Tagged With "foster youth"
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Juvenile crime rates plummet amid new approaches to tackling youth crime [SanDiegoUnionTribune.com]
When San Diego County went looking for grant funds to help build a 300-bed jail for juveniles, officials argued that the 1950s-era Juvenile Hall on Meadowlark Lane was strained to the breaking point. “There is literally no more room at the inn,” the county warned in a grant application in 1999 seeking $36 million in construction funds for what would become, in 2004, the East Mesa Juvenile Detention Facility. [For more of this story, written by Greg Moran, go to ...
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Juvenile Justice Resources
7 Common Characteristics of Juvenile Mental Health Courts Source: Gains Center, SAMHSA Description: Identifies seven common characteristics of Juvenile Mental Health Courts (JMHCs) as part of a National Institute of Justice – funded study,...
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Juvenile Justice Reform - FrameWorks MessageMemo
This MessageMemo presents the Strategic Frame Analysis® that the FrameWorks Institute and the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice conducted on behalf of the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Tis analysis synthesizes existing research generously sponsored by the Ford Foundation and the Rosenberg Foundation. It also draws upon FrameWorks’ decade-long investigation of children’s issues conducted largely in partnership with the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University,...
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Kamala Harris Unveils Justice Reform Plan Focused on Youth and Families [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
By Sara Tiano, The Chronicle of Social Change, September 9, 2019 Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris rolled out a criminal justice reform plan Monday that focused heavily on youth justice and child welfare issues. Harris’s plans aligns with several fellow Democrats on proposing reforms to the juvenile justice system, but she is the first in the crowded Democratic primary field to talk about addressing some child welfare issues. A key tenet of Harris’s plan is the creation of a...
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L.A. County severely restricts solitary confinement for juveniles [LATimes.com]
Los Angeles County on Tuesday approved sweeping restrictions on the use of solitary confinement for juvenile detainees, joining a larger movement against a practice that some consider cruel and unproductive. The Board of Supervisors' action bans solitary confinement at youth camps and halls except “as a temporary response to behavior that poses a serious and immediate risk of physical harm to any person.” In those cases, the supervisors said, the isolation should be only for a brief “cooling...
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L.A. Supervisors Demand Plan to Help “Crossover Kids,” Young People Failed by Two Juvenile Systems [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
We know that, statistically speaking, kids who spend time in Los Angeles County’s foster care system — or any foster care system, for that matter — have worse outcomes when they reach adulthood than youth who’ve never wound up in the child dependency system at all. Over the past few years, new California state laws that are sensitive to this problem, along with community-based programs and dedicated child advocates, have helped to ameliorate those bad stats to some degree. Yet there is...
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Legislation seeks juvenile justice system reforms (wavenewspapers.com)
Sens. Ricardo Lara, D-Long Beach, and Holly J. Mitchell, D-Los Angeles, coauthored eight equity and justice bills, four of which focus on young children in California’s juvenile justice system and another four that target injustices in the adult prison system. Among the bills is Senate Bill 190, which this week was approved by the Senate Public Safety Committee. The measure would eliminate administrative fees faced by families with children in a youth detention or youth probation facility.
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Let’s invest in the care of our young people instead of putting them in cages [Sacramento Bee]
BY CHET HEWITT AND SHANE GOLDSMITH SPECIAL TO THE SACRAMENTO BEE JUNE 13, 2019 02:40 AM, UPDATED JUNE 13, 2019 02:40 AM California’s young people need care, not cages. That call to action has become the drumbeat of a powerful movement of advocates working across California to push us to think bigger – and act boldly – to improve the health and wellbeing of our state’s biggest assets: our young people. A central theme and focus of this movement has been to encourage California to shift its...
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LGBTQ, Traumatized Homeless Youth More Vulnerable to Being Trafficked, Report Finds [jjie.org]
By Stell Simonton, Juvenile Justice Information Exchange, October 21, 2019 Understanding how homeless youth are trafficked is important information for the organizations offering them services. That’s the conclusion of a report released today based on a 2018 count of homeless and runaway young people ages 14-25 in Atlanta. “Clearly, talking about trafficking is critically important,” said Eric Wright, chairman of the sociology department at Georgia State University, who led the survey and...
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Linking Juvenile Justice Research to Policy Action [jamanetwork.com]
By Elizabeth S. Barnert, JAMA Pediatrics, February 10, 2020 Research shows that incarcerated youth are at risk of poor health and social outcomes.1 Interventions that focus on keeping youth out of the juvenile justice system are more likely to affect long-term outcomes.1 To create systems that prevent youth incarceration and improve youths’ trajectories, we must use evidence to inform public policy. By applying the scientific method through community-engaged scholarship,2 pediatric...
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Los Angeles Eyes Chicago Program as Replacement for Voluntary Probation (chronicleofsocialchange.org)
As the Los Angeles County Probation Department dismantles a controversial shadow probation program in schools, some county education officials worry that they will be left with fewer resources to work with young people who misbehave at school. The county is now looking at importing Becoming A Man, an intervention model developed in Chicago that targets high school boys for small-group sessions and comes with impressive credentials. Some advocates say they would prefer a local replacement.
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Mental Health in Criminal Justice Resources
7 Common Characteristics of Juvenile Mental Health Courts Source: Gains Center, SAMHSA Description: Identifies seven common characteristics of Juvenile Mental Health Courts (JMHCs) as part of a National Institute of Justice – funded study,...
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Michigan Senate votes to try 17-year-olds as juveniles (freep.com)
Michigan would no longer automatically treat 17-year-old criminal defendants as adults under bills that cleared a significant legislative hurdle Wednesday and may soon reach the desk of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. The Republican-led Senate, for the first time, overwhelmingly passed "raise the age" measures after not embracing them in past sessions. The GOP-controlled House plans to approve a similar plan Thursday, after which lawmakers will work to resolve differences over how to ensure the state...
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Momentum Builds in States to End the Youth Prison Model (aecf.org)
America’s longstanding youth prison model — which emphasizes compliance, control and punishment — exacerbates youth trauma and inhibits positive growth while failing to enhance public safety. Not surprisingly, this model is fading across the nation. In January 2018, New Jersey became the latest state to announce plans to close a youth prison as part of a comprehensive effort to reform its juvenile justice system. The Garden State is following in the footsteps of Virginia, Connecticut and...
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Moving into Adulthood: Implementation Findings From the Youth Villages Transitional Living Evaluation
This report from MDRC presents program implementation and participation findings from an evaluation of the Youth Villages Transitional Living program, which is designed to help youth who were formerly in foster care or juvenile justice...
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Nash Bridges: Renowned Judge Building L.A.’s Plan to Reach Crossover Youth (chronicleofsocialchange.org)
In March , the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors passed a motion that promised to tackle one of the most pressing issues the county’s child welfare and juvenile justice systems face: how to change the tragically life-altering effects of being caught up in both. For oft-labeled “crossover youth,” having a foot in both systems can easily result in incarceration, homelessness and substance abuse issues later in life. Amid the bleak outcomes for foster youth and those involved in the...
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Nevada County Probation Department implementing Transitional Age Youth Program in Juvenile Hall
By Michael Ertola, Chief Probation Officer California State Assembly Passed Public Safety SB 1004 on June 28, 2016, to allow five California counties to implement a pilot program to house Transitional Age Youth (18-21 years old) in their Juvenile Halls. The five counties include Nevada, Napa, Butte, Santa Clara and Alameda. The Chief Probation Officers of California (CPOC) sponsored bill SB 1004 to provide appropriate housing, programs and services needed by Transitional Age Youth. SB 1004...
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New Hub Resource: Smart, Safe, and Fair: Strategies to Prevent Youth Violence, Heal Victims of Crimes, and Reduce Racial Inequality (jjie.org)
“Smart, Safe, and Fair: Strategies to Prevent Youth Violence, Heal Victims of Crimes, and Reduce Racial Inequality,” published through a collaboration between the Justice Policy Institute (JPI) and the National Center for Victims of Crime (NCVC) addresses how to help youth involved in violent crime — both offenders and victims. Confinement of youth convicted of crimes has decreased; however, violent crime convictions have not. The report shows that confinement of youth is more expensive and...
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New Tool Will Help Form Responses to Adolescent Domestic Battery [JJIE.org]
In December 2015, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation published the “ Adolescent Domestic Battery Typology Tool ” to improve the way the juvenile justice system responds when a youth is facing arrest or system involvement for battering a parent or caregiver. To those outside the juvenile justice system, it might be surprising that such a tool would be needed. Those who work in or with the system might well wonder, “What took us so long?” The good news is that the tool is now...
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'Nothing short of miraculous': Excelsior sees dramatic dip in youth runaway reports [Islander]
T wo years ago, Excelsior Youth Center couldn't get out of the headlines. Kids staying in Excelsior's residential child welfare program were constantly running away and landing on the street. Neighbors of the center in northwest Spokane were getting aggravated with the crime. And the state had to be careful about placing foster kids who need behavioral health treatment at Excelsior, especially if those kids had a history of running away from placement. But it appears the issue with kids...
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Nourish Their Bodies, Feed Their Minds, Reduce Youth Crime (socialjusticesolutions.com)
Want to curb juvenile delinquency and prevent incarceration? Try fruits and vegetables . Too often efforts to keep kids in school and out of jail fail to consider the link between nutrition and behavior. Programs designed to prevent juvenile delinquency, or rehabilitate offenders, tend to focus correcting problem behaviors and pay little attention to what kids are eating. Several studies have found that poor nutrition in childhood can lead to the externalization of aggressive, antisocial,...
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OJJDP FY 2016 Safe and Thriving Communities solicitation (webinar 5/6)
Uniting and Enhancing Community-Based Violence Prevention, Defending Childhood, and National Forum Approaches: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention invites applications for fiscal year (FY) 2016 funding from localities that will embrace integration of the strategies and approaches of OJJDP’s three youth violence prevention initiatives to achieve well-being and positive outcomes and from existing OJJDP youth violence prevention grantees that wish to enhance their efforts. The...
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One on One With the Police (nationswell.com)
The organization, Pennsylvania Disproportionate Minority Contact (DMC), trains Philadelphia cops to empathize with inner-city youth. Its seminars aren’t a certain fix to rebuilding trust between police and the communities they serve, but data collected from DMC and other case studies around the country, suggest they are making a difference. These types of meet-ups, which are formally known as “facilitated dialogue,” also appear to be associated with a drop in crime. After forums in a Boston...
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Online learning can open doors for kids in juvenile jails (hechingerreport.org)
Nat ionally, researchers have found that people are less likely to end up back in the criminal justice system if they meet educational milestones, and that adults with higher levels of education have better employment rates, less incidence of homelessness and better health outcomes. But a 2015 survey by the Council of State Governments Justice Center found that only 13 states provided educational services for kids inside juvenile justice facilities that were comparable to those provided for...
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Pathways to Policy [changelabsolutions.org]
Young people are raising their voices to create safer, healthier communities—even if they’re not old enough to vote yet. From #NeverAgain to #MeToo, young people have been at the forefront of advocacy movements for decades, their passion and idealism sparking millions of people to take action. How can we channel that energy in a way that can lead to concrete public policy change? We created Pathways to Policy to answer that question—and to support young people in their pursuit of a better...
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Peer Court to Tackle Truancy Trouble [commercial-news.com]
By Carol Roehm, Commercial-News, September 29, 2019 Vermilion County students who are truant or have issues with chronic absenteeism now will have the option of answering to their peers rather than to a courtroom judge. Maria Sermersheim became the new truancy coordinator for the Vermilion County Regional Office of Education on Aug. 13. She also will continue her work as the local Peer Court coordinator. “She brings great experience working with youth in Peer Court,” former truancy officer...
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Population-Based Analysis of Temporal Trends in the Prevalence of Depressed Mood Among Sexual Minority and Heterosexual Youths From 1999 Through 2017 [jamanetwork.com]
By Alexandra H. Bettis, Richard T. Liu, Jama Pediatrics, October 21, 2019 Depression in adolescence is highly prevalent and associated with negative long-term outcomes.1 Despite decades of research on treatment for adolescent depression, sexual minority youths remain a particularly at-risk group.2 Temporal trends inform progress in addressing the need to eliminate health disparities among sexual minority populations.3 To our knowledge, this study presents the first population-representative...
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Prosecuting Youth As Adults Creates Racial Disparities and ‘Justice-By-Geography’ [JJIE.org]
Each year, California prosecutors charge hundreds of youth in the adult criminal justice system through a power called “ direct file .” Prosecutors make the decision to direct file behind closed doors without considering a youth’s background, mental health, trauma history, degree of participation in the offense or potential for rehabilitation. Direct file also does not allow for many due process protections — for example, no hearing before a judge and no right to appeal. Prosecutors in...
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Reader Program at Juvenile Hall Marks 25th Year (martinezgazette.com)
Years ago, Betty Frandsen joined the Juvenile Hall Auxiliary, spending time in with the children and youth confined in Contra Costa County Juvenile Hall. She began talking with them and hearing them say they needed some way to be soothed so they could sleep at night. “Her conversations with these children kept turning up how lonely and difficult night time was in an institutional setting,” said Susan Grice. Frandsen then founded “The Late Show Bedtime Reading Program” at the county’s...
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Report Offers Insights For Trading Juvenile Incarceration For Community-Based Strategies [witnessla.com]
Over the last 20 years, youth violence dropped precipitously (and unexpectedly) in California. Law enforcement arrested minors 22,601 times for violent crimes in 1994. That arrest rate dropped 68 percent, to 7,291 arrests two decades later, in 2017. In addition, a collective turning away from harshly punitive incarceration for kids, and a movement toward community-based diversion and services, have helped keep kids out of juvenile lockups. (But not all kids—racial disparities in the juvenile...
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Report Outlines New Therapeutic Approach Coming to L.A. County Juvenile Detention Facility (chronicleofsocialchange.org)
A new report outlines a roadmap and summary of the “L.A. Model,” a collection of therapeutic-based practices aimed at improving care for youth in Los Angeles County juvenile detention facilities. Using the L.A. Model, the Kilpatrick campus offers a chance to “bring L.A.’s juvenile justice system into the 21st century.” The new approach calls for a facility based on small group arrangements in a therapeutic environment with an emphasis on creating a culture of care and respect among all staff...
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Resources - Training
National Youth Screening & Assessment Project Source: University of Massachusetts Medical School Description: A technical assistance and research center, dedicated to helping juvenile justice programs identify youths needs for behavioral health intervention and risk management. Link: http://www.nysap.us/Index.html
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Reversing the Pipeline to Prison in Texas [texascjc.org]
From Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, February 2020 Today in Texas schools, students at every grade level face disciplinary methods that can land them behind bars. School administrations have implemented punitive “zero tolerance” policies and have increased on-campus policing in response to various incidents over past decades; this has led to negative, unintended consequences and has pushed many students — particularly those most vulnerable — out of the classroom, where they can be subject...
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Ripe for Juvenile Justice Reform in Arkansas [jjie.org]
This is part one of a two-part series. The number of delinquent youth remanded to the Arkansas Division of Youth Services during the fiscal year that ended in July was the lowest in at least two decades, according to figures recently released by the DYS. Juvenile judges committed 451 youth to state custody in fiscal year 2017 — a 14 percent decrease from 2015, when commitments to the DYS reached 526. The commitment rate does not reflect every youth confined in a facility in Arkansas. It...
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San Francisco cops go back to school to better understand teens (sfchronicle.com)
Seven teens loitered in a San Francisco park, and before long two police officers shuffled over and started grilling them. “Get over here,” a female officer yelled. “Sit your ass down.” Five of the kids stared at the officer with wide eyes and promptly planted themselves on the ground. Two others crossed their arms and ignored the officer’s commands. Suddenly, the officer burst out laughing and hugged the flustered kids. “Sorry,” she said, “sorry!” This was the first role playing exercise of...
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Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) speaks out about Community Violence and Introduces TIC Bill [chicagodefender.com]
It is noteworthy that in his press conference to introduce his new bill, The Trauma Informed Care for Children and Families Act, Senator Durbin (D-IL) speaks out about the impact of community violence. “As we work to address the root causes of violence, we need to focus on the impact that community violence and other traumatic experiences have on Chicago’s children,” said Durbin. “During a visit to the Cook County Juvenile Detention Center last year, I learned that more than 90 percent of...
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SF’s juvenile hall would shut down within 3 years under proposal [SF Chronicle]
San Francisco’s juvenile hall would close within three years under a proposal heading to the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday with a majority of elected officials on board, backed by prominent supporters. Six of the 11 supervisors, the district attorney, public defender and other local officials have thrown their support behind the measure requiring the youth detention facility to close by the end of 2021. It would also create a working group to oversee the process and come up with...
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Shifting Gears on Juvenile Justice: FrameWorks Communications Toolkit
A collection of framing research, recommendations, and sample communications. This toolkit is designed to help reformers and advocates in the juvenile justice field increase public understanding of: * the science of adolescent development and the need to incorporate a developmental perspective into criminal justice policies designed for youth; * why the current approaches to juvenile crime aren’t working; * age-appropriate treatments and interventions that improve outcomes for those already...
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Should LA County youth prisons close? Here’s what residents think (dailynews.com)
Should LA County youth prisons close? That's how 61 percent of Los Angeles County residents surveyed feel about juvenile halls, according to the results of a statewide poll released Wednesday. Across the state, more than half of the 1,042 California residents in the survey said they supported prevention and rehabilitation programs for youth instead of juvenile halls. The survey was commissioned by the California Endowment and conducted online in June. In January, the Los Angeles County Board...
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Solitary Confinement, Beloved by Lazy Staff, Simply Doesn’t Work [jjie.org]
In 2012, the U.S. Attorney General appointed a national task force on children exposed to violence that concluded, “Nowhere is the impact of incarceration on vulnerable children more obvious than when it involves solitary confinement.” This statement still holds true and solitary confinement bears an even heavier impact on incarcerated youth today. Why? Because the use of solitary confinement has been practiced under a variety of assumed names (room restriction, room confinement, isolation,...
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Solitary Confinement of Youth Used Frequently, Unfairly, New Report Says [JJIE.org]
Solitary confinement in juvenile facilities remains too widespread, is unnecessary and counterproductive, is unfairly applied and is harmful, a new report says. In addition, experts lament the fact that there’s “a desperate need for better data on disparate treatment within facilities,” said Jessica Feierman, associate director of the Juvenile Law Center and one of the report’s authors. In the report, which aims to bridge the information gap, the center presents raw testimony from people who...
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Some 350 Florida Leaders Expected to Attend Think Tank with Dr. Vincent Felitti, Co-Principal Investigator of the ACE Study; Expert on ACEs Science
Leaders from across the Sunshine State will take part in a “Think Tank” in Naples, FL, on Monday, August 6, to help create a more trauma-informed Florida. The estimated 350 attendees will include policy makers and community teams made up of school superintendents, law enforcement officers, judges, hospital administrators, mayors, PTA presidents, child welfare experts, mental health and substance abuse treatment providers, philanthropists, university researchers, state agency heads, and...
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Stakeholder Corner: Oakland Leverages OJJDP Funding To Extend Violence Prevention Efforts (ojjdp.gov)
Oakland Unite, the organization I work for, came to be through a collaboration of violence prevention programs funded by Measure Y resources. Our programming focuses on our highest risk community members and neighborhoods and emphasizes interrupting violence now and preventing it in the future. OJJDP supported Measure Y with a 3-year, $2.2 million Community-Based Violence Prevention (CBVP) progam grant. The CBVP program provides funding for localities to replicate proven strategies, such as...
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Start Small: The Key to a More Gender-Responsive Juvenile Justice System [JJIE.org]
On Jan. 21, hundreds of thousands of women gathered in Washington and other cities to send the message that “women’s rights are human rights.” The broad agenda for the marches included issues as disparate as LGBT rights, immigration reform, pay equality and even environmental protection. Though very different, all were issues we have come to expect to see appended to a gender equality agenda. What we don’t often hear on the national stage is a call for broad reform of how women and girls are...
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Stopping School Pushout for: Girls Involved in the Juvenile Justice System (nwlc.org)
Girls are the fastest growing population in the juvenile justice (JJ) system, with girls of color, LGBT and gender nonconforming youth, and girls with disabilities being overrepresented relative to school enrollment or share of the overall population. For instance, Black girls make up 15 percent of girls enrolled in public schools but 30.8 percent of girls in juvenile justice center schools. Girls who enter the juvenile justice system are likely to have suffered sexual abuse, violence, and...
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Study Examines Racial Disparities in the Juvenile Justice System (socialjusticesolutions.org)
A study completed in November by the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health suggests the racial make-up of a neighborhood may have a greater influence on the racial disparities in youth arrests than poverty, unemployment, vacant housing or school quality. The study, “Understanding Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Arrest: The Role of Individual, Home, School, and Community Characteristics,” uses data from the National Longitudinal...
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Systems Integration: Child Welfare and Juvenile Justice
This resource from the National Center for Juvenile Justice focuses on how policies and practices addressing the challenges posed by dual-status youth in both the child welfare and juvenile justice systems have changed within the past decade. It...
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Tech-Savvy Teens Launch App to Help Juveniles Clear Arrest Records (govtech.com)
Most people don't know they can get their juvenile records erased. Thanks to a group of young people, there's now an app for that. For all the ways government affects young people, there still aren’t many avenues for them to influence public policy. But that's less true in Cook County, Ill., where a youth advisory board has become an in-house think tank for improving the local juvenile justice system. Three years ago, a group of high school- and college-age students in Cook County spent a...
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The Art of Using Film to Transform the Lives of Formerly-Incarcerated Youth (nationswell.com)
A New York City documentary center allows those that rarely have a voice to speak freely — provoking viewers to confront misconceptions and wrongly-made assumptions. Comics, with their rowdy action boxed within firm, familiar lines and violence reduced to harmless bams, thwacks and kapows, give Mario Rivera the ability to escape from reality. “When you’re reading the comic book, you’re no longer thinking about your problems,” says Rivera, a 24-year-old New Yorker who served time in prison...
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The Broadway Theater Company Giving Troubled Teens a Second Act (dailygood.org)
Stargate Theatre pays at-risk youth to script and stage performance pieces. Their aim: to reduce recidivism, teach literacy and provide work experience that looks far better on a CV than jail time. An alternative-to-incarceration program recommended Thompson to Stargate, a pilot project founded last year by the prestigious Manhattan Theatre Club (MTC), which produces Broadway and Off-Broadway plays. The unconventional Stargate theater troupe pays “court-involved” and at-risk teenage boys...