Blog

Juvenile Justice Reform

• In ‘Vernon’s World,’ a Young Photographer Documents the Life of a Homeless Teenager (JJIE.org)
  Unaccustomed to the cold, hard floor in his spot next to the door of the public bathrooms in Trenton, Missouri, Sam Wilson, 22, slept badly. In a stall next to him, Vernon Foster, 18, didn’t have the same trouble. By the time Foster woke, Wilson had been in a state somewhere between sleep and wakefulness for hours, apologizing to the morning walkers as they filtered through the bathroom, surprised to see two young boys asleep on the floor.
• Mandatory Sentencing 17 year-olds in Adult Court - Is There a Better Alternative for Wisconsin's Youth and Taxpayers? (MacIver Institute)
  In the United States, there is a wide consensus that children differ from adults. The very fact that each of the 50 states and Washington, D.C. have institutions designed to render judgment on cases and administer justice outside of the adult criminal court speaks to this critical distinction.
• OP-ED: Girls in the System Need More of Our Support (JJIE.org)
  "I just returned from the Adult and Juvenile Female Offenders Conference in Portland, Maine, where Piper Kerman, author of the memoir 'Orange Is the New Black,' -- the inspiration for the wildly successful Netflix series of the same name -- gave the keynote address to the 400 or so attendees all with some connection to the offender population."
• Florida's Juvenile Justice Department Seeking Reform Suggestions (WJHG.com)
  Gulf County residents sat quietly as Department of Juvenile Justice Secretary Wansley Walters talked about a major change, focusing more on prevention programs. "These problems that allow people to become violent and so disregard authority and commit crimes and know that they're committing crimes, these things don't happen in a day," said Secretary Wansley Walters of the Department of Juvenile Justice.

Washburn University basketball coach Bob Chipman and five members of the Ichabod team gave some pointers on the game of basketball, and a few on the game of life, to residents of the Kansas Juvenile Correctional Complex (KJCC) last week.
With their first game of the season a little over two weeks away, Chipman and a few of his players took time out to teach a group of juvenile offenders about basketball, as well as to encourage them to make healthy life choices.
The visitors coached the residents on techniques of the game and ran through a series of drills that helped bond the two groups of young men, many of whom are very close in age. The day ended with one of the young offenders tossing alley-oop passes to red-shirt freshman Evan Robinson.
“It’s a great feeling to get this opportunity to serve the community, and I guarantee that I will learn a lot more from them than I will teach them,” said Robinson. “It’s good to see the smiles on their faces and know that we’re able to make a positive impact in some way.”
Chipman first connected with KJCC through one of his former players, Steve Bonner, who now serves as a corrections counselor at the facility.
“We all make mistakes, in life, and in basketball,” Chipman told the juvenile offenders. “But you learn from your mistakes and you go on. Just like in basketball, it’s not how you start, but how you finish that counts. I want every one of you to finish great.”

Winston Churchill once said, "There’s just something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man." Horse therapy has indeed been proven effective in several different cases regarding mental health, addiction, physical therapy, and human development. Hardin County, Ohio is putting this idea to the test.
Hardin County Reclaiming Futures has partnered with Serenity Stables Therapeutic Center Inc. to provide horse therapy to youth in the juvenile system through the Horse and Youth program (H.A.Y.).
The H.A.Y. program will provide intervention strategies for the adjudicated youth who need a way to build self-confidence, leadership skills, and group interaction capabilities. The young people will have 12 weekly sessions to create a bond with their horse, as well as the people, of Serenity Stables.
“The horses do not care who you are, what trouble you have been in, or what problems you may have. Each youth will be able to establish a bond with an animal that is totally non-judgmental,” Judge Christopher, Hardin County Juvenile Court, explains.
This type of bond will serve to build confidence in the young people of Hardin County and help them develop a new, healthier mindset. Judge Christopher also believes the people of Serenity Stable, who have ample experience working with challenged youth, will serve to be positive role models for the participants.

Juvenile Justice Reform

• Nearly Half of U.S. States Enact Juvenile Justice Reforms (JJIE.org)
  Nearly half of U.S. states have made great strides in the past eight years toward reducing the prosecution of juveniles in the adult criminal justice system or preventing youths from being placed in adult jails and prisons, a report released Thursday found.
• ‘Raise the Age’ Advocates Tout New Report on Juvenile Justice (NewsObserver.com)
  The NC Insider is reporting that advocates for raising the age at which North Carolinians are tried in adult courts are touting a new national study that notes that 48 other states have enacted legislation to prevent older teenagers from being prosecuted in adult courts.
• When Babysitting Joins Forces With Zero Tolerance (JJIE.org)
  Sometimes on a Friday night, when there’s nothing better to do and the streets are quiet, indigenous kids in this town 100km (some 60 miles) north-east of Perth, Western Australia, might hang out at the local police station. They’re often not there by choice, but they don’t really mind sticking around either.
• Florida Struggles To Craft Juvenile Sentencing Policy (Miami.CBSLocal.com)
  As state legislators have tried and failed to craft a juvenile-sentencing law that conforms to landmark U.S. Supreme Court rulings, a national advocacy group is calling Florida a “clear outlier” among states for its hard-line approach to trying juveniles as adults.

A new video from JJIE's Juvenile Justice Resource Hub explains how community-based alternatives can be more cost-effective and have better outcomes for teens than incarceration. Via the video:

All kids make mistakes; some get in trouble with the law. Instead of having a chance to learn from their actions, though, they're often sent to costly, dangerous facilities that make them more likely to commit new crimes.
What else can we do? Plenty. Many cost-effective program options, known as "community-based alternatives," have already been developed and tested that serve youth safely in the community instead of incarcerating them in jail-like facilities. Many alternatives have also been developed to divert youth from almost any point in the juvenile justice system.

Every year, approximately 250,000 youth are tried, sentenced or incarcerated as adults in the United States, and the results can be devastating.
Tracy McClard knows first hand.
Tracy lost her 17-year-old son, Jonathon, to suicide when he was sentenced as an adult to life in prison. Her loss sparked a passion about youth justice and helped launch National Youth Justice Awareness Month (#YJAM).
October marks the 6th annual National Youth Justice Awareness month and offers an opportunity to come together and engage our communities on youth justice issues, particularly the harmful impact of prosecuting children in the adult criminal justice system.
The Campaign for Youth Justice, supporter of Youth Justice Awareness Month, urges you to get involved. There are several ways to raise awareness, build collective action, and strengthen relationships with other advocates during National Youth Justice Awareness Month:

• Create a buzz. Be a social media partner by spreading the word. You'll be the first to receive alerts and Facebook & Twitter tips on getting the buzz going. Let them know you're in: Email Angella Bellota at abellota@cfyj.org.
• Share. Are you hosting an event, a virtual action, or doing outreach activities during the month of October? Let the Campaign for Youth Justice know. They are looking to spread the word about events around the country: again, email abellota@cfyj.org.

As I write this, the government shutdown shows no sign of ending. Under the circumstances, it is hard to imagine a Congress capable of taking action to protect youth and promote safer communities. Yet it did so in 1974, when it passed the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA), and did so again when it repeatedly reauthorized the act over the years — most recently in 2002.
And the act is a great example of just how much good Congress can do for our communities and for youth who come into contact with the justice system. At its heart, the act mandates that states abide by four requirements:

• youth who commit status offenses — i.e., youth who have done things that would not be considered crimes if they were adults, such as running away or skipping school — are not to be held in secure facilities;
• in most cases, youth cannot be placed in adults jails and lock-ups;
• when youth are held in adult facilities, they must be separated by both sight and sound from adults; and
• states must address the disproportionate rate at which youth of color are swept up in the juvenile justice system, from arrest to detention to confinement.

Though these core requirements may seem self-evident or even basic, their importance goes well beyond their actual content. Taken together, they also set a floor of expectations — a useful platform upon which advocates for reform can build.
Youth Who Commit Status Offenses

• In 2007, Connecticut advocates helped pass a law establishing family support centers for high-need youth who commit status offenses, and their families (they later got the budget for the centers increased)
• In Georgia in 2010, advocates helped pass legislation that helped make sure youth convicted of status offenses and low-level misdemeanors were served in the community instead of detention
• Thanks in part to the MacArthur Foundation’s Models for Change initiative, Washington state came into compliance with the JJDPA in 2010 when it closed secure residential centers located in detention facilities that had been used to hold youth who committed status offenses.

Below you'll find a selection of the latest grants, jobs, webinars and events posted to our Opportunity Board. Please share the Reclaiming Futures Opportunity Board with your colleagues in the juvenile justice, adolescent substance abuse and teen mental health areas. It's free to browse and post!
Jobs

• Part-Time Adolescent Treatment Services Coordinator | Delaware | $19.75/hr
• Executive Director: Coalition for Juvenile Justice | Washington D.C. 
• Digital Content Specialist | Washington D.C.

Events

• 2013 Bi-Annual Adult & Juvenile Female Offenders Conference: Oct. 6-10
• Juvenile Justice & Child Welfare Process and Placement for Juvenile Sex Trafficking Survivors: Nov. 7
• 8th Global Youth Justice Training: Dec. 3-5
• Zero to Three 28th National Training Institute: Dec. 11-14

Juvenile Justice Reform

• Complex Trauma Among Youth in the Juvenile Justice System: Impact and Implications (Corrections.com)
  Youth who have experienced complex trauma—repeated and various forms of victimization, life-threatening accidents or disasters, and interpersonal losses at an early age or for prolonged periods—have difficulties forming attachments with caregivers and self-regulating emotions.
• Family Seeks Change in Law to Protect Students (JJIE.org)
  The government has a duty to protect prisoners from harm. It also has a duty to protect people who have been involuntarily committed for mental health treatment. Yet that same duty doesn’t apply to the government when it comes to protecting students in school, according to case law.
• Grant to Help Men Leaving Juvenile Justice System (The Boston Herald)
  The U.S. Labor Department is giving Massachusetts an $11.7 million grant for a project to increase employment and reduce repeat crimes for men leaving the state's juvenile justice system. The grant will first go to serve 535 men ages 16-22 in Chelsea and Springfield who are leaving the juvenile justice system. It will provide education and pre-vocational training to help them get jobs.
• When Young Offenders–and Their Teacher–Say Goodbye (Kids in the System Blog)
  Last month, due to a lack of funding, the juvenile lock-up where I taught a weekly “life skills” workshop was shuttered. According to my very rough calculation, in the year that I worked there I had about 400 young men of all races and socioeconomic backgrounds pass through my group. Of those, about half came and went frequently, often gone for a couple of months to less than a week, and then re-offended to find themselves right back where they started.