Blog

Juvenile Justice Reform

• [AUDIO] Juvenile Justice System Overhaul Signed into Law (NebraskaRadioNetwork.com)
  Nebraska will shift how it treats juvenile offenders under a bill signed into law by the governor. Gov. Dave Heineman has signed LB 561e, juvenile justice reform approved by the legislature. Heineman, during a news conference in his Capitol office, called the bill complex. Still, he has hopes for a simple outcome.
• Dramatic Reform of Juvenile Justice Takes Shape in Legislature (NorthPlatteBulletin.com)
  Juvenile criminals would be rehabilitated at home, with help from probation officers, under a bill advancing in the state Legislature.
  Lawmakers advanced LB 651, aiming to overhaul Nebraska’s juvenile justice system. The bill would transfer responsibility for the state’s roughly 3,000 juvenile offenders from the Department of Health and Human Services to the Office of Probation Administration.
• Nebraska Governor Vetoes $200K in Golf Tournament Funding (SFGate.com)
  Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman used a line-item veto Tuesday to strike $200,000 from a budget bill that was approved to promote the U.S. Senior Open golf tournament in Omaha. The Republican governor said the budget item was unjustified, given the state's other spending priorities on education and reforms to the state's juvenile justice services.
• Justice Reform Paying Off Sooner than Expected (Ledger-Enquirer.com)
  When Gov. Nathan Deal prompted the Georgia General Assembly to undertake sentencing reform for the adult criminal justice system (to be followed the next year by juvenile justice reform), he acknowledged that he didn't expect to see any substantial changes for a few years. In terms of the state prison population, that's certainly the case so far. In fact, the state inmate count actually rose slightly from the end of 2010 through last year.
• Massachusetts House Votes to Move 17-Year-Olds into Juvenile Justice System (WickedLocal.com)
  The House unanimously passed legislation Wednesday that would move 17-year-old offenders into the juvenile justice system in Massachusetts, ending the practice of routinely incarcerating 17-year-olds in adult corrections facilities.

Due to the number of pregnant teens seeking substance abuse treatment admission, SAMHSA established a Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS) to illuminate the variances between pregnant teenagers and other female teens admitted. Nearly 57,000 female teens were admitted to substance abuse treatment between 2007 and 2010. 2,200 of the teens admitted were pregnant. The report details both treatment and prevention programs.
Analysts found that more than half of the pregnant teens reported drug or alcohol use in the month before treatment initiation. One fifth of the women indicated daily use, with marijuana and alcohol listed as the most commonly used substances regardless of pregnancy status.
Teenage pregnancy alone poses a much higher peril for health risks than adult pregnancy. When addiction is mixed in, the chances for pregnancy-related complications, premature delivery and delivering babies with developmental problems increases dramatically.

Through Reclaiming Futures Snohomish County, and the Promising Artists in Recovery (PAIR) mentors, Mia stays sober and finds beautiful things to photograph around every corner.

We're excited to announce the Faces & Voices of Recovery event, America Honors Recovery, recognizing the impact that individuals can have on recovery. 

Faces & Voices of Recovery will honor leaders in the addiction recovery movement, highlighting the extraordinary contributions of the country's most influential recovery community leaders and organizations at America Honors Recovery. The event, sponsored with Caron Treatment Centers, honors the exceptional energy, commitment, dedication and creativity of these individuals and organizations in advocating for the rights of people and their families in or seeking recovery from addiction to alcohol and other drugs.
WHAT: AMERICA HONORS RECOVERY AWARDS PROGRAM AND RECEPTION
WHERE: Carnegie Institute for Science, 1530 P Street NW, Washington, DC 20005
WHEN: Wednesday, June 26, 2013 from 6:00 – 8:00 pm

Juvenile Justice Reform

• Fewer Memphis Juveniles are Being Transferred to Adult Court (The Commercial Appeal)
  More juveniles charged with crimes are being given a chance to turn their lives around, dodging transfer to adult court where prison is a common outcome, according to court statistics.
• Treat all 17-Year-Old Offenders as Juveniles, Illinois Senate Decides (Quad-City Times)
  The Illinois Senate Tuesday approved legislation that would send all 17-year-olds charged with a crime in Illinois first to juvenile courts.
• Natrona County Launches Juvenile Justice Data Collection Pilot Program (Megan Cassidy)
  A program that organizes information on juvenile offenses in Natrona County may grow and help law enforcement efforts across Wyoming. Rep. Keith Gingery said problems the state has addressing juvenile justice issues are compounded because of a lack of uniform data. Few legislators believe law enforcement agencies in Wyoming target minorities when arresting juveniles, for example, but there has been no statewide data to consider.
• Troubled Teens Art Featured at Austin Auction (KVUE.com)
  Those who oversee the program called Project Bridge say it's a way to help the kids realize they can be successful after they leave juvenile detention. “It opens their eyes to future possibilities, of things that might be on their horizon that they've never considered,” said Travis County 98th District Court Judge Rhonda Hurley.

Since 2003, Washington D.C. has seen a 43 percent decline in children placed in foster care. Though some progress has been made we are still seeing greater numbers of families struggling to access the resources they need to stay together when compared to the rest of the country. Our nation’s capital has one of the highest child poverty rates in the country with nearly 50 percent of youth in Ward 8 and 40 percent of youth in Ward 7 living below the federal poverty line. In 2011, Ward 8 had the highest unemployment rate in the nation.
These same wards are predominantly African-American and have the highest rates of children entering the child welfare system, of which 99 percent are youth of color (93 percent African-American and 6 percent Latino) according to research in Fostering Change, the latest report put out by the Justice Policy Institute. Fostering Change shows how family and neighborhood poverty are two of the strongest predictors of child maltreatment, and that the conditions poverty creates can ultimately lead to a child being removed from their home.
When considered in a broader socioeconomic context, poverty becomes more than the absence of income and or earning potential—that is, a lack of work opportunities, quality or not, to support oneself and her or his dependents. It is also dealing with the collateral effects of not being able to take care of basic needs such as buying food, medical care, school supplies and adequate clothing or paying for transportation, utilities and rent. These are just some of the conditions that can lead to children being maltreated. JPI’s report found that abused and neglected children are 59 percent more likely to be arrested, 28 percent more likely to be arrested as adults, and 30 percent more likely to commit a violent crime. In 2011, half of youth under the supervision of the District’s juvenile justice agency, Department of Youth and Rehabilitative Services (DYRS), were from Wards 7 and 8.

You see, in the end, these children grow up. For all people currently incarcerated in the United States 1 in 3 women and 1 in 10 men report a history of abuse as children. So, when we think about the needs of children in poverty, equal thought must be extended to that child’s family on whom she ultimately depends.
How many hardships would be mitigated and lives spared the trauma of family separation and or justice system involvement if they had access to quality jobs, mental health services and for the child, an uninterrupted education? Fostering Change cites parental incarceration, substance abuse and inadequate housing as some of the leading causes for youth involvement in the child welfare system. Nationally, 80 percent of children entering foster care are a result of at least one parent experiencing a substance abuse disorder. In 2010, 1 in 6 District youth entering foster care had an incarcerated parent. Think if substance abuse were treated like a public health issue rather than a criminal one? Or if instead of building exorbitantly priced condos, there were parallel investments made in maintaining and increasing the availability of affordable housing that kept pace with the need, as articulated by the city’s poverty levels?

Juvenile Justice Reform

• Broken Families, Parents Without Skills, Kids in Juvenile Justice 
  Clayton County, Georgia, Juvenile Court Chief Judge Steven Teske said, “We are having a lot of low risk kids who have very high needs because of family dysfunction...(that) don’t belong here. We’re making them worse, resulting in a 65 percent recidivism rate when they get out.”
• Judge Among Backers of Plan to Raise Age of Juvenile Jurisdiction 
  Massachusetts considerers proposals to give the juvenile court jurisdiction over 18-year-olds. Lawmakers, a judge, and a sheriff testified before the Committee on Children and Families Tuesday in support of legislation to treat 17-year-olds as young offenders.
• One Case Makes the Case for Community Based Services 
  Opinion: We cannot miss the opportunity to recognize what good policy means to real people -- the police, probation and detention officers, social workers and therapists. Most importantly, we should seize this opportunity to explain how juvenile policy affects a real kid in a real family.

Through Reclaiming Futures Snohomish County, and the Promising Artists in Recovery (PAIR) mentors, Natalie gives up life on the streets to follow her dream of studying photography.  
 

Last week at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law, I attended the Criminalization of Mental Illness Symposium. National experts shared fourteen presentations in an effort to make sense of hundreds of statistics and research studies on such topics as recidivism, gun violence, juvenile justice, homicide, suicide, Aurora, Tucson, Newtown and VA Tech. Do you think this sounds overwhelming? Actually, it wasn’t.

Over and over, members of this Think Tank who are advising our nation’s leaders on public policy, mental health and criminal justice reform repeated, “We know what to do, we just need to do it.”

So what do we need to do? We need to take a stand for prevention, compassion and love. Doesn’t it make sense to advocate for education, preventative mental health and programming for youth instead of simply waiting until it is too late? Too often in our current system, we are sending those in need straight into the justice system, especially our children who often fall into the “school to prison pipeline.” We all know that the system is broken but the beauty is we can and are fixing it.
I am very fortunate to spend my days at the Flawless Foundation witnessing miracles over and over again. Our grantees and partners are visionary leaders who have created programs that are not just thinking about these issues but they are actively addressing them through relationship, promoting connections and healing on every level: body, mind and soul. We know what to do and we are doing it.