Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/author/ggately/page/6/)
All juvenile detention centers should carefully screen incoming detainees for suicidal thoughts and inclinations, says a prominent expert on suicide risk among youths in detention.
Forty years after its birth, the landmark federal Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act could be reauthorized by Congress this year.
I can’t look at the photographs of the faces of the desperate refugee children at America’s border without thinking of my son.
A riveting new PBS documentary, "15 to Life: Kenneth's Story," traces one young man's quest for release from prison after he was sentenced to four consecutive life terms without parole. JJIE speaks with the documentary's director, Nadine Pequeneza, about the making of the film, Kenneth Young's case and how his experience is emblematic of a juvenile justice system struggling to find a balance among rehabilitation, modern behavioral science and the United States' "tough-on-crime" culture. Young is just one of the more than 2,500 people convicted as a juvenile that are now serving life sentences in the United States.
It seemed a throwback to the days of the country doctor: Go to the patients instead of having them come to you. As a young intern in the pediatrics department at the University of Virginia’s medical school in the mid-1970s, Scott Henggeler got that advice from his supervisor, a social worker on staff. He heeded it, taking the department’s van out for house calls into the natural beauty of the Shenandoah Valley in the Charlottesville area and soon had an epiphany about the folly of trying to treat some of the most troubled youngsters in an office setting. “I visited probably about six, seven homes, and in each case, all it really took was to just set foot inside the door and you realized how goofy your academic treatment plan was,” Henggeler told JJIE. “Doing the home-based stuff just removed the barriers, really removed most of the barriers and helped you better engage with the families, but also very importantly, you got much more accurate assessment data.
“Building the next generation of juvenile justice leaders” will be the focus of a two-day summit in Washington co-hosted by the nonprofit Coalition for Juvenile Justice and the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
You’ve heard about the “school-to-prison pipeline.” Now, add to that the “cradle-to-prison pipeline,” the “poverty-to-prison pipeline” and the “prison-to-poverty pipeline.”
Eleven major foundations have pledged to spend a total of nearly $200 million for efforts to help boys and young men of color succeed, in concert with President Barack Obama’s “My Brother’s Keeper” initiative.
The U.S. Department of Justice has come under intense criticism for not requiring states to conduct rigorous audits of correctional facilities under the Prison Rape Elimination Act.
Those arrested and detained as youths were much more likely to die violent deaths as adults than those who were not, says a new study.
The study, published in the June 16 issue of the journal “Pediatrics,” found that females who had been arrested and detained as youths died violent deaths as adults at nearly five times the rate of the general population, while males arrested and detained as youths died violent deaths at three times the rate of the general population.