, “deeply seated.” Norman Seabrook, head ot the powerful correction officer union, called Ponte’s hiring a “bad move.” Seabrook, a former corrections officer and leader of the union for nearly 20 years, openly mocked Ponte, holding copies of Dr. Seuss books up during a press conference in April. “We need leadership, we don’t need a reformer, we need law and order,” he said. “We don’t need someone to come in here and tell us ‘Well, this is how we do it in Maine.’ Well, guess what? Welcome to New York City. This is not Maine.” This kind of opposition to change is at the heart of NYC’s corrections department. The officers undoubtedly have a difficult job, and managing the jail is made more difficult by the widespread prevalence of gangs long accustomed to violence. In more bad news for proponents of reform, the Bronx district attorney announced on Wednesday that there will be no prosecution of two guards described in the report who severely beat two inmates in the medical section, one of whom was handcuffed to a gurney. Citing problems with the testimony of non-correctional staff the office decided they could not obtain a conviction. Bharara said in his news conference that Rikers is “broken.” He is right of course, but what is to be done? The report directly challenges the culture not only of violence, but of corruption through lying, obfuscation, falsification of reports and destruction of video surveillance. This is unlikely to change in the near future. With nearly a thousand guards working at Rikers any attempts to improve professionalism will take a long time. The U.S. Attorney supports moving these kids off of Rikers to another location as first step, and adds the adoption of a management model more suited to juvenile offenders and specialized training for staff managing them. In the longer term New York should change its policy of automatically classifying older teens as adults. It’s not only kids but everyone there who suffers under the current system, including those with mental illness . The citizens of New York and NYC should stop blithely accepting such treatment as the norm, as should we all. Our tacit approval of such practices, which are in no way limited to New York or even large cities, makes us accountable as well. It’s been said that a nation is best judged by how it treats its prisoners. If so then we are falling woefully short. Louisiana is starting construction this month on a $19 million juvenile detention facility in Bunkie.
The Acadiana Center for Youth will be the state's first secure facility built to focus on therapy and counseling, rather than on functioning as a prison. The Office of Juvenile Justice broke ground Thursday on the Avoyelles Parish facility. The detention center will use a therapeutic treatment model that has been put in place at all of Louisiana's youth prisons. The model emphasizes counseling and teaching social skills and problem-solving techniques. Youth are housed in small groups, rather than large dorms for more intensive treatment. When completed, OJJ says the Acadiana Center for Youth will house up to 72 juvenile offenders from south and central Louisiana. Construction is expected to take up to two years. Winston Churchill once observed that “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing — after they’ve tried everything else.” And we West Virginians are nothing if not Americans.
So it turns out that state leaders have done the right thing on some pretty knotty issues after years of trying other things. One example is Gov. Tomblin’s leadership in dealing with prison overcrowding. The issue had been studied for years. Most people who were paying attention have known for years that despite a flat population and low crime rate, we were incarcerating more and more people longer and burning up tax dollars that could better have been used elsewhere — and we weren’t making the public any safer. With the backing of state leaders and assistance of the Justice Center of the Council of State Governments, Tomblin pushed legislation in 2013 aimed at addressing the problems. Now, for the first time in years, prison numbers are going down and the state is adopting evidence-based methods for reducing recidivism. I have many friends who felt that the 2013 legislation didn’t go far enough. While I agree it could have been better, progress is undeniable. And with the expansion of Medicaid and the move toward drug courts statewide, we also have a chance at chipping away at a substance abuse epidemic that has filled jails, damaged communities and destroyed lives all over the state. I’m hoping that West Virginia can make similar progress on another knotty problem — the juvenile justice system, which can without hyperbole be described as a hot mess. Here again, people have known for years that there are serious problems with the system. Back in 2001, for example, my late co-worker, Carol Sharlip, published a report that focused on huge racial disparities in the juvenile justice system, a pattern which persists to this day. At the time, African American youths made up 4 percent of the overall juvenile population but comprised 18 percent of youth placed in detention. The racial disparities nearly doubled at every stage in the system, from arrest to trial to conviction to sentencing. Among other things, the report called for a greater use of community-based corrections rather than incarceration for young offenders who weren’t a threat to public safety. Sharlip’s report sparked some interest at the time in the state Supreme Court and Legislature, although nothing substantial was done. Fast forward 14 years, and something pretty much has to be done. Lawsuits and a host of troubles have forced some juvenile facilities to close and forced a massive restructuring of the system. Overcrowding is a persistent problem, which has resulted in unrest and at least one “near riot” at a juvenile facility. Today, the system is unsafe for both juveniles and the adults who work in it. Here again, West Virginia is an outlier — not in a good way. Around the country, the Annie E. Casey Foundation reports: “A sea change is underway in our nation’s approach to dealing with young people who get in trouble with the law. Although we still lead the industrialized world in the rate at which we lock up young people, the youth confinement rate in the United States is rapidly declining.” To be exact, the rate of youth confinement has dropped by 41 percent nationwide since 1995, without causing a surge in juvenile crime. Rather, “The public is safer, youth are being treated less punitively and more humanely, and governments are saving money — because our juvenile justice systems are reducing their reliance on confinement,” the foundation says. Too bad that isn’t true in West Virginia. Our state is one of only five jurisdictions where the youth incarceration rate has grown. We’re leading the pack in the wrong direction. Further, over 70 percent of state youth in placement are there for nonviolent offenses or misdemeanors, like truancy, theft and technical violations. Fewer than 12 percent were convicted of serious violent crimes like homicide, sexual assault, robbery or aggravated assault. For nonviolent offenders, community-based corrections systems are more effective and less damaging over the course of a lifetime than incarceration. Locking up young people who are not a threat to public safety leads to all kinds of negative outcomes, including lower levels of education, earnings, assets, lower rates of marriage, strained ties to family and community and cycling in and out of the system. It can make a bad situation much worse for individuals, families and communities. It’s also expensive for taxpayers. According to the American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia, it costs $83,000 per year to incarcerate a young person in a Division of Juvenile Services facility, while housing one in a DHHR facility can cost over $100,000. It is estimated that West Virginia spent $31 million to lock up young people here and an additional $25 to $30 million in out-of-state placements. Fortunately, Gov. Tomblin and other state leaders are taking action. The governor announced the formation of a juvenile justice task force which will work with Pew Charitable Trusts to address problems in the system. Pew is a national group with expertise in the issues and extensive experience of working in other states. The task force’s mission is “to review West Virginia’s juvenile justice system and data and develop system-led recommendations to improve outcomes for youth, families and communities, enhance accountability for juvenile offenders and the system and contain taxpayer costs by focusing resources on serious juvenile offenders.” Senate President Jeff Kessler has likewise appointed a bipartisan group of senators to work on the issue. I’m hopeful that West Virginia will seize this chance to develop a better way to deal with juvenile offenders, one that promotes public safety, improves the lives of young people and the communities in which they live, and redirects the savings in cost to more productive uses. We’ve tried everything else. Wilson, director of a West Virginia reform committee, is a Gazette contributing columnist. - See more at: http://www.wvgazette.com/article/20140808/ARTICLE/140809428/1103#sthash.6GkyJKIq.dpuf |
AuthorI write about what's going on in our world. I welcome your comments and suggestions. LET'S GET THE CONVERSATION STARTED!
Archives
October 2015
Categories
All
hashAddressBar: false});
|