Blog: No bio box

• Growth in Corrections Spending 1987-2007 Dwarfed Spending on Higher Ed (see image at right) - Curious about where your state stands? Follow the link and check the graph.  It would be interesting to see the same data comparing spending on the juvenile justice system with middle- and high-school spending.  (Hat tip to Jim Carlton.) 
• Gay Teens Are Punished More Heavily in School and in Juvenile Court - From The New York Times: A national study of 15,000 middle school and high school teens published in Pediatrics found that gay, lesbian, and bisexual teens are more likely to be expelled from school than their straight peers, and more likely to be stopped, arrested, and adjudicated.  And "it's not because they're misbehaving more," says the study's lead author, Kathryn Himmelstein. (Hat tip to Dan Merrigan.)

Excited about the Joint Meeting on Adolescent Treatment Effectiveness (JMATE) conference 2010, coming up next week, December 14-16, 2010? I definitely am. It looks like a closer-to-complete agenda has now been posted, and I can tell you, just scanning it gives me goosebumps.
Just to pick an example at random: Laurence Steinberg [follow link and scroll to the second bullet down] will be doing a plenary session on "Why Adolescents Make Risky Decisions." Since it's primarily Steinberg's research that the Supreme Court has used in its recent decisions doing away with the death penalty for juveniles and life without parole, I don't think anyone will want to miss it.
To pick another example: John Roman of The Urban Institute will be talking about "effective juvenile drug courts." Another topic of wide interest.
But what I want to highlight today are the presentations that individuals in our Reclaiming Futures family will be making.  Here's a complete list:

"Every day, mentors in communities across our Nation provide crucial support and guidance to young people. Whether a day is spent helping with homework, playing catch, or just listening, these moments can have an enormous, lasting effect on a child's life." - President Barack Obama, Presidential Proclamation, National Mentoring Month.
 
Shortly after I graduated from high school, I became involved with a local dance group. It was organized to expose girls in low socio-economic environments to dance. To become one of their dance instructors was one of the toughest and best decisions I ever made.
 
I accepted the role with misgivings. As an avid dancer and lover of music, introducing high school females to the art of dance was the ultimate opportunity, and these ladies were the top performers chosen in yearly tryouts. But some were intimidating because of their history with the group. The young ladies had a bad reputation of individualism. Everyone had to have a solo. Working as a team was not on their agenda.

Do you have a brief, compelling story about youth in the justice system you've worked with? The National Juvenile Justice Network (NJJN) needs your help. 
 
Interestingly, your story doesn't have to be a positive one, though NJJN wants those, too. it's looking for stories for its new website that either "exemplify the problems with the current system, or are shining examples of how reforms can lead to wonderfully positive change in the lives of youth." (The stories should be about youth you've worked with, or whom your organization or juvenile justice coalition has served.)
 
Why would you want to do this? 

1. It's a chance for you to share these stories with a wider audience and increase NJJN's impact.
2. If you like, NJJN will include a weblink to your organization when it posts your story online. 
3. It's good practice. You're already compiling youth stories for your own work with policy makers and other audiences ... right?

[Disproportionate minority contact (DMC) remains a serious problem in many communities. But getting broad support to address it can be a problem. In response, juvenile justice advocates in Connecticut have developed JUST.START, an excellent, accessible website and campaign on the topic. How it came about is the focus the interview below, which is reposted with permission from The CJJ e-Monitor, the newsletter of The Coalition for Juvenile Justice (CJJ). --Ed.]

Earlier this month, CJJ caught up with Christine Rapillo, Esq., a member of the Connecticut Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee (JJAC, the Connecticut State Advisory Group), to discuss the launch of JUST.START, a new, JJAC-supported website and educational campaign that aims to promote racial and ethnic fairness in Connecticut’s juvenile justice system.

In addition to her SAG membership, Attorney Rapillo is Chair of the Connecticut Juvenile Training School Advisory Committee, and co-chairs the Steering Committee for the Connecticut Juvenile Justice Alliance (CTJJA), where she takes part in the efforts to raise Connecticut’s jurisdictional age from 16 to 18. She is Director of Juvenile Delinquency Defense for the Connecticut Office of the Chief Public Defender, previously served as the supervisor of the Hartford Juvenile Court Public Defender’s Office for 12 years, and has practiced in adult felony trial courts in New Haven and New Britain.

Q. What is the history of disproportionate minority contact (DMC) in Connecticut? Are there issues that are unique to the state?

A. Connecticut is a relatively small state and has a statewide juvenile justice system, as opposed to a county system, as is the case in larger states. This fact made it easier for us to identify and analyze DMC, and we also hope that it will help us more readily bring about statewide change that will eliminate DMC.

Q. What is the purpose of the JUST.START website?

A. So often, states conduct studies, find DMC and yet can’t convince anyone DMC is real. The purpose of the website and public campaign is to raise public awareness. Our goal is to explain what DMC is and what we’re doing to eliminate it in an easy-to-understand, non-jargon, non-judgmental way.

As a follow-up to yesterday's guest post, "The Power of Second Chances: Employment After Treatment," I thought it would be great to share with you a fantastic post from 2007 by Barbara Dwyer called "Job Coaching," for mentors, professionals, and caregivers working with at-risk youth to prepare them for getting a job. (Hat tip to Paul Savery for calling it to my attention.) 
The article appeared in Children's Voice, a publication of the Child Welfare League of America's (CWLA). Here's some of the highlights: 

• Helping Teens in Recovery Starts with a Simple Phone Call. The Science and Management of Addictions (SAMA) Foundation in Seattle is piloting a mentor-by-phone program that now supports 50 teens in recovery after completing substance abuse treatment. The pilot program, "The Recover2gether Project," offers weekly phone calls to teens and two other services. It's funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). 
• Also For Teens in Recovery: "Laughter Yoga." The idea is that laughter -- even fake laughter -- changes your breathing and mood in positive ways. Follow the link to watch teens in a sober high school in Oklahoma trying it out on video.   (Hat tip to the Association of Recovery Schools.)

Do teens in your juvenile justice system have a lot of misconceptions about drugs, alcohol, and addiction?  Would they be interested in learning the answers to questions about substance use, abuse, and addiction frequently asked by other teens?
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) held a Drug Facts Web Chat last week, on November 9, in which NIDA scientists answered from teens across the country, such as:

It shouldn't be news that school disciplinary policies can drive youth involvement in the juvenile justice system -- and that it needn't be that way.
For example, a recent analysis of 30 years of federal data on middle school suspensions by the Southern Poverty Law Center showed that zero tolerance policies have led to overuse of suspension as a disciplinary tool (a shocking number of schools suspend over 50% of their students of a given race/ethnicity in a given year), and that suspensions dramatically impact youth of color, setting affected students on a path for school failure.