Blog: Georgia

Global Youth Justice Launches 250 Youth Justice Web Sites; News Roundup

By Lori Howell, May 03 2013

Juvenile Justice Reform

Topics: Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment, Georgia, Juvenile Justice Reform, Nebraska, No bio box, obama, Reclaiming Futures

Georgia: Mental Health is a Huge Issue in Justice Strategy

By Mike Klein, February 06 2013

Discussion about mental health and other substance abuse treatment alternatives was front and center last week when criminal justice system officials addressed House and Senate joint appropriations lawmakers at the State Capitol. “Mental health is a huge issue in all the things we do,” Judge Robin W. Shearer said on behalf of the Council of Juvenile Court Judges.
Georgia is in the early stages of significant adult and juvenile justice system reforms that focus on how to ensure incarceration for the most serious offenders, and how to provide community treatment options for offenders who do not benefit from or even require incarceration.
Last year the General Assembly passed reforms to move the adult corrections system toward those goals. This year legislators are expected to approve sweeping reforms to juvenile criminal law and the civil code. Governor Nathan Deal has made reforms a personal priority and his budget devotes millions of dollars to these goals.
The importance of mental health considerations was evident early in the hearing.

Topics: Adolescent Mental Health, Georgia, No bio box

The Unique Challenge of Georgia Juvenile Repeat Crime

By Mike Klein, September 19 2012

The devil is always in the details and sometimes details are like trying to put lipstick on a pig. The recidivism rate for Georgia juveniles is a case in point.
One-in-two juveniles leave the system and do not return within three years. But one-in-two are back within three years, usually because of a new crime, violation of a court order or a probation offense. There is a cash cost for that level of failure and there also is a human cost.
When the Special Council on Criminal Justice Reform convened this summer it heard primarily generalities about juvenile justice from expert analysts. When the Council met this week it was taken into the weeds, deeper into data, and some members had their eyes opened a bit wider.
“The question is what do we do from here and how do we improve the recidivism rate,” said Hall County Superior Court Judge Jason Deal. “The recidivism rate is around 50 percent and that’s not acceptable.” State Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver described the one-in-two recidivism rate as “very scary” and Douglas County District Attorney David McDade asked, “Are we spending our dollars in a way that protects public safety? That’s the whole driver for me.”

Topics: Georgia, Juvenile Justice Reform, No bio box, Recidivism

Georgia Special Council on Justice Turns Its Attention to the Kids

By Mike Klein, July 25 2012

One challenge in almost every policy discussion is how to make the numbers mean something. So, let’s hope these numbers mean something. The annual cost to fully incarcerate someone in Georgia’s juvenile detention system is $98,000 per bed, more than five times greater than adult prison system per person costs. On the other hand, the state share is about $4,300 per pupil in the K-12 public school system. One is an investment in the future. The other is simply shocking.
“Where is that money going? Where is that $98,000?” That question – asked rhetorically – was among several posed this week when the newly reconstituted Special Council on Criminal Justice Reform held its first meeting to consider a vast rewrite of the state juvenile code. The Council retained all 13 members whose work helped to craft ideas for this year’s adult criminal justice system reforms, and it added eight new members, several with juvenile code expertise.
The Council is also expected to consider some unfinished business from the 2012 adult system reforms; in particular, more work on earned compliance credits, mandatory minimum safety valve sentencing ideas, and possible decriminalization of some traffic offenses. But make no mistake about it; the main course on this year’s menu will be juvenile justice reform.

Topics: Georgia, Juvenile Justice Reform, No bio box

School Discipline: When Should Law Enforcement Step In?

By Jeanette Moll, April 26 2012

This week, several schools and districts are grappling with the issue of when—if ever—it is appropriate for police officers to get involved with school discipline issues.
The Albuquerque school district, for example, is currently the defendant in a class action lawsuit over referring students to law enforcement for allegedly minor offenses. When a student was talking to her friend and refused to return to her seat, her teacher called the police.
In contrast, a Georgia six-year-old throwing a violent tantrum—which included destruction of property and assault, according to published reports—was arrested and taken away in a police cruiser. She was also put in handcuffs while in the cruiser, according to standard department policy, but to the outrage of many.

Topics: Georgia, Juvenile Justice Reform, New Mexico, No bio box, schools

Talking back to zero tolerance

By Cheryl Cutting, December 07 2011

In the year that I have worked as a juvenile defender, I have noticed patterns in the types of cases that land on my desk. For instance, now that the school year is in full swing, the overwhelming majority of my juvenile caseload arises from school discipline issues. It seems — at least here in southeast Georgia — as though schools are either no longer interested or no longer equipped to handle discipline in-house.
Almost every public school in my rural circuit has police presence in the form of the School Resource Officer (SRO), a uniformed police officer who maintains an office on the school campus. These officers maintain such a vigilant school presence to deter criminal activity such as drug possession/sale, weapon possession and other violent or dangerous activity. The reality is quite different.
Increasingly, local school administrators are relying on these SROs and a broad Georgia statute that criminalizes “disruption or interference with operation of public schools” to handle children with behavioral problems. What exactly are the definitions for “disruption” and “interference”? That is a great question, as the Georgia Code fails to define either term for the purposes of explaining exactly what conduct the state Legislature sought to criminalize. However, I can tell you that “disrespectful language” and “refusing to follow the commands of teacher” can land a child an invitation to juvenile court.
A child who is found to be delinquent of “disrupting or interfering with the operation of public schools” in Georgia, is subject to the punishment of a high and aggravated misdemeanor. This likely means probation for a length of time with a litany of conditions for the child to comply with, but could also result in a 30-day stay in a Regional Youth Detention Center.
When I was in school, disruptive children were punished by being assigned extra homework, given detention, in- school suspension or out- of- school suspension. The severity of the punishment varied with the severity of the actions; for example, talking back to the teacher might result in after-school detention, while getting into a playground fight would likely result in suspension.

Topics: Georgia, Juvenile Court, Juvenile Justice Reform, No bio box