Blog: No bio box

Juvenile Justice News and Related News

• Raising alcohol taxes helps reduce crime, according to a new meta-analysis. I'm curious: would this also apply to crimes committed by teens? 
• This probation officer was once a juvenile offender herself -- a touching story of transformation, coincidentally set in Chicago, one of the original Reclaiming Futures sites. (Hat tip to @piper.)
• Social media is beginning to play a bigger role in the court room. Here's an article aimed at defense attorneys that gives examples (including at least one juvenile case) where what defendants share online is used against them; and where defendants have actively used Facebook and other media as a way to generate support for themselves. One implication: already overburdened defense attorneys must now monitor their clients' social media profiles for evidence that might be used against them. What's been your experience? Share a comment below. (Hat tip to Adriennce C. Barr via National Council of Juvenile and Famliy Court Judges.)

Consider this for a moment: 

What should recovery-oriented care for adolescents with substance abuse issues or co-occurring mental health issues look like? 

Have that picture firmly in your mind? Okay, good. Does it change if the youth in question are in the juvenile justice system? If so, how? 
I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.
To aid you in your thinking, I'm attaching a copy of the report from a 2008 meeting sponsored by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). The report is titled, "Designing a Recovery-Oriented Care Model for Adolescents and Transition Age Youth with Substance Use or Co-Occurring Mental Health Disorders." Check out pp. 36-39 for themes from the meeting, along with specific recommendations. 
Just in case it's useful, you may also want to review this "Working Definition of Recovery." The actual definition's quite brief, but this two-page handout also includes guiding principles and elements of systems of care. Also, check out this report from the Coalition for Juvenile Justice called "Positive Youth Justice: Framing Justice Interventions Using the Concepts of Positive Youth Development." It offers insights about the benefits of using positive youth development to help youth contribute to community life.
Feel free to leave me a comment below.

Sometimes, it seems as though public attitudes about youth in the juvenile justice system haven't moved on since 1950, when the book pictured at right was published. But the next time you talk to policy makers about the need for more treatment options and positive activities for youth in the juvenile justice system, wouldn't it be great to be able to tell them that the majority of Americans:

• believe that rehabilitation and treatment can reduce crime AND are willing to pay extra taxes to provide those services;
• support rehabilitation even for young people who commit violent crimes;
• oppose young offenders being sent to adult criminal court without an individual determination made in each case;
• agree that non-white youth are more likely than white youth to be prosecuted as adults; and
• believe strongly in a separate juvenile justice system?

"Dream on," I can hear you saying. But it's no dream.

Since suspensions and expulsions are correlated with involvement in the juvenile justice system, I posted yesterday about a new research report that showed that suspension is overused for middle school students and has a disparate impact on youth of color -- African American students in particular.
One solution: mediation. And here's evidence from two Connecticut schools that mediation lowers suspension and expulsion rates. (Hat tip to Abby Anderson of the Connecticut Juvenile Justice Alliance.)
If that's not convincing enough, check out this international report (see photo) showing that restorative justice and mediation in the schools has a significant positive impact on student behavior. When these techniques were implemented in 10 schools in the U.S. and Canada, large drops occurred in suspensions and "behavioral incidents."
Has your school district used restorative justice? What's been your experience?

 
Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment and Research News and Resources

• An advisory group has recommended that the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the National Institutes on Alcoholism and Aclohol Abuse (NIAAA) be merged, along with all other addiction research efforts conducted by the National Institutes of Health. The group said that a new Institute of Addictions would integrate addiction research more effectively. The idea still has a number of hoops to jump through before it becomes a reality, but I was pleased to see that the working group's report recommended (see page 8) that adolescent substance abuse treatment should be prioritized. (Full disclosure: I wrote the post for Join Together that I've linked to here.)

 
[The following is reposted with permission of the author from his website, Selected Papers of William L. White. -Ed.]

Every one seems to have an opinion about the need for or appropriateness of adolescent involvement in recovery support groups. One doesn’t have to go far to hear that such groups are inappropriate for adolescents or that adolescents do not do well in such groups. But what do we know about such involvement from the standpoint of science?
Listed below are the latest scientific findings related to such involvement. It should be noted that nearly all of these studies have evaluated adolescent involvement in 12-step groups and almost exclusively adolescents who have been treated in inpatient settings. There is scant scientific literature on the effects of adolescent involvement in secular or religious alternatives to 12-step groups. Here’s what is known about adolescents and 12-step involvement: 

Events - Juvenile Justice and Adolescent Substance Abuse

• September is National Youth Court Month, and the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) has posted resources about them to celebrate. Also called "teen courts" and "peer courts," youth courts are an alternative disposition for youth who've committed low-level, first-time offenses in which teens hold each other accountable. (Hat tip to OJJDP.) UPDATED: Global Youth Justice is hosting a conference titled, "Establish or Enhance a local Teen Court/Youth Court Diversion Program," December 7-9, 2010, in Las Vegas. (H/t to John Kelly at Youth Today.)
• Don't miss out on the National Take Back Initiative, sponsored by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Held on September 25, 2010, 10am-2pm (local time, I believe), law enforcement agencies are collaborating with the DEA to collect unused prescription drugs.  Find a collection site near you. (H/t to @SPHEREproject.)

James Bell on Juvenile Justice Reform

• In the brief video below, James Bell, director of the W. Haywood Burns Institute, sounds off on youth incarceration:

I am still, at 51, propelled by outrage. I am just p***d off that the greatest country in the world -- that the only way they can figure out to socially control teenagers is to put them in cages... But we don't do that to White people. That is the bottom line.
It's worth watching all 10 minutes of this video, because Bell is passionate, entertaining, and motivating. My only caveat (which I'm sure Mr. Bell would agree with) has to do with his urgent call to people of color to put pressure on vested interests and the White community to reform the justice system. It can't just be on people of color to change the system -- allies from all communities are needed so that the effort is not pigeonholed by skeptics. (Hat tip to the W. Haywood Burns Institute on Facebook.) 

Hello, I’m person behind the Reclaiming Futures Twitter account. As you know, Twitter is a free service where people post very short updates and links.
If you’re like many professionals in the fields of juvenile justice and adolescent substance abuse, you might think that Twitter has nothing to offer you. And while that might once have been true, nothing could be further from the truth now.
 
What are some of the ways you can use Twitter and to support your work?

• Exchange ideas about juvenile justice and substance abuse treatment. 
• Many people post links, so use it like a search engine. 
• Show support for others by following them. 
• Demonstrate the good work of your organization.