News Summary May 29 – June 11, 2010 Models for Change Mentioned The Herald-Review (IL)
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- Paterson Proposes Juvenile Justice Overhaul The New York Times - Online
- Third of kids dont finish troubled-youth program Associated Press (AP) – Baltimore Bureau (MD)
- Juvenile justice reform -- or a clear-and-present threat The Washington Post – Online
- Top Prison Official Defends Juvenile Justice System Correction Commissioner: I Think Things Are Going Well Now WRTV-TV (IN)
- "Sexting" Leads to Child Porn Charges for Teens
- Overdue Justice: Gov. Patersons bill a strong start in fixing youth prison system The Post-Standard - Online (NY)
- States closing youth prisons as arrests plunge Associated Press (AP) – Wales Bureau (WI)
- Addressing the Unmet Educational Needs of Children and Youth in the Juvenile Justice and Child Welfare Systems
- Opinion: The cost of locking up Californias juveniles San Jose Mercury News (CA)
- Legislators shoot down bill to clarify role of juvenile court WAFB-TV (LA)
- Sexting’ legislation clears Senate committee
The Battle Creek Enquirer (MI) June 1, 2010 http://www.battlecreekenquirer.com/article/20100601/OPINION03/6010301/Your-Opinions-Not-all-juveniles-treated-the-same Your editorial discussing the recent Supreme Court opinion barring juvenile life without parole for non-homicide cases ("Holding Out Hope," May 20) notes that Missouri is the gold standard in responding to juvenile delinquency. Missouri has a reform-minded, research-based response to juvenile crime and the benefits are clear: the state reports one of the lowest recidivism rates in the country, under 10 percent. Unfortunately, Missouri does not provide the same level of care for all of its juveniles: those who are transferred out to the adult system - a possibility for children as young as 13 years old - can find themselves serving lengthy prison terms alongside adults. And, Missouri has at least 78 juveniles serving life without parole, none of whom will benefit from the recent ruling because their crime involved a homicide. Young people re-classified as adults are ineligible for the exemplary programs and services that Missouri has to offer in its juvenile system. Missouri, and all states, should bring the spirit of its juvenile justice philosophy to all youth who break the law by retaining them in the juvenile system. Ashley Nellis, Ph.D. Research analyst The Sentencing Project Washington, D.C. Paterson Proposes Juvenile Justice Overhaul The New York Times - Online By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE June 2, 2010
By Brian Witte June 4, 2010
By Colbert King June 4, 2010
Sad how things happen. Sanchez was trying to clean up the District when a ward of the city -- 16-year-old Javon Hale, a juvenile defendant who was, at the time, in the custody of the D.C. Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services -- allegedly shot and killed him, according to police. Hale has been arrested and charged as an adult with felony murder. But, you may ask, if this 16-year-old was in custody of the city, what in the world was he doing in the rear of an apartment house in Southeast D.C. with a gun? Two well-placed government sources said that although Hale had been committed to DYRS custody by a court, the department chose to place him with a community facility. That facility gave Hale a weekend pass, and, voila, he found his way to Hillside Road SE. After the shooting, according to the government sources, Hale returned to the community facility -- having exhausted his agreed-upon free time in the city. The progressives call this kind of community placement "juvenile justice reform." How many DYRS youth have been killed, have killed, or are escapees this year? Never mind. Naughty question. I say it's a disgrace and a clear-and-present threat to public safety. But the admission of mistakes just isn't in the nature of the "enlightened." Top Prison Official Defends Juvenile Justice System Correction Commissioner: 'I Think Things Are Going Well Now' WRTV-TV (IN) June 4, 2010 http://www.theindychannel.com/news/23798706/detail.html The head of the Indiana Department of Correction told 6News that real change is being made within the state's juvenile prisons, which have been plagued with allegations of sexual abuse and filthy conditions. Department of Correction Commissioner Edwin Buss and his staff testified Thursday before a three-member Department of Justice review panel on prison rape. It came after a report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that 36 percent of inmates at the Pendleton Juvenile Correctional Facility reported being sexually abused, about three times higher than the national average. Staff members testified that the facility has made changes since the survey was taken, including requiring additional training, increasing video surveillance and instituting five-minute watch tours. Buss sat down with 6News' Joanna Massee after the hearing and said that progress is being made across the juvenile correction system. "I think things are going well now. Obviously, there's always room for improvement," Buss said. A Jan. 29 letter and report from U.S. Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez to Gov. Mitch Daniels detailed troubles within the former Indianapolis Juvenile Correctional Facility, including a mentally ill inmate left dirty and pulling out her hair and male guards having sex with and performing strip searches on young female inmates. Buss told Massee that the federal teams visited the Indianapolis facility before he took the agency's helm. "They visited before I was commissioner. I believe the staff there were trying to do a good job, … but, I believe they were doing their best," he said. The Indianapolis facility closed after the federal teams visited and the girls were moved to a newer facility in Madison in November 2009. Buss called reports from former staff members that poor conditions continued after the move "ridiculous." "It isn't a hardened correctional facility. It's on a beautiful campus it shares with the state hospital," Buss said. He said the Department of Correction plans to hold a media tour of the facility. Although the state no longer operates Indianapolis Juvenile Correctional Facility, a Department of Justice representative said Friday that the agency's investigation into the center is ongoing. The Pendleton Juvenile Correctional Facility is also currently being investigated by the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division. The findings related to that investigation have not yet been released. "Sexting" Leads to Child Porn Charges for Teens Distribution of Nude Photos among Teenagers via Cell Phone Catches Attention of Prosecutors, Principals in Pennsylvania CBS News June 5, 2010 http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/06/05/eveningnews/main6552438.shtml?tag=contentBody;featuredPost-PE This story is by CBS News Correspondent Michelle Miller and CBS News Producer Phil Hirschkorn At Susquenita High School, 15 miles outside of Harrisburg, Pa., eight students, ranging in age from 13 to 17, have learned a tough lesson about "sexting." "Take a photograph of yourself or somebody else nude and send it to somebody else, you've committed the crime," said Perry County District Attorney Charles Chenot, who has prosecuted two sexting cases involving a total of 10 minors in the past year. Chenot said he considers sexting a form of child pornography and wants kids to understand once those images are in someone else's hands they could wind up anywhere, even the Internet, possibly forever. The teens at Susquenita High, who all knew each other, were accused last fall of using their cell phones to take, send, or receive nude photos of each other and in one case a short video of a oral sex. That resulted in a felony pornography charge for each minor. "That was the only charge that really fits what they were doing," said Chenot. "What would have been the best thing to charge would be something that would have been a little less severe but would still draw these teenagers' attention to the wrongness of their acts." Former U.S. Rep. Don Bailey, a Harrisburg civil rights attorney, is skeptical. "Should they be crimes at all?" Bailey asked. "This is an over-zealous and inappropriate application of the criminal law." Bailey represents the lone student from Susquenita who has not pleaded guilty to lesser charges, which would require him to take a class on victimization and perform community service. After successfully completing the so-called "diversionary program" and a period of probation, those juvenile conviction records would be expunged, according to Chenot. "Are you going to stop kids from sexting that way?" Bailey asked. "Maybe you should try talking to mom and dad." At the state capitol in Harrisburg, freshman Rep. Seth Grove, R-York County, agrees. "My view is kids should not be held under the same laws as child predators," Grove said. His bill, which would limit the punishment for sexting, has passed the state House Judiciary Committee and is due for a full floor vote this month. "What we're trying to do is say: 'Let's not charge a felony, let's get a common sense law together that charges a misdemeanor,'" Grove said. Pennsylvania's proposed reform is typical of the 20 states, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, that have considered new sexting laws for minors during the past two years. Five states -- Arizona, Nebraska, North Dakota, Utah and Vermont -- have already adopted changes. "We need the appropriate punishment for the crime," Grove said. But some advocates object that sexting, especially between teens who consent to exchange the images, is considered a crime in the first place. "Why should we criminalize a kid for taking and possessing a photo of herself," said Marsha Levick, legal director of the non-profit Juvenile Law Center. "There is no problem that needs to be solved." How schools find out about the nude photos has also provoked a debate with some child advocates complaining that schools are on shaky legal footing when it comes to searching students' cell phones. A case in point pits a 19-year-old woman known as "NN" against Tunkhannock High School, her former school, near Scranton, Pa. She graduated last year. "I took semi-nude pictures of myself and saved them into my phone," NN told CBS News in an exclusive interview. When NN was still 17, a teacher confiscated her phone one morning because NN was talking on it before class. The school bans student cell phone usage on school grounds. Her principal, Gregory Ellsworth, then scrolled through the phone's digital photo album. "He told me that he found explicit photos on my phone and that he sent it away to a crime lab," NN said. "I was really embarrassed, humiliated, because it was personal." With the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, NN sued the school last month seeking damages for invasion of privacy, accusing the school of violating her First Amendment right to free speech and her Fourth Amendment protection from illegal searches and seizure. "A search of the device is akin to browsing through someone's address and appointment book, opening and reading letters sent by U.S. mail, and rummaging through a family photo album or viewing home videos," the lawsuit says. Ellsworth had no comment. Michael Levin, an attorney for the school district, said, "I don't think any school district should tolerate kids bringing nude photos to school whether they be in electronic or paper format." Levin said Supreme Court rulings supported the school's actions. Besides being suspended from school for three days, NN also faced child pornography charges from the Wyoming County District Attorney. To avoid them, she agreed to a deal, like seven of the Susquenita defendants, submitting to a five-week course on violence and victimization, meeting twice a week. "If I was victimized, it was just like by my school," NN said. "I don't think by prosecuting them it's helping them at all." But Chenot, the Perry County district attorney, said he is just trying to protect kids. "Probably it's harmless when they take the pictures of each other and just share them between them, but the potential is there for there to be widespread distribution," said Chenot. "What we have here is a case where technology has gotten ahead of the laws."
June 6, 2010 http://blog.syracuse.com/opinion/2010/06/overdue_justice_gov_patersons.html Gov. David Paterson proposed bold legislation Wednesday that would begin to overhaul how New York treats children who break the law. It’s about time. It’s been 9½ months since the U.S. Justice Department found that children sent to the state’s dysfunctional youth prisons got shoddy mental health care and were treated violently by guards. And it’s been 4½ months since the governor’s task force on juvenile justice issued recommendations to reform the entire system. But the bill is only a first step. Some of the money to convert the youth prisons to places where troubled kids can truly get the help they need is still stalled by wrangling over the state budget, now more than two months late. Will the money be there when the politicians finally agree on a spending plan? The governor’s bill also will be subject to deal-making and haggling over details that affect one special interest or another. Will the legislation that emerges in the end be so watered down that it’s ineffective? The governor’s bill creates an independent oversight body — the Office of the Juvenile Justice Advocate — to investigate and review systemwide issues in the youth prisons. The office would have subpoena power, could take sworn testimony and could compel cooperation by any other public agency. It could refer cases to law enforcement for criminal investigations. It could make recommendations and require the state Office of Children and Family Services, which runs the youth prisons, to fix any problems. There are, however, flaws with the proposal. For one thing, the bill limits the new office to addressing systemic issues only. Would abuses occurring at just one prison escape detection? And why even keep around OCFS’s Office of the Ombudsman, which is charged with looking out for kids in state custody? During interviews with the task force, ombudsman officials reported that budget and staffing constraints limited their ability to conduct regular prison visits. The bill also provides that only children who have been convicted of crimes equivalent to violent felonies or sex offenses, or who have been found by a judge to pose a significant risk to public safety, may be placed in a youth prison. That would ensure that the vast majority of kids would be ordered to spend time in alternative programs near their communities, where they could get treatment for mental illnesses, substance abuse or other problems. But although more judges are diverting kids to alternative programs, there is a shortage of qualified programs in some communities. The state needs to do a better job of developing the infrastructure of alternative programs that are capable of handling youngsters with complex problems that have resulted in prison placements. Remaking the juvenile justice system is critically important. The task has been delayed for far too long. Is New York ready? States closing youth prisons as arrests plunge Associated Press (AP) – Wales Bureau (WI) By TODD RICHMOND June 7, 2010 http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hSdbz67zNVY31vVu-FE-HzRP4n4gD9G64L9G0 WALES, Wis. — After struggling for years to treat young criminals in razor wire-ringed institutions, states across the country are quietly shuttering dozens of reformatories amid plunging juvenile arrests, softer treatment policies and bleak budgets. In Ohio, the number of juvenile offenders has plummeted by nearly half over the last two years, pushing the state to close three facilities. California's closures include a youth institution near Los Angeles that operated for nearly 115 years. And one in Texas will finally go quiet after getting its start as a World War II-era training base. The closures have juvenile advocates cheering. "I can tell you it's the best thing they can do," said Aaron Kupchik, a University of Delaware criminologist. "Incarceration does nobody any good. You're taking away most of their chance for normal development." Several factors have pushed states to close facilities. In stark contrast to the growing adult prison population, the number of juveniles in state lockups has dropped dramatically, partly because there are fewer juvenile arrests and more offenders in county-based treatment programs. States grappling with busted budgets can't afford to operate facilities with so many empty beds. State reformatories are typically reserved for serious criminals, such as sex offenders and other violent offenders. Unlike the punishment-oriented adult system, juvenile justice focuses on rehabilitation. During the early 1990s, though, tough-on-crime legislators turned to the juvenile system. Nearly every state lowered the minimum age for kids to be tried as adults or increased the kind of crimes that land kids in the adult system. But juvenile arrest rates dropped, falling 33 percent between 1997 and 2008, according to the latest U.S. Justice Department data. Criminologists aren't sure why fewer kids are getting in trouble. Some believe more kids are avoiding drug trafficking. Others think programs such as group homes, halfway houses and after-school tutoring closer to kids' homes have reduced recidivism. "No fancy stats suggest this is a cure-all, but what I think you do see is the accumulation of those small results of people doing this increasingly in cities and towns all across the country," said Elliot Currie, a University of California-Irvine criminologist. Those reforms have gained momentum as studies found teens sent to adult court often got in worse trouble after they were released and lawsuits emerged over poor conditions at state lockups. Many states have tweaked their juvenile polices so only the most serious offenders land in their systems. "We're locking up the right kids," said Bart Lubow, program director for the Annie E. Casey Foundation, which helps fund such juvenile offender programs. "It's about making smarter decisions." As a result, the number of juveniles in state institutions has dropped. According to the Justice Department, the number of juvenile offenders declined 26 percent between 2000 and 2008, from about 109,000 to 80,000. All the empty beds offer states struggling with budget deficits a way to save money — downsize juvenile justice systems. The number of kids in state residential custody in California peaked at 10,000 in 1996 but now stands at 1,500, said state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesman Bill Sessa. The state has closed six institutions since 2003, most notably the Fred C. Nelles Youth Correctional Facility, which had operated just outside Los Angeles since 1890. State officials keep the institution clean for film crews; the paranormal research television series "The Othersiders" investigated reports of bangs and voices there in an episode last year. The closings have generated as much as $40 million in savings for the state's juvenile justice department through job reductions, Sessa said. In Texas, the state's residential juvenile population has dropped from 5,000 kids in 2007 to about 1,900 this spring, said Texas Youth Commission spokesman Jim Hurley. His state has closed three facilities since 2007 and plans to close two more. Hurley said it was unclear how much money that saved. In Ohio, the state's residential youth population has fallen from about 1,730 kids as of mid-2008 to about 950 today. Its three closures over the last year should save about $40 million annually, according to juvenile corrections officials. Some of the closed reformatories around the country will become adult prisons. Others are up for sale, like the one in Kansas that closed in 2008 saving the state $3.7 million. In Wisconsin, state corrections officials are considering closing the Ethan Allen School, a former tuberculosis sanitarium near Wales, about 25 miles west of Milwaukee. The school's population has dropped from 460 in 1998 to 195 in May. Since counties generally pay the state to house juvenile offenders from their area, the overall decrease in Wisconsin's jailed juvenile population has created a $25 million budget shortfall. Ethan Allen officials worry about what will happen if it closes, but they're trying to stay focused on their kids. It was life as usual on a recent spring day at Ethan Allen. Sunshine sparkled on the concertina wire that topped the fence surrounding the sprawling campus. In one class, social worker Melinda Aiken discussed emotion management. "Why does it take courage to make a positive change?" Aiken asked. "If you're scared," a boy replied, "you ain't never going to get anywhere." Aiken nodded. "It's going to take a lot of strength," she said. "You guys can do it. Tap into that." Addressing the Unmet Educational Needs of Children and Youth in the Juvenile Justice and Child Welfare Systems Center for Juvenile Justice Reform, Georgetown Public Policy Institute By Pareesha Narang June 7, 2010
By Sumayyah Waheed June 8, 2010 http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_15254555 California essentially gave up on Maria Santana's son when he was 15 years old and was locked up in the Division of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) youth prisons. Initially told he would be released in four years, Maria's son has been languishing for nearly 10 years. With eight other children and recently made jobless, Maria can't afford to drive six hours to Ventura to visit him. It costs approximately $200,000 per year to lock up a young person in DJJ. So what has the taxpayers' $2 million dollar investment in Maria's son brought him, his family or his community? When his mom sees his resignation, his broken spirit and the scars on his body from rubber bullets, she knows that the state has failed him. He's certainly not the only one. Despite costing more than $436 million annually to warehouse only 1,300 youth, DJJ fails 72 percent of the time — meaning that 72 percent of the young people are rearrested soon after release. We're paying $200,000 per youth per year for lockup in a violent, failed system. In comparison, a young person in a California public school merits only $7,100 per year for education. California adult prisons cost $8.2 billion, locking up 160,000 adults, but our public college system gets far less — $5.5 billion to educate more than 650,000 students. The governor proposes teacher layoffs, health care cuts for infants and children and the end of in-home support for the elderly ill but wants to spend even more on adult and juvenile prisons. In the governor's slash-and-burn May budget revision, prisons received nearly $190 million in additional funding. That much money could rescind 3,000 teacher layoffs or restore thousands of kids kicked off state health insurance. Schwarzenegger also proposed giving counties an additional $300 million to build local juvenile jails, without requiring them to work with the youth warehoused in the remote DJJ prisons. Across California, counties' existing juvenile facilities are actually underpopulated, so we don't need more concrete cots at the county level. We need a new vision for public safety and effective rehabilitation. The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights has built a statewide network of over 1,500 family members of currently or formerly incarcerated youth. We stand with our family members in demanding that additional public safety spending be used on programs with a strong evidence base that provides education, counseling and support to the youth and their families. These programs are humane and proven to work. Other states have learned to spend less on youth incarceration and get higher rates of success. New York, Missouri and Washington, among others, provide strong models for reform that California could imitate. It's past time that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature got their priorities straight and invested wisely. The families of incarcerated youth say close the decrepit and dangerous DJJ prisons and invest in public education, children's health care, and effective rehabilitative services, so that Maria Santana's kids, my future kids and all of our kids will have the resources they need to keep them safe and the opportunities available to succeed. SUMAYYAH WAHEED is the policy director for the Books Not Bars Campaign of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland. She wrote this article for this newspaper. Legislators shoot down bill to clarify role of juvenile court WAFB-TV (LA) June 8, 2010 http://www.wafb.com/Global/story.asp?S=12618013 BATON ROUGE, LA (WAFB) - A bill backed by the East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney's Office was shot down in a Senate committee on Tuesday. The measure was supposed to clarify the role of juvenile court in the most extreme criminal cases. Michael Nichols was convicted of four counts of attempted murder after he shot three people at a Plank Road Rite Aid in 2008. If Nichols had filed for a sanity hearing in juvenile court when he was arrested, he could have avoided trial a bit longer under current law. A bill to fix that failed in a Senate committee. "It would have meant that children, where there are serious questions about mental illness or mental disabilities, they would have been housed and received treatment if this bill would have passed," said Carol Kolinchak, legal director of Juvenile Justice. District Attorney Hillar Moore said the defeat of the bill will cause his office a great deal of legal problems. He warned defense attorneys will file sanity hearings in juvenile court to clog up the process. "It takes away my ability to prosecute timely and quickly," Moore said. "When these things come up in juvenile court, I can't go to a grand jury to indict them." The bill cleared the House without a single objection. Senators Heitmeier, Jackson and Duplessis voted against it. Juveniles are usually released to the custody of their parents or guardians, which is one reason Moore did not want juvenile court to evaluate these violent offenders. ‘Sexting’ legislation clears Senate committee Directory: docs docs -> Application for acem docs -> Observational Assessment of Teaching Practices Teaching Assessment Initiative Proposal Submitted to The Teachers for a New Era project docs -> Traditional British values docs -> From Warfighters to Crimefighters: The Origins of Domestic Police Militarization docs -> Borzoi Club of America Register of Merit Program I. What is a Register Of Merit docs -> Protecting the rights of the child in the context of migration docs -> United Nations E/C. 12/Esp/5 docs -> 9th May 1950 the schuman declaration docs -> Getting To Outcomes® in Services for Homeless Veterans 10 Steps for Achieving Accountability Download 351.58 Kb. Share with your friends:
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