Archive for Juvenile Justice

George "Loki" Williams | March 1, 2012
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Talking Justice: Dr. Igor Koutsenok and Susan Madden Lankford

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Today we have a rare treat for you, our own Susan Madden Lankford sat down for a chat about the current sad state of affairs in the arena of American criminal justice. Fortunately we were able to record most of it for your edification.

Igor Koutsenok, MD, MS, is Director of the University of California San Diego, Center for Criminality and Addiction Research, Training and Application (CCARTA) and he has full time faculty appointment at the UCSD Department of Psychiatry. Among other place he attended St. Georges Hospital Medical School, where he received a Masters Degree in Addictive Behavior. Before joining UCSD, he worked in Bulgaria as Head of Department at the National Center for Addictions and Deputy Director of the Institute of Psychology.

During the last 20 years, he served as an expert for many international organizations such as the Council of Europe, European Union, and the United Nations. Dr. Koutsenok was recruited by the UCSD Department of Psychiatry in 1997. Dr. Koutsenok led the design and implementation of the Workforce Development Training series for substance abuse counselors and criminal justice professionals working in custody and community-based treatment programs in California. He is the UCSD FACT (Forensic Addiction Treatment Certification) Board of Education Director and Director of the Offender Substance Abuse Treatment Institute.

Dr. Koutsenok serves as of the trainers for the National Drug Court Institute, providing training and education for judges and members of the judicial system nationwide. Dr. Igor Koutsenok and Dr. David Deitch designed an innovative approach to reduce recidivism in parolees, which in 2006 was presented to and authorized by the California legislature as Senate Bill 618 – Offender Re-Entry Program.
Dr. Koutsenok is teaching General Psychopathology course for second year UCSD medical students, human growth and development course for 1st year UCSD medical students, as well as he runs support group for 3rd year UCSD psychiatry residents. In 2006-2009 he designed and directed the Cal-METRO training project, a large-scale Motivational Interviewing training project to train over 3000 professionals working in juvenile correctional institutions statewide. In 2010 he designed and conducted a year long San Diego Probation Department Leadership Academy training probation supervisors in practical implementing of evidence based practices in community corrections, such as motivational interviewing, and cognitive behavioral interventions. Recently in collaboration with Christopher Lowenkamp, PhD, he designed the IBIS program – Integrated Behavioral Interventions Strategies. Currently over 300 probation officers and supervisors are undergoing training, coaching and mentoring in implementation of a truly integrated package of behavioral interventions – motivational interviewing, EPICS-II, and incentives and sanctions. He has authored and co-authored over 50 scientific publications and book chapters, such as “Substance Abuse: A Comprehensive Textbook” 4th edition, Lowinson, J., Ruiz, P., Millman, R., & Langrod, J. (Eds.), 2004; “Treating Addicted Offenders – A Continuum of Effective Practices”, K.Knight & D. Farabee (Eds.), 2005; “Advances in Corrections Based Treatment: Building the Addiction Treatment Workforce”, Praeger International Collection on Addictions, A. Browne-Miller (Ed.), 2009, “Motivational Interviewing Training for Correctional Professionals – The CalMetro Project”, Praeger International Collection on Addictions, A. Browne-Miller (Ed.), 2009. He is a member of the International Motivational Interviewing Trainers Network. In 2011 he served as a trainer for the new group of MI trainers in Sheffield, England. Dr. Koutsenok has been training motivational interviewing and other treatment strategies in offenders in Bulgaria, Malta, England, Hong Kong, Greece, Poland, Sweden, Mexico, Argentina, Hungary, and Norway. He has been invited as guest speaker to numerous conferences and professional gatherings nationwide and in more than 15 countries. He is a proud father of three.

Susan Madden Lankford

In the early 1990s, Susan Madden Lankford began photographing—and befriending—the homeless on the streets of downtown San Diego. Compelled to learn more, she gained access to a women’s detention center and soon was shooting within its walls, speaking with candor with inmates and staff. Next, pursuing the link between crime and childhood neglect, she met with young people in juvenile hall, challenging them to face their hopes and fears through artwork and the written word. Lankford’s award-winning books on homelessness, incarceration, and juvenile justice are testament to many years of commitment to complex social issues. Her venture in the realm of documentary film continues this work.

Susan Lankford grew up in the Midwest and holds a BS degree from the University of Nebraska. She attended Ansel Adams’ prestigious workshops, studied under such photographic masters as Richard Misrach and Ruth Bernhard, and spent many years as a successful wildlife photographer and portraitist. The parents of three adult daughters, Susan and Rob Lankford live in San Diego.
Please explore the rest of our website for more about Susan and her works!


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Category: Interview, Juvenile Justice, Mental Health, Prison Reform, Substance Abuse |
George "Loki" Williams | February 16, 2012
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Attack at the Bridge City Center for Youth raises new calls for reform

For those who are unaware, I am a native of New Orleans. This is one reason that I take the issue of juvenile justice so very seriously. All one needs is a moment on Google to see just how many hurdles we face down here ranging from the disparity in how justice is meted out according to race to the profound lack of effective facilities and trained staff.

This was thrown into very sharp relief recently when a 26 year old juvenile justice specialist was attacked in the Bridge City Center for Youth. The unnamed woman watched as inmates barricaded the door, ripped the phone from the wall, smashed her radio, and spent the next 45 minutes groping and threatening to rape her. The three youth’s involved were age 14, 15, and 16 respectively.

WDSU TV reports:

According to the Sheriff’s Office, as one of the boys cursed and taunted the woman, one of the boys was seen with his genitals exposed in front of the woman. The accused “ringleader,” Normand said, was being held in the facility on attempted murder charges.

The woman was rescued after one of the boys covered the security camera with a rug, blacking out the camera. An employee passing the video viewing room noticed the camera blacked out and alerted other counselors.

There are many troubling aspects to this, and in my opinion most of them are directly traceable to lack of funding and accountability. An editorial on NOLA.com points out many of the worrisome issues surrounding this incident:

But while the office is characterizing its response as swift, one important action didn’t happen quickly: reporting the incident to local law enforcement. The Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office didn’t learn about the attack until two days after it happened, according to spokesman Col. John Fortunato. That delay is hard to understand. Even though the suspects were already in custody, local law enforcement officials surely should be alerted when a crime takes place at the center. If calling the Sheriff’s Office isn’t part of the youth center’s protocol, it should be.

Investigators also need to determine why a single female counselor was supervising 11 teenage boys on her own. Two other employees were absent, but there should be a better backup plan when there are staffing shortages.

How’s that for a direct effect of staff shortages? Having a young woman assaulted and threatened with rape. It’s a side of the equation that many don’t even consider. The editorial also touches on the aspect that I find most troublesome – how long it took for someone to notice.

The WDSU report notes that the woman was assigned to the justice dormitory because two other employees were absent. That may well be the case, but one young woman to eleven youth offenders is not a safe equation no matter how you slice it. The editorial continues:

It’s also troubling that it took nearly an hour for other staffers to realize the woman was in trouble. Another employee, who happened to be passing the video control room, noticed an inmate throwing a rug over a camera, Col. Fortunato said. Video cameras are only useful as a monitoring tool if someone is paying attention to them.

So another staffer noticed because he happened to be walking by the video monitoring room? Where were the staff that were supposed to be watching the feed? Were they downsized out of a job or were they simply neglecting their duties?

Unfortunately this is not an isolated incident for the facility. Not only that but the local law enforcement agrees with assessment that budget cuts are to blame. Maya Rodriguez of WWL TV brings us the details (keep your eyes out for Dana Kaplan, who we recently interviewed here on HE):

“The state has got to step up and provide the necessary funding to make sure that these facilities are safe and secure and that’s not what’s happening at the present time,” said Sheriff Normand. How true. His campaign to release juvenile records however is an iffy one. A number of programs like that have been being implemented across the U.S. and many of them have crashed and burned. Among others the ACLU is challenging the practice in a number of jurisdictions.

It’s easy to get mad at the offenders here, their behavior was vile there is no doubt. If we wish to effect any sort of lasting change, a way to prevent this sort of incident, then we need to look at long term solutions. That requires funding.

The really frustrating part is that funding of the proper programs now will result in both more effective programs and less overall financial expenditure. With budgets tight everywhere politicians want to show immediate savings, even if that means that the long term costs, both human and financial, will skyrocket.

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Category: Born Not Raised, It's More Expensive to Do Nothing, Juvenile Justice, New Orleans, Prison Reform | Tags: ,
George "Loki" Williams | February 9, 2012
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Faces of Justice: An Interview with Judge Irene Sullivan

JudgeSullivanJudge Irene Sullivan is a well known figure in Florida and nationally when it comes to the subject of juvenile justice. A retired judge she is currently an adjunct professor at Stetson University College of Law and has been the juvenile track leader for circuit judge’s education.

For more information about Judge Sullivan please see her full bio at the end of this interview. The number of task forces she is on is truly stunning! But now, on with the interview!

HE: What drew you to working with juvenile justice in the beginning? Was it the focus of your work as a trial lawyer or was it something that began after you attained the judiciary?

IS: I’d never done any juvenile or criminal work as a trial lawyer.  When elected to the bench in 1998, I was assigned to family law, i.e. divorces, domestic violence, etc. After three years, I was asked to move to our newly-created Unified Family Court, where I would serve as a juvenile judge handling both dependency (child abuse, abandonment, neglect) cases and delinquency, as well as related family law matters of the parents or guardians of the kids who appeared before us. It was an experimental court and I jumped at the opportunity to serve in a “one family, one judge” model, which I did for nine years. I enjoyed the kids the most, even the delinquent ones!

HE: Would you be kind enough to tell us a bit about your visit to Umatilla Academy for Girls and how it influenced your stance and actions since then?

IS: Umatilla Academy for Girls was a residential program for high risk girls located in a former children’s hospital in a small central Florida town. Not long after becoming a juvenile judge, I visited the program as three of the girls from our circuit had been sentenced there. I actually wept when I saw the atrocious conditions of the place: dirty walls, dirty sacks for clothing, terrible food, no exercise, girls running wild, screaming inside, and no doors on the toilets or curtains on the showers, despite the presence of male guards. It was awful, and after my findings were confirmed, it was shut down. That experience taught me that kids deserve kind and nurturing treatment everywhere, even when committed, and that people will listen to make that happen.

HE: One hundred years ago the first juvenile courts were created in Chicago, Illinois. Today we find a system in shambles and the effectiveness that was once an example for the rest of the world seems long lost. What factors do you believe brought us from there to here?

IS: Hopefully, we’re slowly returning to more of the old Chicago court juvenile model. For the last 25 years, kids have been treated like adults; we’ve lost focus on prevention, diversion and rehabilitation; legislators run on “tough on crime” platforms that include kids, and public schools have turned into places where a kid first gets arrested. It’s beginning to turn around, especially in states like Florida under the enlightened and inspired leadership of Department of Juvenile Justice Secretary Wansley Walters.

HE: Let’s talk a bit about Evanston High School. Last May you wrote a column for the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange in which you levied high praise on their approach and it’s effectiveness. Now that you’ve had half a year to process the experience would you share a bit about it with our readers?

IS: At Evanston High School just north of Chicago, I became part of a “peace circle” of students, teachers and counselors who shared their deepest fears and desires, and then promoted restorative justice as a better way to deal with school-based infractions.  I learned that a “peer jury” could deliver more appropriate sanctions than the court system, for example, having the disruptive student not only apologize to the teacher but show up early for a month to help her organize her classroom, and not have a criminal record. It’s a wonderful program and should be replicated nationwide.

HE: What would you point out as exemplary programs for dealing with juvenile offenders both in Florida and nation- wide? To what do you attribute their success?

IS: Florida is know for its progressive, humane and nurturing girls programming, in and out of residential care, due to the efforts of Dr. Lawanda Ravoira, with the National Center for Girls headquartered in Jacksonville, and Pace Center for Girls, which has 17 alternative schools throughout the state where counseling, education, therapy and mentoring is delivered in a very therapeutic way to at risk girls who have histories of physical, sexual and emotional abuse. Other evidence-based programs throughout the country, such as those run by the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, have revolutionized detention care and juvenile drug treatment. As more dollars are put into prevention and diversion, we are starting to see juvenile jails being closed or consolidated.

HE: What do you espouse as the best means of combating recidivism among juvenile offenders?

IS: Recidivism is a big problem in the re-entry of teenage boys from residential programs back into the community. The best way to reduce it is through a re-entry program designed by Parenting with Love and Limits (PLL),created by Dr. Scott Sells, that brings the family and family counseling into the residential program from the time the juvenile is first committed, and follows the juvenile and family after re-entry into the community, to provide aftercare and prevent recidivism. The PLL program not only works to reduce recidivism, it shortens the length of residential stay as it is based on an “earned release” philosophy.  You can’t fix the kid until you fix the family, and that’s what PLL does.

HE: Much like our own Susan Lankford, you also utilize a lot of personal narrative in your book, Raised By The Courts. Did you collect all those stories yourself or were you assisted by other interviewers? How did those interviews change your own perspective on the issue?

IS: The stories in my book, Raised by the Courts: One Judge’s Insight into Juvenile Justice, are all true stories of the kids who appeared before me. Only the names have been changed. I began collecting these stories almost from “day one” on the juvenile bench, when I realized how complicated the lives of these kids were, how much chaos and violence they were exposed to daily, not only on the street but in the home.

HE: What would you say are the three most important things you have learned from your years dealing with these issues from the bench?

IS: The three most important things I learned, out of many, are that kids are not born bad; all kids need love, nurturing and, most important, hope, in their lives, and that a single caring adult can make a big difference in the life of the most hardened child.

HE: Every day it seems like technology progresses by leaps and bounds. What online tools do you think could improve our engagement with at risk youth, or allow us to serve them in a more efficient and cost effective fashion?

IS: I’m not the most computer literate person, that’s for sure, but I think that the internet, laptops, appropriate use of social media, can bring to many at risk kids the sense of connection and hope for the future that is lacking in traditional education and upbringing. I’m optimistic about it, despite the dangers of “sexting,” etc.

HE: Internet rumors are floating around about a new book as a follow up to Raised By The Courts. Is there any substance to them, and if so is there a timeline for publication yet?

IS: Yes, if I can discipline myself to finish it, I have a biography of one of the most abused and mistreated young men in my book in the works, as well as a fictional series based on juvenile court. Sort of like:  Law and Order in Juvenile Court!!!  Thanks for asking.

HE: Thank you for joining us Judge Sullivan, keep up the good work!

About Irene Sullivan: Judge Sullivan served as a juvenile and family court judge from 1999-2011 in the St. Petersburg/Clearwater area of Florida. Prior to that, she was a general partner at Harris, Barrett, Mann & Dew, L.L.P. in St. Petersburg, Florida, where she had a civil trial practice for 22 years and became an A-V rated trial lawyer.

She obtained a Juris Doctorate degree from Stetson University College of Law, cum laude, and a Bachelor of Science in Journalism, with honors, from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, in Evanston, Ill.

Judge Sullivan received the following awards:  The Florida Network of Youth and Family Services, Inc. Outstanding Community Partner Award; Clearwater and St. Petersburg Bar Associations’ Annual Judicial Appreciation Award; Stetson University College of Law Ben C. Willard Distinguished Alumni Award; Guardian ad Litem Community Advocate Award; Florida Association of School Social Workers’ Diamond Award; Salvation Army’s Children’s Justice Award; Pinellas Enrichment Through Mental Health Services (PEMHS) P.A.C.E. Award; Family Resource’s Family Advocate Award; Community Action Stops Abuse (CASA) Domestic Violence Champion Sponsor Award.

She has presented at many conferences and seminars involving juvenile crime, the importance of prevention and diversion, truancy, domestic violence and mental health issues for juveniles. In February, 2011, she was a keynote speaker at the Adolescent Conference sponsored by the Florida Juvenile Justice Association and the Florida Alcohol & Drug Abuse Association, where every registrant received a copy of her book, Raised by the Courts: One Judge’s Insight into Juvenile Justice, released by Kaplan Publishing Co. in November, 2010.

She currently sits on the following boards or task forces: The American Bar Association’s Commission on Youth At Risk; The Ounce of Prevention of Florida, Inc., PACE for girls, state and local; The Pinellas Community Foundation, The InterCultural Advocacy Institute; Florida Disproportionate Minority Contact Task Force; Blueprint Commission to Reform Juvenile Justice, and the Juvenile Indigent Defense Action Network at Barry University Law School, funded by the MacArthur Foundation. She’s an adjunct professor at Stetson University College of Law and has been the juvenile track leader for circuit judge’s education.

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Category: Juvenile Justice, Parenting, Prison Reform | Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
George "Loki" Williams | January 26, 2012
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Have San Diego County officials been misreporting staff sexual misconduct?

Prison corridor with cells inside Alcatraz main building san francisco califforniaIt would seem that San Diego country juvenile facilities have developed a sudden credibility gap. According to investigative reporting by CityBeat it would seem that their reporting numbers for the past several years just don’t add up.

Here is an excerpt from the City Beat report by Dave Maas in which he looks at the absence of vital information from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics’ required annual Survey of Sexual Violence:

>San Diego County Probation has filed 15 such survey forms for juvenile facilities since 2004 and not one discloses any allegation of sexual misconduct by staff, giving the false impression of a perfect record. Presented with inconsistencies between the surveys and other public records, the Probation Department now admits it does not disclose cases that are investigated by its internal-affairs unit. Since all allegations against staff are investigated by internal affairs, this policy has resulted in the omission of all staff-misconduct cases from the federal surveys.

‘Information for the survey was gathered from data entered into the probation case management system, which does not include internal affairs reports due to their sensitive nature,’ probation spokesperson Tammy Glenn said in an email to CityBeat. ‘We do plan to review our department’s process for gathering data to determine if internal affairs reports should be captured for the purposes of the survey in the future.’

Probation’s internal-affairs unit has investigated at least six allegations of staff sexual misconduct at its facilities since 2008, Glenn says. Chief Probation Officer Mack Jenkins has also said in previous news stories that its internal-affairs unit launched 10 such investigations between 2004 and 2010 at the East Mesa Juvenile Detention Facility and the Kearny Mesa Juvenile Detention Facility, through which roughly 9,000 kids pass each year. Probation says that some of these cases occurred at facilities that were not surveyed and therefore would not have been reported to the BOJS anyway. However, Glenn acknowledges that the department failed to report one case on a federal survey it filed in 2011.

Read the entire article- there is much, much more.

While it is hardly surprising that the perpetrators of illegal acts of this nature would want to conceal themselves, this sort of defiance of federally mandated standards is frightening if true.

Not only are these incidents tragic, but the obscuring of the events proves a huge and long term issue. How can we address the issues of juvenile justice when the data has been fudged? How can we prevent prison rape if we don’t know it is happening?

Let us hope that the six investigations just launched by the Probation Department help drag the facts into the light. Just think, those investigations only cover the last four years. That might merely be the tip of the iceberg.

Read the whole story on City Beat – County misreports data about sexual violence in juvenile jails.

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Category: Humane Exposures, Juvenile Justice, Prison Reform | Tags: , , , , ,
George "Loki" Williams | January 24, 2012
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Special Report: An interview with Dana Kaplan of the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana

Today Humane Exposures brings you a special report from New Orleans, Louisiana. Today we interviewed Dana Kaplan, the executive director of the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana.

In a city with a history of poverty and violence the challenges facing those in the field of juvenile justice are massive but not, as you will see, insurmountable.
Humane Exposures- Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana: An Interview with Dana Kaplan by socialgumbo

About Executive Director Dana Kaplan

Since becoming the Executive Director in the fall of 2007, Dana Kaplan has been steadfast in her dedication to the reform of Louisiana’s juvenile justice system. Prior to joining JJPL, Dana Kaplan was a Soros Justice Fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in New York City, focused on detention reform. At CCR, Ms. Kaplan worked with community groups and government on developing alternatives to detention and downsizing local jails in states including Tennessee, California, Ohio, New Orleans, and New York. She was also the State-wide Organizer for the New York Campaign for Telephone Justice, a partnership between CCR and two prison family organizations that successfully reduced the cost of all phone calls from New York State prisons by fifty percent. Ms. Kaplan has also been on staff at the Brooklyn-based Prison Moratorium Project, where her efforts helped stop the construction of a youth prison in upstate New York and two youth jail expansions in New York City. She has consulted with national organizations including The National Resource Center on Prisons and Communities and the National Education Association (NEA), developing a curriculum for teachers on “Education not Incarceration”. Dana holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of California at Berkeley and was a recipient of the John Gardner Fellowship for Public Service.

About JJPL
When the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana (JJPL)  first opened our doors in 1997, our state was acknowledged to have one of the country’s worst systems to treat and prevent delinquency. In July of that year, the New York Times called Louisiana home to the “most troubled” juvenile public defender’s office in the country.1 That same month — after earlier reports in 1995 and 1996 by Human Rights Watch and the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) — the DOJ detailed brutal and inhumane conditions in Louisiana’s juvenile prisons, bringing international shame to the system. Louisiana’s juvenile justice system provided virtually no representation for children accused of crimes and then placed them in hyper-violent prisons where they regularly suffered bodily and emotional harm. The large majority of these children were African-American.

JJPL’s mission is to transform the juvenile justice system into one that builds on the strengths of young people, families and communities to ensure children are given the greatest opportunities to grow and thrive. We have three key program objectives to achieve this mission: to reduce the number of children in secure care and abolish unconstitutional conditions of confinement by improving or, when necessary, shutting down institutions that continue to inhumanely treat children; to expand evidence-based alternatives to incarceration and detention for youth; and to build the power of those most impacted by the juvenile justice system.

JJPL litigates on behalf of youth both locally and statewide. Additionally, we educate policy makers on the need for reform, coordinate with parents, youth and other concerned citizens to ensure their visibility and participation in the process, and actively implement media strategies to hold the state accountable for the treatment of its youth. By coordinating our diverse abilities in strategic campaigns to engage policy makers and organize community members and youth, JJPL continues to work on improving the lives of Louisiana’s most vulnerable children. In the past fourteen years of our existence, we have accomplished many achievements.

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Category: Criminal Justice, Education, Humane Exposures, Juvenile Justice, New Orleans, Poverty, Prison Reform | Tags: , ,
George "Loki" Williams | January 12, 2012
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Virginia Places Richmond Juvenile Detention Center on Probation

really, Richmond, *every* way?There are 55 state-regulated juvenile facilities currently on probation. The Richmond Juvenile Detention Center in Virginia might  be the first one to be de-certified and shut down.Opened in 1996, the 60-bed center on Oliver Hill Way has been found to have a number of issues with it’s infrastructure. Considering the age of the building and the beating it received from Tropical Storm Gaston it is hardly surprising.

The State Board of Juvenile Justice made the decision last Tuesday, citing concerns about the physical state of the facility. Numerous upkeep and maintenance issues were mentioned.

This action comes in the wake of The Virginia State Conference of the NAACP bringing up concerns about the conditions and safety at the detention center. Worrisome claims about poor staff training and even more worrisome ones about possible forgery of staff certifications were brought to the table and are currently being investigated.

An audit of the facility by the Richmond City Auditor followed the NAACP complaint, an audit that verified that several of the claims about conditions there were accurate. From malfunctioning intercoms and security cameras to doors with broken locks the evidence was plainly visible.

Will Jones of the Richmond Times-Dispatch notes that some funds to fix the problems have been made available recently. A mere few weeks ago as a matter of fact.

Last month, Richmond awarded a $344,000 emergency contract to replace malfunctioning intercom systems, install new computer equipment and update video recording and monitoring systems. Officials said they’re also fixing door-security sensors and making operational changes to address state requirements for training and other issues.

While the mayor’s office assures the press that this is prioritized, only time will tell. Crumbling infrastructure is a chronic problem in older facilities. It remains to be seem whether it will mean the end of this one.

Image Source: Richard Winchell on Flickr, used under it’s Creative Commons license

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Category: Criminal Justice, Juvenile Justice | Tags: , , ,
George "Loki" Williams | January 5, 2012
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For Profit Prison – The Luzerne Decision

Money

The state Supreme Court said Thursday that Berks County Senior Judge Arthur Grim has completed his review of cases handled by former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella (shiv-uh-REL’-uh) Jr. The justices returned control of all juvenile court functions to the Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas. -The Republic.com

It’s been referred to as the “Kids for Cash” scandal. A few years ago Ciavarella and another ex-judge, both of whom are serving deservedly long prison sentences today, accepted money from the owner and builder of two for-profit youth detention facilities. On Grimm’s recommendation The Supreme Court dismissed the convictions of more than 2,000 juvenile offenders in which the constitutional rights of the accused were disregarded.

It’s a tragic situation that shines a spotlight on the basic flaws inherent in for-profit incarceration. It is almost universally acknowledged that in most cases incarceration is not the answer. At least not for any sort of sustainable improvement. That is an idea that is at odds with a business model whose goal is to fill rooms in those same facilities. Profit margin and effective improvement of our juvenile justice system are directly at odds in this scenario.

For profit detention facilities have become common. I’ve written about them several times on this very blog as a matter of fact.  More states are making attempts to transition to more effective long term policies - initiatives to help prevent delinquency and lower truancy rates; improvements in the coordination of youth services; and provide opportunities for community partnerships to teach youth new skills. One of the big barriers to this transition is economic, quite simply incarceration is big business.

At no point should we allow profit to trump the needs of our communities and their youth, but all too often it does.

Image Source: 401K on Flickr, used under it’s Creative Commons license

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Category: Criminal Justice, Juvenile Justice | Tags: , , ,
George "Loki" Williams | January 4, 2012
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Born, Not Raised – The First Review on Publisher’s Weekly

bornnotraisedAs you are probably aware Humane Exposures will be releasing it’s most recent book in the next few months. Today we are pleased to announce that Born Not Raised: Voices From Juvenile Hall has garnered it’s first review from none other than Publisher’s Weekly!

Disputing the notion that delinquents are beyond repair, Lankford argues that most inmates can transform their traumatic histories into productive maturity if sustained by just one “good enough” adult. Questionnaires and interpretations of artwork, published in the inmates’ raw penmanship, convey nuanced perspectives of dreary inevitability, level-headed insightfulness, and hope. Lankford’s earnestness is on display in her humanizing conversations with a handful of girls, including the game-talking yet vulnerable Hui and the unguarded Sands.

Look for more announcements about the third volume in our award winning social justice trilogy!

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Category: Born, Born Not Raised, Juvenile Justice, Not Raised, Parenting, Poverty, Prison Reform | Tags: ,
George "Loki" Williams | January 2, 2012
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Juvenile Justice Matters on Blog Talk Radio

Let’s start the new year off with a great resource that I just discovered.

Juvenile Justice Matters is an online radio program produced by the Campaign for Youth Justice. The CYJ is a national organization dedicated to ending the practice of trying, sentencing and incarcerating youth under the age of 18 in the adult criminal justice system, a cause we whole-heartedly support. This radio show features experts, young people, and parents discussing juvenile justice issues.

As we strive to move forward on this issue one of our best resources is information. This show is not only a rich source of pertinent info, but it is also fantastic for bringing a multiplicity of perspectives to the table. Here are a few sample shows for you to try out, if you enjoy them share them with your friends. After all, the more of us have good data at hand the easier time we will have in trying to implement effective programs.

Let’s beging with an interview with New Orleans Judge David Bell discuss juvenile justice reform  and a model that other judges should consider when sentencing kids.

Listen to internet radio with JJ Matters on Blog Talk Radio

Another great example of their work is a discussion with Michael Kemp, a formerly incarcerated youth from the Washington, D.C. area. Michael is determined to turn his life around and break the vicious cycle of returning to prison. Michael was charged as an adult at the age of 17, but first ran into the system at 12.

Listen to internet radio with JJ Matters on Blog Talk Radio

Go browse through their old shows, they only seem to produce about one show a month but it’s well worth the wait.

Do you know of other online resources that we have not touched on as yet? If so please share them with us in the comments!

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Category: Education, Juvenile Justice, New Orleans, Parenting | Tags: , , ,
George "Loki" Williams | December 30, 2011
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Crime In New Orleans: Reaping the Whirlwind

National Guard and NOPDOne reason I am as dedicated to this blog as I am is that I am from New Orleans. Since last Thursday we have had 197 murders here so far this year alone — last year’s tally was 175 or 51 murders per 100,000 residents. That’s 10 times the national average. Most of them committed by our inner city youth.

Crime here has always been extreme, but since Hurricane Katrina and the levee failures that followed it things have gotten so much worse. The real tragedy is that often both the victims and the perpetrators of these killings are the city’s youth. Poverty, low quality education, and many other factors have been entrenched here for close to 300 years, but there has been an added array of issues added to the mix in the post storm era.

USA Today‘s Rick Jervis takes a look:

Why has it been so difficult to staunch the killings, even with new leadership at the police department and the conviction of several officers involved in post-Katrina shootings of civilians? Katrina and the ensuing collapse of schools, home life and other support structures likely played a role, says Lance Hill, executive director of the New Orleans-based Southern Institute for Education and Research, who has tracked crime trends.

Children displaced by the floods returned with their families to a wrecked city, bounced from school to school and lacked mental health professionals to help them through the trauma, he says.

Six years later, many of those kids are under-educated, unemployed and seeping into trouble, Hill says. School expulsion rates also soared after Katrina, putting more kids on the street, he says.

‘The spike in violence we’re seeing …was in fact predicted by experts,’ Hill says. ‘Their warnings went unheeded.’

It is because of the Humane Exposures approach of rehabilitation and addressing the root causes of crime that I consider this blog important. All I have to do is look at the current local debate about whether to call in the National Guard because of the shootings to see the the results of neglecting these sources of anomie.

Over our first year back in New Orleans in the wake of the disaster my wife often commented on the fact that we had become a city without elders. Since grandparents are a culturally vital part of ours of any other community you can see the problem. Additionally, once  tightly knit family groups were scattered to the four winds, with many financially unable to effect a return even unto this day. While poor parenting skills are certainly a factor here, in many cases the parents have not returned to the city, but the kids have. In the meantime mental health resources have progressed from nonexistent to marginal over the years, and are not easily accessible for adults or children.

Education, mental health care, and substance abuse programs are all vital and effective alternatives to incarceration. They are also a good vaccination against the behaviors that lead to it. Right now New Orleans is buried in a crime wave spawned by a lack of all of these factors.

If you need a good argument a to why these tactics should be embraced just take a look at our murder rate here in the Crescent City. By the time you read this it may have passed the 200 mark.

Image Source: Loki, used by permission

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Category: Criminal Justice, Juvenile Justice, New Orleans | Tags: , , , , ,
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