Archive for Juvenile Justice

| April 12, 2013
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Juvenile Facilities Need to Promote the Mental Health and Well-being of LGBT Youth

A position paper from the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine (SAHM) recently published in the Journal of Adolescent Health calls on professionals in juvenile justice, public health, law, government and other fields to take steps to encourage the healthy development of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered) youth, who are at greater risk than others for bullying and victimization. Lack of acceptance by others has been shown to subject them to greater stress, leading to risky behavior and mental health issues that can land them in the juvenile justice system.

The paper also urges professionals to better understand the needs of LGBT youngsters and to advocate for policy changes to support them at school, at home and in child welfare and juvenile justice settings.

In one study cited in the paper 85% of LGBT students said that they had been verbally harassed, 40% reported physical harassment and two thirds said they felt unsafe at school. Another study discussed in the report links LGBT victimization to nightmares, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse and suicide attempts.

The SAHM paper urges the enactment of anti-bullying laws and policies and encourages professionals to educate their communities about preventing victimization of LGBT adolescents. Additional research into LGBT health needs is also needed.

The paper takes a strong stance against “reparative therapy” intended to alter individuals’ sexual orientation.

The document’s lead author Dr.David Reitman declares:

Science has firmly established that gender identity and sexual orientation are not choices, and there are a lot of data indicating that reparative therapy is harmful.

The paper states that juvenile justice agencies should develop policies to safeguard the physical and emotional well-being of detained youth. Agencies should partner with public health practitioners to access expertise on health issues facing LGBT youth, the report adds.

A major concern is LGBT youth being isolated, discriminated against or ignored in detention facilities. Other concerns are gender-based housing decisions and continuity of hormone treatment for transgender youth. SAHM recommends that juvenile justice facilities access guidelines published by other groups for serving youth in group facilities.

Reitman adds:

For juvenile justice facilities in particular the data show that there’s a sense that it’s acceptable for staff to use derogatory language or allow kids to do so. Providing ongoing education to staff is even more important in these settings, as is requiring staff and inmates to behave respectfully toward one another. Ignoring the issue is harmful, because when staff fail to call kids out on it, it’s viewed as an unspoken endorsement.

To support LGBT youth, professionals running programs need to set up rules to ensure that bullying isn’t tolerated. Young people must know they are expected to treat each other with respect, and workers need to hold youth who do not do so accountable. If staff members hear unacceptable language being used, they should talk to the speaker about how it makes others feel. If any young person seems particularly anxious, depressed or withdrawn, possibly due to bullying, they should be connected to appropriate mental health services.

LGBT youth face a number of challenges and risks other teens don’t. Providers working with these adolescents must learn to recognize these challenges and support youth to help them achieve self-acceptance and healthy development.

Category: Juvenile Justice | Tags: , , , , , ,
| April 9, 2013
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Elemental Crime: Pb(CH2CH3)4 and the Cycle of Violence

English: Lead Paint

English: Lead Paint (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Many factors go into the making of an American criminal, but who would have thought that one of them might be lead?

A recent investigative piece by Mother Jones reporter Kevin Drum asserts just that, and it has sparked a wild flurry of debate in the wake of his extensive and damning article.

We all know that many childhood factors can influence a tendency towards crime. Broken homes, exposure to additive substances and many more are often trotted out, and rightfully so. Drum asserts that the ambient lead caused by lead paint and vehicle exhaust are directly linked  to crime rates.

Rick Nevin, a consultant working for the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, began finding correlations between the rise and fall of leaded gasoline and urban crime rates. He discovered that they describe almost identical curves, but are 23 years out of synch.

Jessica Reyes, public health policy professor at Amherst, weighs in on the research she did, inspired by being pregnant in a old house and learning about the dangers of lead. What Nevin found on the grand scale she found to also hold true on a more granular level (reporting via Mother Jones) :

If childhood lead exposure really did produce criminal behavior in adults, you’d expect that in states where consumption of leaded gasoline declined slowly, crime would decline slowly too. Conversely, in states where it declined quickly, crime would decline quickly. And that’s exactly what she found.

Meanwhile, Nevin had kept busy as well, and in 2007 he published a new paper looking at crime trends around the world (PDF). This way he could make sure the close match he’d found between the lead curve and the crime curve wasn’t just a coincidence. Sure, maybe the real culprit in the United States was something else happening at the exact same time, but what are the odds of that same something happening at several different times in several  countries?

Nevin collected lead data and crime data for Australia and found a close match. Ditto for Canada, Great Britain,  Finland, France, Italy, New Zealand and West Germany. Every time the two curves fit each other astonishingly well. When I spoke to Nevin about this, I asked him if he had ever found a country that didn’t fit the theory. “No,” he replied. “Not one.”

Just this year, Tulane University researcher Howard Mielke published a paper with demographer Sammy Zahran on the correlation of lead and crime at the city level. They studied six US cities that had both good crime data and good lead data going back to the ’50s, and they found a good fit in every single one. In fact, Mielke has even studied lead concentrations at the neighborhood level in New Orleans and shared his maps with the local police. “When they overlay them with crime maps,” he told me, “they realize they match up.”

As New Orleans native I can tell you that the maps comparing crime and lead here in the Crescent City are so accurate that it is spooky.

Down under in Australia, researchers are finding almost identical results. ABC News Australia covered this as recently as Tuesday, April 9th when they published the following:

Professor Mark Taylor, an environmental scientist at Macquarie University, has now begun Australia’s first study comparing suburbs with high lead air pollution levels and local crime rates.

Professor Taylor says his research also indicates there is close to a 20-year time lag between the peaks in lead air pollution and peaks in the rates of assault.

  • Boolaroo: Lead air pollution peaked in 1988. The assault rate peaked 21 years later in 2009.
  • Earlwood, Sydney: Lead air pollution peaked in 1982. The assault rate peaked 20 years later in 2002.
  • Port Kembla: Lead air pollution peaked in 1979. The assault rate peaked 20 years later in 1999.
  • Lane Cove, Sydney: Lead air pollution peaked in 1978. The assault rate peaked 21 years later in 1999.

‘The locations we are looking at are, for example, Sydney, Rozelle, Earlwood, Boolaroo, the old lead smelter, Port Kembla as well, so we have been able to extract reasonably good records for those locations,’ he said.

‘We are not saying that it’s a one-to-one relationship; what we are saying is that lead exposure is associated with violent activity.’

The evidence just seems to keep piling up. While correlation does not denote causation, the correlations here seem to be almost universal. Here are a few links that provide a range of additional info on the subject.

Forbes, however, has done the best job of succinctly explaining why Drum’s theories hold the ring of truth:

There are three basic reasons why this theory should be believed. First, as Drum points out, the numbers correlate almost perfectly. ‘If you add a lag time of 23 years,’ he writes. ‘Lead emissions from automobiles explain 90 percent of the variation in violent crime in America. Toddlers who ingested high levels of lead in the ’40s and ’50s really were more likely to become violent criminals in the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s.’

Second, this correlation holds true with no exceptions. Every country studied has shown this same strong correlation between leaded gasoline and violent crime rates. Within the United States, you can see the data at the state level. Where lead concentrations declined quickly, crime declined quickly. Where it declined slowly, crime declined slowly. The data even hold true at the neighborhood level – high lead concentrations correlate so well that you can overlay maps of crime rates over maps of lead concentrations and get an almost perfect fit.

Third, and probably most important, the data go beyond just these models. As Drum himself points out, ‘If econometric studies were all there was to the story of lead, you’d be justified in remaining skeptical no matter how good the statistics look.’ But the chemistry and neuroscience of lead gives us good reason to believe the connection. Decades of research has shown that lead poisoning causes significant and probably irreversible damage to the brain. Not only does lead degrade cognitive abilities and lower intelligence, but it also degrades a person’s ability to make decisions by damaging areas of the brain responsible for ’emotional regulation, impulse control, attention, verbal reasoning and mental flexibility.’

So there you have it: the latest front in the battle against crime is chemistry.

If any of our readers have a neuroscience background, we would love to hear your thoughts on this.

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Category: Criminal Justice, Health, Juvenile Justice, Mental Health | Tags: , , , , , ,
| April 3, 2013
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Signal Amplification: The National Juvenile Justice Network’s Leadership Institute seeking reformers.

The National Juvenile Justice Network’s Leadership Institute is looking for ten great reformers.

Picture somebody in your mind — someone you know — who wants to set the juvenile justice world on fire.  Someone who’s fed up with seeing kids get kicked out of school for minor misbehavior, locked up without due process, or any of a hundred other unjust, unfair things that can blight young people’s lives.

You can see this person in your mind’s eye, right?  You’re picturing someone who stands up, speaks out, and can work with others to reform what’s not working.   A person, in other words, who is ready to take the next step to grow as a leader.

Chances are this army-of-one you’re picturing in your mind is ready to apply to the Youth Justice Leadership Institute, a robust, year-long fellowship program run by the National Juvenile Justice Network that focuses on cultivating and supporting professionals of color. Our goal is to create the foundation for a more effective juvenile justice reform movement by developing a strong base of advocates and organizers who reflect the communities most affected by juvenile justice system practices and policies.

By the way, your force-of-nature will not need to quit his or her job. It does mean that he or she will join a hand-picked group of 10 fellows assembled from all over the country to learn about leadership, juvenile justice system policies and practices, theories of change, and how to develop their skills as advocates.  Plus, it’s free (or close to it). Travel and lodging are paid for; tuition is minimal when compared to other programs of this length and intensity.

Applications are due May 6, 2013.

Anyone who wants to apply for the Institute can:

 

This year, Diana will host two informational webinars for prospective applicants:

•           April 4, 2013, 12:30 pm – 1:30 pm EST (click to register)

•           April 10, 2013, 1 pm – 2 pm EST (click to register)

 

Please share this announcement with your networks!

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Category: Humane Exposures, Juvenile Justice | Tags: , , , , , , ,
| March 22, 2013
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Texas Juvenile Justice Reforms Save Public Money and Make Secure Facilities Safer

texas our texas

texas our texas (Photo credit: jmtimages)

Nearly 100,000 children are caught up in Texas’s juvenile justice system each year—many of them suffering from severe trauma, substance abuse and mental health problems. While an increasing number of youth are being diverted to community-based supervision and treatment programs, others continue to be housed in county or state secure facilities.

These institutions are too large and too remote, resulting in staffing problems, low family involvement, high youth-on-youth violence and ineffective rehabilitation. And although county facilities are able to keep youth closer to family and community resources, research shows that for most youth, time spent in any secure facility harms rehabilitation. What’s worse, some kids as young as 14 are still sent to adult facilities.

In recent years, Texas legislators and policymakers have adopted reforms in the criminal justice system that move away from the expensive, marginally effective “lock-‘em-all-up” approach to punishment, toward a more sophisticated, effective one. State juvenile facilities used to be little more than preparatory academies for crime, but that is now changing.

Since shocking revelations in 2007 about mistreatment and sexual abuse of youthful offenders by the staff of the Texas Youth Commission (TYC), reforms been implemented that have made juveniles in state secure facilities safer and have reduced the institutions’ average daily population down from 3,642 in 2006 to only 1,221 in 2011.

Jim Hurley, spokesman for the Texas Juvenile Justice Department (formerly known as the TYC) reports:

Once insular and defensive, the agency appears now much more willing to listen to outside advice and opinions. The state has provided more training since juvenile justice reforms were implemented and the number and rate of youth-on-youth assaults has decreased at state secure facilities.

A recent survey of 115 detainees at the Giddings State School found that “youthful offenders feel safe and hopeful about their futures.” The interviewees called for even more training for detention facilities staff and moving kids from remote locations so as to enable greater family involvement.

Benet Magnuson, a policy attorney with the Youth Justice Project, explains:

The state is on the right track to keeping juvenile offenders closer to their homes. When kids are in their community and the county has invested in local programs, you’re going to see better outcomes in terms of safety, family involvement, rehabilitation and treatment.

According to the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, county-run secure facilities need grant funds, technical assistance, accountability standards and oversight to develop and effectively implement best practices to strengthen their diversion and treatment infrastructure. The Coalition stresses that all programming and services for juveniles must be age-appropriate and emphasize their unique needs.

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Category: Criminal Justice, Juvenile Justice, Texas | Tags: , ,
| March 11, 2013
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Youth Incarceration Down in U.S., Colorado

Map of USA with Colorado highlighted

Map of USA with Colorado highlighted (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

U.S. juvenile detention has fallen to the lowest level in 35 years, due largely to the increase and growth of remediation programs. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement, 44 states have reduced their confinement of juveniles rates between 1997 and 2010, with declines of 66% in Tennessee, 57% in Arizona, 48% in California and 44% in Texas. On the other hand, incarceration rates rose over the period In Nebraska, Idaho, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and South Dakota. Over the same period, youth violence dropped significantly.

Bart Lubow, director of The Annie E. Casey Foundation, whose recent study is titled “Youth Incarceration in the U.S” states:

The decline is very significant because America for a long time did nothing but build up its incarcerated young population. But in recent years, there has been a radical sea change. It is a highly important social development that has largely gone on under the radar.

The findings reflect a trend toward less harsh treatment of youthful infractions. Scientific research shows that youths can more easily control destructive impulses as their brains mature.

Most juveniles are confined for minor offenses—such as violating curfew or running away from home—offenses that would not be considered illegal if committed by those 18 and older.

Juvenile justice systems still treat children of color much more punitively than Anglo kids—confining five times more African-American youngsters and two-to-three times more Latinos and Native Americans than Whites.

The Casey Foundation finds wholesale incarceration counterproductive and provides technical assistance to 200 jurisdictions attempting to reduce it.

According to Bartholomew Sullivan, writing in the Memphis Commercial Appeal:

 The Casey Report recommends five steps to accelerate the drop in youth detention, including restricting incarceration only to those “who pose a demonstrable risk to public safety” and upending the financial incentives for correctional placement.

The recent de-incarceration trend provides a unique opportunity to implement responses to delinquency that are more cost-effective and humane and that provide better outcomes for youth, their families and communities.

The number of juveniles committed to the Colorado Division of Youth Corrections has dropped by 44 percent in the past seven years, the result of programs that have put more focus on rehabilitation than detention. Declining populations at the facilities are a result of successfully combining front-end programs—designed to help adolescents before they enter the justice system—and efforts to stop released juveniles from returning.

Colorado Director of Youth Corrections John Gomez states:

Declining populations at our facilities are a result of successfully combining front-end programs—designed to help ad<olescents before they enter the justice system—and efforts to stop released juveniles from returning. We’ve continued to work at ensuring that we are providing the right services at the right time.

With fewer juveniles in detention, the Colorado Department of Human Services, which manages youth corrections, has asked lawmakers to move nearly $8 million from youth corrections to child-welfare services, including early-intervention programs for children and teens before they enter the juvenile justice system.

In the past year, Colorado has enjoyed a 13% drop in youth recidivism. And more juveniles being released from youth corrections are equipped with skill sets that will help them when they return home. While serving their commitments, juveniles can earn their GEDs or high school diplomas and work with their families before being released.

 

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Category: Juvenile Justice, Prison, Prison Reform | Tags: , , , , , , , ,
| March 1, 2013
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A Bipartisan Victory in Georgia!

English: Great Seal of the State of Georgia

English: Great Seal of the State of Georgia (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“Why are they there? They are there because there are not programs currently in the community that judges can send them to,”

-Rep. Wendell Willard, speaking about the incarceration of juveniles for misdemeanor offenses or truancy charge (as reported in the Marietta Daily Journal).

It looks like that is about to change. In a show of bipartisan collaboration that is long overdue Georgia conservatives and their liberal counterparts have joined forces to fix their state’s juvenile justice system. A system that has done nothing but get consistently worse over the past two decades.

Melissa Carter at the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange writes:

Georgia leaders were recently confronted by compelling data showing that the state is expending considerable resources confining offenders who are mostly at low-risk to re-offend, and further, that these expensive and restrictive interventions are not effective. More than half of all Georgia young people in the juvenile justice system recidivate; that is, they are re-adjudicated delinquent or convicted of a criminal offense within three years of their release. This narrative is not unique to Georgia, and states recognize the need to be more effective and more efficient with their limited resources. A broader set of goals must be satisfied, including those promoting public safety, accountability, fiscal responsibility and positive outcomes for young people. Thus, now is the ideal time to correct the public policy course of the last two decades by making smart investments in our youth.

Georgia’s governor recognized this opportunity and has made juvenile justice reform a signature issue. The state is poised to enact a comprehensive statutory reform package (the state House passed the legislation last week) that includes proposals to treat status offenders through a more service-oriented Children in Need of Services (CHINS) approach, separate felonies into two classes based on the severity of the offense to allow for differentiated sentencing, mandate use of standardized assessment tools, and require improved data collection. The bill also contains a fiscal incentive program to create community-based alternatives to detention.

Programs like these are already showing results- improving outcomes for youth and their families, increasing public safety and reducing costs in five states. Seeing them implemented in a state notorious for its juvenile justice concerns is heartening. Even more important is the continuing trend of bipartisan agreement.

It is no secret that these are insanely polarized times, politically speaking. As a result collaborations across the aisle have become almost mythical. Just look at the “fiscal cliff” and the current brouhaha about sequestration. Yet on this issue there is no choice but bipartisan agreement, the numbers are that cut and dried. There are even precedents for it, as I noted here on this blog back in February of 2012 when I wrote about bipartisan progress being made in aphid and Michegan:

The idea of justice reform is often viewed as a province of the liberal left, however the current reality is that more and more conservatives are embracing it now that they are becoming aware of the harsh financial realities. Let us hope this trend continues.

We have the proof. Numerous studies over the past few decades show quite plainly that more community based approaches and rehabilitative programs are more effective at getting people out of the system, which thrills liberals. These same studies also demonstrate a much lower outlay of funds with a greatly increased return on investment, the goal of all true fiscal conservatives.

Let us hope that the common sense prevailing in Georgia leads even more states to do so. It is, after all, far more expensive to do nothing.

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Category: Juvenile Justice, Legislation, Prison, Prison Reform | Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
| February 20, 2013
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Juvenile Justice in Georgia: A Huge Step and Huge Savings

Chain Handcuffs

Chain Handcuffs (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“Lock ’em up and throw away the key!”

That has been the campaign rhetoric in Georgia for quite some time now, and many are glad to see it begin to fade. The stance of no tolerance coupled with long sentences is hopefully drawing to a close, despite remaining entrenched in certain quarters.

Channel 6, ABC News brings us this brief bit of coverage. You will note that while it does talk about the $88 million dollars in savings, a lot of air time is given to a policeman who embraces the hard-line– one that has failed to work for many years now.

While the hard-line attitude has been typical of Georgia politics for quite some time, the pressures of mounting facts and dwindling resources are creating support for this sort of legislation. Macon.com notes some of the particulars:

Chairman Wendell Willard said the latest version has the backing from state and local agencies, including Georgia’s district attorneys association. Youth advocates and many juvenile judges also are pushing the measure. And Gov. Nathan Deal has included money in his 2014 budget proposal to help expand the community programs.

“We hope we are making major strides in finding better practices,” Willard said.

Georgia spends more than $90,000 per year on each youthful offender behind bars. It costs about $30,000 to serve a delinquent at a non-secure residential facility. About 65 percent who are released end up back in jail, Willard said, a rate he called “totally unacceptable.” The new model, he told a packed hearing room at the Capitol, should “save lives that would otherwise continue down a road of ruin.”

Among other measures, the redesign would place a greater emphasis on access to drug treatment and mental health counseling. Some residential programs still would involve confinement, but differ from adult short-term jails and long-term prisons.

Willard’s bill now moves to the Rules Committee, the panel that sets the House debate calendar. The measure is not expected to encounter any resistance.

If the proposed changes pass the rest of their legislative challenges, it will bring Georgia in line with the national trend toward treatment and counseling instead of incarceration. More than twenty states have made significant changes to their juvenile justice programs over the last decade in an attempt to reverse the damage caused by harsh laws enacted in the ’80s and ’90s.

Georgia, even with these changes, will reamin one of fewer than a dozen states that cap the juvenile system’s jurisdiction at 16 years old. The majority of states set the cap at 17 .

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Category: Criminal Justice, It's More Expensive to Do Nothing, Juvenile Justice, Prison, Prison Reform | Tags: , , , ,
| February 7, 2013
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Zero Tolerance: Prioritizing Incarceration Over Education

prison

prison (Photo credit: :Dar.)

Zero-tolerance policies have been incarcerating children for minor offenses since the 1980’s. Intended to reduce crime, they have instead undermined the effectiveness of our schools, while costing taxpayers dearly in terms of economic development.

These are the findings of a new report on one of the nation’s worst-case states: Mississippi. “Handcuffs on Success: The Extreme School Discipline Crisis in Mississippi Public Schools (pdf),” was issued jointly by the ACLU of Mississippi, the Mississippi State Conference NAACP and the Mississippi Coalition for the Prevention of Schoolhouse to Jailhouse Advancement Project.

In the report we get a solid look at the infamous school-to-prison pipeline that Mississippi has become infamous for over the years. Students, particularly students of color, are remanded to the police for infractions such as violating dress code or “defiance”.

The zero-tolerance policies simply make it easy to put a kid into the system. Once that has occurred, it is incredibly easy to incarcerate them over the smallest things, things generally accepted as normal for teens of any race.

The Jackson Free Press enumerates the fiscal costs of this misguided approach:

Harsh, unwarranted discipline of children results in huge costs for Mississippi taxpayers. Funding for prisons has increased 166 percent from 1990 to 2007, while funding for public schools continues to decline year after year. ‘Thus, in fiscal terms, the State is prioritizing incarceration over education,’ the report states. Costs of guards, security equipment, court costs and the cost of running alternative schools is just the tip of the financial iceberg to Mississippi. The long-term cost of kids dropping out of school–often the result of harsh disciplinary practices–is far greater.

From lost tax revenue to higher public-health, public-assistance and criminal-justice costs, the cost ‘is likely tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars every year,’ the report states. ‘Economists have estimated that each student who graduates from high school, on average, generates economic benefits to the public sector of $209,100 over her or his lifetime. Thus, the more than 16,000 members of every Mississippi 9th-grade class who fail to graduate on time cost the state (more than) $3 billion.’

It has always been a recurring theme in our work that it is more expensive to do nothing. It is a truism supported by more research every day. As demonstrated above, it is far more expensive to the American taxpayers who pick up the tab, as well as being expensive in lives and lost potential. No matter how you look at it, the state of juvenile justice in Mississippi is an albatross around the neck of everyone in the state.

Let’s close with an infographic. Visual illustrations can often communicate a situation when mere words fail to do so adequately. With that thought in mind, I’d like to leave you with this comparison of our national spending on education vs incarceration.

Education vs. Incarceration

Education vs. Incarceration infographic by jasonkillinger.
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Category: Criminal Justice, Juvenile Justice | Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
| January 28, 2013
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The Missouri Miracle

Seal of Missouri.

Seal of Missouri. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Robert Winters, of Kaplan University‘s School of Criminal Justice, has a great piece of work posted on Corrections.com in which he gives voice to the idea that it is more expensive to do nothing about our juvenile justice system. As you might imagine we were terrifically pleased to see one of our main arguments being used.

More effective, less expensive: an admittedly counterintuitive mantra until you actually examine the numbers. Then it suddenly becomes clear that this is exactly the case. Prof. Winters explains how things have turned around since the 1980s, when recidivism was high and rehabilitation rare. (Back to the Future – Corrections.com)

What replaced that broken system came to be known as the “Missouri Miracle.” Traditional facilities were replaced by 32 small housing units (with populations typically ranging from 10 to 30) that are not only located across the state so that juvenile offenders can remain close to home, but also bear little resemblance to a prison. They are more like a group home, staffed by highly-trained personnel who use an approach that emphasizes therapy and rehabilitation over punishment. The staff-offender ratio is very low as well.

Though it might seem that a less stringent security environment—these facilities do not even have fences—would be an invitation to escape, that has not been the case in Missouri. On average there are less than 50 per year. The state does operate eight isolation rooms for juvenile offenders and still has a traditional prison for offenders under age 17, but the isolation rooms have been only rarely used and the prison has contained less than five inmates for most years of the new program.

What qualified the “Missouri Miracle” as a miracle? Recidivism into the juvenile program is now under 8%. The rate of adult conviction of former juvenile offenders now hovers between 7% and 8% for a five-year period after concluding the program. New York’s juvenile system, by contrast, has an 89% male recidivism rate. In Illinois it was 50% in 2006-09, up from 33% in 1996-99. Roughly half of Missouri offenders return to school successfully, and another third earn high school diplomas or a GED while in the program. Compared to Missouri’s 91% education rate, the national average is 46%.

It might be reasonable to assume that such commendable results come at a high price, but in fact the opposite is true. New York’s cost is $210,000 per juvenile for a nearly 90% failure rate. The national average is around $100,000. The Missouri Miracle, on the other hands, costs about $50,000 per child annually.

This is no big secret. All you have to do is look at the numbers. In this age of rhetoric, seeing actual facts used to to state the case is a joy to behold. Even better is the fact that Winters points to several other similar programs that have been kicking off around the country.

The District of Columbia started to use the Missouri Model in 2009 with mixed results. The first facility based on it cut its recidivism rate in half. Unfortunately there was also a tragic incident where a middle-school principal was killed by several juveniles who were serving under the new program.

Here in my home state of Louisiana, which has always deserved a horrible reputation when it comes to corrections, we saw the Bridge City facility open in 2007. Again based on the Missouri Model, it serves male youth offenders aged 10 to 20 serving sentences ranging from six to 24 months. Since opening it has achieved a recidivism rates of 10 %.

Other jurisdictions are finally starting to experiment with the Missouri Model, including New Mexico and San Jose, California. We have faith that the model’s success can be replicated in widely divergent areas of the country, and each time it shows gains in another community the evidence becomes more impossible to ignore. This is the sane way to both fix the system and reduce the budget needed to do so at the same time.

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Category: Criminal Justice, Juvenile Justice | Tags: , , , , , , ,
| January 14, 2013
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Corrections.com takes a look at juvenile justice in 2013

Hiatt type 2010 handcuffs. Circa 1990s

Hiatt type 2010 handcuffs. Circa 1990s (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Terry Campbell, A professor at the Kaplan University School of Public Safety, just posted an article on Corrections.com about the big issues facing juvenile justice in 2013. In it, he denotes the five areas of emphasis for the coming year: fiscal considerations; juvenile sentencing; mental health and juveniles; juveniles and adult courts; and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) youth.

These are all topics we have tried to shine a light on with this blog, so it’s gratifying to see them acknowledged on a website that has evolved into “the single most recognizable brand online for the global community of corrections.” Hopefully it will create more awareness of these issues with the professional corrections community.

At one point, Campbell notes the intersection of rehabilitation and funding:

I shared with you some juvenile critical areas facing us in 2013. These selections are my opinions and views for each area. 2013 will continue to be an interesting year related to juvenile offenders. Agencies must be creative in still meeting offender needs while competing for dollars. According to fiscal managers, we still face a tough budget year ahead of us. The old adage; “Make do with less and continue services,” is present. From this administrators and staff are becoming stressed and pressured to provide services while maintaining safety and security. The last thing we need is a reduction in staff, yet some states are experiencing this.

We want to continue and focus on rehabilitation and recidivism. Yet, at the same time we must note: “Until offenders are willing to accept the responsibilities and consequences for their own actions, change is not going to occur.” (Campbell).

The programs, mentoring, reinforcement, and support must continue to be provided in an attempt for some of these juveniles to change. This is one of the last opportunities for youth to make a change before entering the big house. Are we going to save all? No. Can we save some and make a difference in some young lives? Yes. The dedication, professionalism of staff, and desire to assist these offenders are crucial. When we look at where some of these offenders came from and obstacles faced, it is truly amazing some are able to change. We cannot overlook that trust and respect are major components and not easily obtained. Many of our youth are able to make the necessary adjustments to turn their lives around while others continue to struggle and get caught in the revolving door. 2013 will be an interesting year.

There is no program or group of programs that can act as a panacea. That doesn’t mean the programs are worthless. Nothing in real life is one hundred percent. By the same token, proper rehabilitative approaches, combined with family or community support, can improve the lot of many– probably a majority– of cases.

Personally, I am very excited to see these topics brought forth on a website that ranks number one on Alexa and is in the top three Google results for “corrections”. With 2.5 million page views per month, they can do a far better job of getting these ideas across to decision makers and those who work in corrections-related jobs.

Let us hope that these areas see greater attention in the coming year, rather than being sidelined by short term fiscal maneuvering.

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