| October 21, 2011
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Juvenile Justice: Five Online Resources

Don Jail.The old saying goes that information is power. It’s certainly vital for making informed decisions.

With that in mind today I’d like to present a round-up of online resources for those wishing to become more well informed about the vital issue of juvenile justice. It seems like each day brings more data, and the majority of that data points toward a desperate need for us to change our approach from incarceration to actual rehabilitation.

So, without further ado, here are seven virtual fonts of information on the topic. If you have others that you think should be listed here, let us know in the comments.

The Center for Juvenile Justice Reform at Georgetown Universitys Public Policy Institute‘ –  This one is geared more towards those of you who work in juvenile justice. The Center seeks to amplify upon good work being done across the country in the field of juvenile justice reform by providing a multi-systems perspective and set of resources in support of this work.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation, Juvenile Justice Page – The Casey Foundation’s juvenile justice reform agenda is designed to improve the odds that delinquent youth can make successful transitions to adulthood, primarily by reforming juvenile justice system so that they lock up fewer youth, rely more on proven, family-focused interventions, and create opportunities for positive youth development. You might be familiar with my recent posts about their new report, No Place for Kids: The Case for Reducing Juvenile Incarceration , which is particularly worthwhile reading.

The Child Welfare League of America – “Our vision is that every child will grow up in a safe, loving, and stable family.” CWLA leads and engages its network of public and private agencies and partners to advance policies, best practices and collaborative strategies that result in better outcomes for vulnerable children, youth and families.

The National Criminal Justice Reference Service – Established in 1972, the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) is a federally funded resource offering justice and drug-related information to support research, policy, and program development worldwide. It’s a great place for finding numbers and statistics on topics such as juvenile recidivism.

PBS Frontline: Juvenile Justice – “Four kids, four crimes. Two were sent to adult court, two treated as juveniles. Read their stories. How would you decide?” This is one of my personal favorites. This website is jammed full of facts and commentary as well as an extensive history of American juvenile justice and an extensive array of relevant reports. Frontline did a great job with putting it together!

But, in the end, I had to remind myself that I was dealing with children. – Alex Kotlowitz, End Note, There are No Children Here

Image Source: Rick Harris on Flickr, used under it’s Creative Commons license

Category: Juvenile Justice | Tags: ,
| October 20, 2011
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Congress Tackles Education, Starting With Foster Children

My Trusty GavelOn the 19th the Senate HELP Committee started working on the long overdue overhaul of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

One group of children’s advocates will be keeping a tight focus on educational outcomes and opportunities for children living in foster care environments. As is hardly surprising in this day and age they used technology to do it.

David Kirp wrote on The Huffington Post the day before:

Using the latest in webcasting technology, two organizations — Fostering Media Connections and the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute — will create a “National Conversation” in which teachers and students In California, researchers in Illinois and policymakers in Washington, D.C. discuss hurdles and strategies in improving educational outcomes for students in foster care.

In addition, the organizers will release an “Action Guide” laden with research, legislative history, on-the-ground journalistic accounts and a broad range of recommendations.

Kirp was actually asked to write the foreward to the action guide, an eloquent piece of writing that appears in its entirety as part of his post- The Public Equivalent of Love. I highly advise giving it a once over.

The National Conversation included a variety of participants including Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Representative Karen Bass (D-CA), Acting Assistant Secretary to the Administration and Children and Families George Sheldon, Research Fellow with Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago Cheryl Smithgall, Foster Youth Carey Sommer, Educator Mike Jones, Educational Mentor Jetaine Hart and a group of CCAI Foster Youth Interns.

Too often do provisions for foster children only appear as small portions of other policies, such as the Americans With Disabilities Act. Foster kids face their own unique set of challenges, many of which stem from the impermanence of their environment. So many of them bounce from home to home and from school to school and as a result often feel as though there is no fixed anchor they can grasp.

As I stated at the beginning the Senate HELP committee is debating updates to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. These are supposed to include  national level guidelines for streamlining the process when foster kids have to change schools. The aim is a smoother and faster transition. As more information becomes available about the Action Plan and the legislation we will be sharing it here.

Category: Humane Exposures |
| October 18, 2011
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Is Oklahoma Slipping Back Into Its Old Ways?

Seal of OklahomaThe Oklahoma Legislature approved House Bill 2028 in 2009. This bill allows the use of pepper spray and electromagnetic shock devices in juvenile detention centers. It was signed into law. The office of juvenile affairs, which requested the bill in the first place, has not yet changed its own rules to allow these measures. Rumor has it that might change soon.

This year that same body approved Senate Bill 247. This bill allows  maximum security spaces to be added to existing juvenile detention centers. It was also signed into law last May.

Why the sudden embrace of such extreme measures?

Multiple violent incidents at the Central Oklahoma Juvenile Detention Center in Tecumseh are commonly cited as the cause. One juvenile suffered a brain injury after being beaten in one incident, while in another local law enforcement had to be brought in to preserve order following a violent incident involving multiple juveniles.

The recent outbreak came after the closure of the L.E. Rader Center in Sand Springs the state’s only maximum-security juvenile facility. The youths incarcerated there were transferred

Office of Juvenile Affairs closed the state’s only maximum-security juvenile facility, the L.E. Rader Center in Sand Springs, and transferred some of the youths from there to the state’s two other juvenile institutions.

Tulsa attorney Steven Novick does not think this reaction is justified. This is worth mentioning because Novick is the attorney who spearheaded the 1978 federal lawsuit that began a series of sweeping reforms to the juvenile system.
The suit was filed on behalf of a boy, under the pseudonym of Terry D.,  who described conditions that often included  the use of hogties and days of solitary confinement. After touring one of the facilities Novik deemed the stories well founded.  Barbara Hoberock comments on this in her recent article in Tulsa World:
He said the staff was proud of what it had been doing, adding that staff members were ‘every bit as institutionalized as the kids were. They didn’t see what they were doing as possibly wrong or harmful. That was the springboard.’
The allegations mounted, Novick said, and the suit alleged that children were subjected to abusive use of restraints and solitary confinement and that staff used tranquilizing drugs to control juveniles, rather than treat them.
‘There was compelling evidence to support all those allegations,’ he said. In addition, children who had done nothing wrong – such as victims of neglect – were housed with those who had been adjudicated of crimes, Novick said.

The lawsuit was an arduous battle, leading to a consent decree in 1984 that banned abusive practices and closed many juvenile detention facilities. The case finally reached it’s conclusion in the late 1990s with an order of dismissal outlining guidelines for treatment.

Since the dismissal order Novik believes the system has started moving toward more of a corrections model than a true juvenile justice system. The current bills which would allow pepper spray, tazers, and maximum security spaces would seem to bear that out.

Of course supporters have a different view. House Speaker Kris Steele, R-Shawnee, is reported in the Bixby Bulletin as saying:

‘In the grand scheme of things, the proposals before the agency’s board are band-aids to a larger problem,’ Steele said. ‘Eventually, the state needs to address how to create proper space and methods to handle high-risk juvenile offenders. Until that happens, we’ve got to do the best we can with what we have, and I thank the agency, its board members and my fellow legislators for working to do exactly that.’

Hoberock’s article supplies the needed riposte:

Linda Terrell, executive director of the Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy, is concerned that the proposals offered by OJA are more punitive.

‘We need to remember that they are children,’ she said.

Well said, Ms. Terrell, well said. All you need to do is look through our blog posts to see ample evidence that this incarceration based model is more expensive, less effective, and more dangerous than rehabilitation programs that focus on getting the youth integrated back into society.

Oklahoma is clearly taking steps in the other direction.

Category: Juvenile Justice, Prison Reform | Tags: , , , ,
| October 18, 2011
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The Polk County Incarceration Scandal

Despite the advances being made in nearby Texas, Florida finds itself at the middle of a controversy about it’s treatment of youth offenders. Let’s start withthis video report from Fox News:

Polk jail at center of debate over jailing juveniles : MyFoxTAMPABAY.com

Chase Purdy, a writer for The Ledger, called it “duelling press conferences.” I think that’s apt. Sheriff Judd’s rather dismissive comment about “y’all silly people,” when addressing his opponents is annoyingly condescending, although his point seems on the surface to be a good one. How can the ACLU complain without having visited the facility in question?

That first impression lacks both context and nuance. Yes, it may well be much more cost effective than their prior approach, but can it be as cost effective as the Texas way? There is still a huge sum of public money needed to incarcerate someone. Far less funding is required to rehabilitate and reintegrate them into society. The numbers demonstrably prove that, as does the increasing number of states moving away from a “lock ’em up” mentality about juveniles.

One thing that needs clarification is the language used. To clarify the difference jails are basically short term holding tanks and are operated by the county. Prisons on the other hand are run by the state and are geared toward long term incarceration.

As a result jails are geared for a more transitory population by nature. Anyone who has ever had a court date knows that it can sometimes be months, occasionally even years, before the day in court comes around. That’s a long time, doubly so for children. This is especially true when the facility in question is designed for adults, an age segment with wildly different needs.

We will be keeping an eye on Polk County as this develops.

Category: Juvenile Justice, Prison Reform | Tags: , , ,
| October 14, 2011
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Birth of a Task Force

Stop the Violence Please :)
Violence is inextricably entwined with juvenile justice.

Domestic and neighborhood violence can contribute to future criminal tendencies, and violence is inescapable within the confines of the American jail system. The effect of this violence on children, whether experiencing it or seeing it happen on a daily basis, can be extreme.

Now the Justice department has announced the formation of the  Attorney General’s National Task Force on Children Exposed to Violence. According to the Justice Department press release it’s mission is as follows:

“Our vision of justice must start with preventing crime before it happens, protecting our children, and ending cycles of violence and victimization. Every young person deserves the opportunity to grow and develop free from fear of violence,” said Associate Attorney General Perrelli. “The task force will develop knowledge and spread awareness about the pervasive problem of exposure for children to violence – this will ultimately improve our homes, cities, towns and communities.”

So how did this start? It all goes back to just over a year ago. Here is the description of it’s origins from that same press release:

Following the release of the compelling findings of the first National Survey on Children Exposed to Violence (2009), Attorney General Eric Holder launched the Defending Childhood initiative in September 2010.  The goals of the initiative are to prevent exposure of children to violence as victims and witnesses, reduce the negative effects experienced by children exposed to violence, and develop knowledge about and increase awareness of this issue.

Over the next year, the task force will be amassing data through four hearings that will take place around the nation in Baltimore, Albuquerque, Miami, and Detroit. During those hearings they will be soliciting input and testimony from community members, advocates, policymakers, academics, and practitioners as they try to get a handle on the problem.

The Defending Childhood Task Force is made up of 15 members including:

These experts and ten of their peers will be generating both a final report for the attorney general and a series of policy recommendations. Hopefully they will take to heart the findings down in Texas and other places where they are rolling back on juvenille incarceration.

Image Source: Editor B. on Flickr, used under it’s Creative Commons license

Category: Humane Exposures |
| October 11, 2011
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National Youth Justice Awareness Month

Justice, 50 Fleet Street, London You may not be aware of it, but this month is the fourth annual National Youth Justice Awareness Month. Sponsored by the Campaign for Youth Justice October is a busy month across the U.S. Events and activities geared towards raising awareness and civic involvement with youth justice issues are occurring across the states of our Union. The main focus being  the incarceration of minors in the American prison system.

The creation of a Missouri mother named Tracy McClard whose son committed suicide while incarcerated in an adult prison.  He was 17 years old at the time. Now she is in charge of  Families and Friends Organizing for Reform of Juvenile Justice and she has a lot to say on the subject of kids in prison. James Swift, who writes for the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange quotes her as follows:

‘One reason why we started the National Youth Justice Awareness Month is because [the general public] doesn’t understand what it’s like to have a child in jail at all,’ McClard said. ‘If you don’t know what it’s like, it’s real easy to approve of policies that you don’t understand or know the statistics about.’

McClard believes that the overall lack of knowledge on this issue is not limited to the general public. Policy makers need to become informed as well, particularly those adopting a “though on crime,” stance. Here are more of her words on the subject as quoted in Mr. Swift’s column:

McClard encouraged those in favor of adult sentencing for minors to examine recent data and statistics. ‘Look at the studies, everything that’s out there,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t make society safer and it doesn’t make the public safer.’

‘It damages families, it damages youth, and there is nothing positive about it,’ McClard stated. ‘Everything about it is wrong.’

Campaign for Youth Justice Media Director Eric Solomon has stated that there are over a quarter million youths that are tried, sentence, and incarcerated as adults on an annual basis. He also supports McClards stance on educating policy makers, especially in light of new research such as the recent Annie E. Casey Foundation report which comes down squarely against juvenile incarceration.

These issues are in the spotlight this month, so far there are events across sixteen states, and plentiful information available for those who might wish to kick off an event of their own between now and the end of the month.

For the sake of our children, get involved.

Category: Humane Exposures | Tags: , , ,
| October 10, 2011
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What’s Up in Texas? Juvenile Incarceration in 2011

Texas FlagLast week I reported the findings of the Annie E. Casey Foundation in regards to juvenile justice.  The report overwhelmingly supports rehabilitation over simple incarceration, a stance we have long held here at Humane Exposures.

One of the examples referred to in the report was the state of Texas, a state whose juvenile justice system  has been on a rapid turnaround since the sex scandals it suffered in 2007. Allan Turner, a reporter for the Houston Chronicle takes note of this change as it has surfaced in Austin:

Among the more promising reforms, said Ana Yanez-Correra, director of the Austin-based Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, is a juvenile diversion program begun in March 2009 by the Harris County District Attorney’s office.

In that program, first-time, nonviolent offenders are placed in informal probation for up to 180 days. During that period, said Terrance Windham, chief of the district attorney’s juvenile division, they are required to attend school, report to a probation officer, stay drug free and, in some cases, participate in programs addressing special needs.

This is exactly what needs to be done in order to reintegrate these youths into society. The attention to education and special needs in particular are positive steps forward. Of couse, as is the case with any program like this, the big question is “how effective is it?” Turner rings us the numbers further down in his column:

Upon successful completion of the program, cases are closed without charges being filed.

As of Aug. 31, 4,246 of 5,347 offenders completed the program successfully. Only 9 percent of those who completed the program returned with new offenses, Windham said.

That’s a marked reduction- almost 80% completed the program followed by an extraordinarily low rate of recidivism. I love being able to report numbers like this!

This is truly a bipartisan win- fiscal conservatives should love the reduced spending while the social justice angle is one that should appeal to the political left. In the meantime the really important part is that the community overall benefits both from reduced crime and the destruction of fewer lives due to incarceration.

Peter Maloff, a writer for the Public News Service in Texas

‘Comprehensive, well-thought-out strategies in state juvenile-justice systems that will not only ensure that there’s fewer kids locked up but that will ensure that there’s less crime, and less money spent, and that kids have better odds of being successful in adulthood.’

Texas agencies responsible for youth incarceration and parole will be abolished Dec. 1 and replaced by a new Department of Juvenile Justice to direct nonviolent offenders to local rehabilitation services. [Ana] Correa [executive director of the nonprofit Texas Criminal Justice Coalition] praises its mission but says it will only succeed if it is backed by ongoing state support.

‘You can have a system – and you can have all of the wonderful intentions in the system – but without the funding, it’s going to be extremely difficult to pull off. That’s something that we still have to be very diligent about as advocates.’

And this is why advocacy is so extremely important. If funding does not materialize even the reduced costs of this approach will prove too expensive.

Image Source: rcbodden on Flickr, used under it’s Creative Commons license.

Category: Juvenile Justice, Prison Reform, Texas | Tags: , , ,
| October 7, 2011
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The “Throw ‘Em in Jail,” Approach Doesn’t Work

Kilmainham JailRecidivism is a dirty word. Concretely it describes those who are imprisoned for a crime, serve time, and get out only to end up back behind bars. In the abstract it represents failure on a number of levels, not least of which is the failure of our current system to properly address and curtail criminal behavior.

Those familiar with my work here might recall that I examined this problem from a number of angles during my last tenure here. Once More, Rehabilitation Urged Over Incarceration, Recidivism May Be Worse Than We Think, and Education Based Incarceration in Southern California to name a few.  Those were written in mid to late 2010 so it’s time to take a look at what changes may have occurred over the past year.

One positive step forward comes to us in the form of a report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation:

The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s new report, No Place for Kids: The Case for Reducing Juvenile Incarceration assembles a vast array of evidence to demonstrate that incarcerating kids doesn’t work: Youth prisons do not reduce future offending, they waste taxpayer dollars, and they frequently expose youth to dangerous and abusive conditions. The report also shows that many states have substantially reduced their juvenile correctional facility populations in recent years, and it finds that these states have seen no resulting increase in juvenile crime or violence. Finally, the report highlights successful reform efforts from several states and provides recommendations for how states can reduce juvenile incarceration rates and redesign their juvenile correction systems to better serve young people and the public.

As I had predicted then,  the accumulation of evidence causes the conclusion to become clearer and clearer: simple incarceration simply does not work. Brian Zumhagen writes on the WNYC News Blog that the empirical evidence from New York supports these findings:

Over the past decade, New York City has reduced the number of kids it sends to upstate facilities by more than 60 percent, according to New York City’s Probation Commissioner Vincent Schiraldi.

At the same time, he says, the number of serious felony arrests for city juveniles has declined by more than 25 percent.

Rehabilitation, not incarceration, is the key.

In my next blog post I’l be taking a look at the current situation in Texas, where they stopped locking up juvenile offenders for non-felony crimes back in 2007.

Image by amanderson2 on Flickr, used under it’s Creative Commons license

Category: Humane Exposures, Juvenile Justice, Prison Reform | Tags: , , ,
| October 6, 2011
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The Return of the Blogger

I take great pleasure in announcing that after a year away working on other projects I have returned to the Humane Exposures blog! Once more you will be seeing posts on a daily basis as we share news and information pertinent to those who share our interest in issues of social justice.

If you have a subject you’d like for me to touch on in our upcoming posts please leave me a comment here and I will get in touch!

This is a very exciting time to rejoin the project especially as Born, Not Raised: Voices From Juvenille Hall approaches publication!

It’s good to be back!

Category: Uncategorized | Tags:
| November 29, 2010
3 comments

The Economics of Incarceration in Arizona

MoneyThe economic side of the penal system is something we look at a lot. In so many cases, the return of preventative programs vastly outstrips the return we see from imprisoning people. Our documentary is titled It’s More Expensive to Do Nothing because that is, quite simply, the case.

Of course, there are also darker sides of the economic angle that bear scrutiny. When we speak of the economic factors, we are talking about ways in which to spend less and achieve better results. For some others, it is a matter of how much can be made from the business of incarceration.

Laura Sullivan has a very illuminating piece on NPR (you can read it or listen to the audio) focusing on this very subject. She takes a look at the spiderweb of business interests that stand to reap serious financial gains from Arizona’s new immigration law. [Note: this is not a debate about the law itself, but an examination of the way in which the prison industry has influenced the letter of the law for its financial gain. Comments debating immigration law will be considered off topic and not published.]

While there has been both forceful opposition and support for the law, it would behoove both sides to look closer at the way the law came about. NPR did some digging:

NPR spent the past several months analyzing hundreds of pages of campaign finance reports, lobbying documents and corporate records. What they show is a quiet, behind-the-scenes effort to help draft and pass Arizona Senate Bill 1070 by an industry that stands to benefit from it: the private prison industry. The law could send hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants to prison in a way never done before. And it could mean hundreds of millions of dollars in profits to private prison companies responsible for housing them.

What follows is a hard look at the influence of lobbyists. It starts with the Arizona State Sen. Russell Pearce, who claims the bill was his idea. His stated stance is that Americans need to look at the cost of not enforcing our laws and securing the border. The interesting part is that instead of bringing his idea up on the Senate floor, he instead brought it to a meeting of a group called the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) that took place last December at the Grand Hyatt in Washington, D.C.

If you look at the composition of the group, an interesting picture develops:

It’s a membership organization of state legislators and powerful corporations and associations, such as the tobacco company Reynolds American Inc., ExxonMobil and the National Rifle Association. Another member is the billion-dollar Corrections Corporation of America — the largest private prison company in the country.

Both members of the Corrections Corporation of America and Pearce are not only members but also sit on several of ALEC’s boards. Model legislation was developed at the Hyatt, legislation that was adopted almost verbatim four months later. Pearce claims that even though lobbyists were in attendance, he did not go to meet with them, but rather to meet with other legislators:

Pearce may go there to meet with other legislators, but 200 private companies pay tens of thousands of dollars to meet with legislators like him.

As soon as Pearce’s bill hit the Arizona statehouse floor in January, there were signs of ALEC’s influence. Thirty-six co-sponsors jumped on, a number almost unheard of in the capitol. According to records obtained by NPR, two-thirds of them either went to that December meeting or are ALEC members.

That same week, the Corrections Corporation of America hired a powerful new lobbyist to work the capitol.

This is an economic angle that we need to watch. There is no way to fight the bloating of our prison system without realizing that this is big business. There are so many jobs and so much money wrapped up in the penal system that it’s truly frightening. The approach to imprisonment being taken in Arizona and many other places seems to view an increase in the number of people incarcerated as a good thing, since, after all, it creates jobs and salaries. The fact that it costs taxpayers far more than the alternatives does not enter into that kind of logic.

This is not merely a problem in the areas near the border when immigration is such a massive issue. On the first of last month, I wrote about the astounding and disturbing state of affairs in Canon City, CO, the town with 13 prisons. Just to put it into perspective, Canon City has 36,000 residents, which makes it roughly one prison per 2,700 people. Sounds like big business to me, especially since one of those 13 is the Supermac, the new “Alcatraz of America.”

It does not matter whether this happens in Arizona, Colorado, or some other state. The fact remains that we have 5% of the global population and roughly a quarter of the world’s incarcerated here in the U.S.A. If the trend of embracing the corrections system as a revenue-generating business continues, those numbers will become even more out of balance.

So, as the prison system in Arizona hits a major growth spurt, I’d like to leave you with two short quotes to keep in mind:

‘When we provide treatment, we can cut recidivism rates down 25, 35, sometimes 40 percent.’
— Douglas B. Marlowe, J.D., Ph.D., Chief of Science, Policy and Law, National Association of Drug Court Professionals

and

‘It makes long term economic sense to try and take care of these people in a humane way, and help them heal.’
— Bruce Perry, M.D., Ph.D., Senior Fellow, Child Trauma Academy

Source: “Prison Economics Help Drive Ariz. Immigration Law,” NPR, 10/28/10
Image by AMagill, used under its Creative Commons license.
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