Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/author/gwritersinclair/page/8/)
When Michael Khanlarian began teaching incarcerated youth about the work of William Shakespeare, he never expected them to develop a rap about a 16th-century play. Using text from the play “Henry V,” a play about the titular British king and his rise to power, students created a cypher — a kind of freestyle rap battle — using Henry’s speeches.
The first time I had a weapon pointed at me, it was by a police officer. I was 8 years old.
The first time I was arrested, I was on my way to pick up video game controllers. Who knew it was then that I would feel like I never really had control of my life?
I remember it was a shotgun and a pistol both aimed at the vehicle I was in, and the police officers were yelling at me and my brothers to get out of the vehicle.
The police officers shouted to get out and get down on the ground, just like the video game Grand Theft Auto. My brother opened the door while telling my 12-year-old brother and me to not move or say anything. I heard three more cars quickly approach and park, surrounding our vehicle.
I looked to my brother for guidance and saw fear in his eyes while he put his hands up.
A pregnant teenager stands alone in a cinder-block cell in one image. In another, a young body shivers, curled up in an oversized T-shirt huddled in the far corner of a cold cement room. The pictures are just a few of the thousands in a collection by Richard Ross, who uses his photography as a vehicle to highlight the needs of the estimated 48,000 children in custody each day. Ross has documented the lives of young people caught up in the juvenile justice system in Juvenile-in-Justice, a project he founded to connect human faces to a story often told in terms of cold statistics.
“My whole focus for the last 15 years has been interviewing these kids and being a co-conspirator with them in terms of trying to be the conduit for their voice,“ he said. Ross was one of three juvenile justice experts on a webinar hosted Tuesday by the Dui Hua Foundation as part of a series focused on unique issues girls face when they come into conflict with the legal system.
Who are youth with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD)? The population of youth with IDD is vast. In 2018-19, the number of students ages 3–21 who received special education services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was 7.1 million or 14% of all public school students. You may know some better-known IDDs such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD), fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD), Down syndrome and cerebral palsy, to name a few.
What you may not know is that many youth with IDDs may have behavioral challenges associated with their disability due to communication barriers, which in turn may evolve into behavioral problems such as property destruction, harm to themselves, harm to others or elopement. However, often the student with IDD behavior serves a purpose and is most likely functional.
For example, consider someone with ASD.
CASA/LA (Court Appointed Special Advocates of Los Angeles)
CASA of Los Angeles seeks a skilled Chief Executive Officer excited by, and dedicated to, the organization’s mission, vision, and core values. CASA/LA improves the lives of children in the child welfare system by pairing them with a trained volunteer who advocates for their safety, permanency, and well-being and seeks to reduce and reverse the effects of child abuse and neglect. Nowhere in the nation is the need greater than in Los Angeles County, where over 30,000 children are under the jurisdiction of the Dependency Court. CASA/LA will serve over 1,300 of these children and youth in Fiscal Year 2021 and is on a strategic path to serve 12,000 children and youth within ten years. CASA/LA envisions a Los Angeles in which every child in the child welfare system has an advocate and the opportunity to thrive.
Few crimes stimulate such visceral reactions and deep-seated fears as sexual offenses. Accordingly, societal responses to sexual offending such as registration and notification laws tend to be quite punitive and highly stigmatizing for the offender. Yet these social control practices are widely considered by the public to be essential for community safety.
However, given lessons learned about the linkages between moral panic and legislation in other justice contexts (e.g., juvenile “superpredators” and waiver/transfer laws), we question the degree to which public perceptions about the characteristics of persons who commit sexual offenses are accurate — particularly of juveniles who commit these types of offenses. Specifically, we ask: If public sentiment drives public policy in a democracy, how accurate is the information they are basing their perceptions/attitudes on that ultimately frame legal responses to these juveniles? We propose here that the larger societal understanding of and reaction to youth who have committed a sexual offense has been disproportionately severe in comparison to the risk posed by these youth and what we understand about youth development and resiliency.
Our findings from a pilot study exploring public perceptions of these youth suggest practice and policy reform efforts should continue to incorporate a substantial public education and prevention component.
As I write these words, I am overcome with a rush of nostalgia. Although my time at the Youth Guidance Center Juvenile Facility (YGC) in San Francisco was anything but joyful, I found solace in the streaks of graphite that marked my paper as I wrote for The Beat Within.
Growing up in the heart of San Francisco’s Mission District, which was plagued by crime, drugs and alcohol, along with being raised by immigrant Spanish-speaking parents who did not fully grasp the consequences of our environment, evidently shifted my path from the American Dream they sought for me into a path of violence, depression and alcohol abuse.
It was not a surprise when I found myself within the white bricked walls of YGC at the young age of 14 for robbery with an added charge of conspiracy. This was only the beginning, as I would find myself staring out of the graffiti-carved plexiglass surrounded by the coldness of the stainless steel at least 15 more times within a four-year span.
To this day, the feeling of claustrophobia creeps in during the most unexpected times of my adult life, bringing me back to the reality of my broken childhood.
During my fifth visit to YGC for assault I was officially made a ward of the court and sent to my first group home. I ran away and eventually found myself back in YGC. I found myself revolving through the same doors of the courts, from group homes to juvenile detention, a never-ending cycle.
More than 40,000 K–12 public school students in Washington experienced homelessness in 2017–18, a number that has nearly doubled in the past decade and likely will continue to grow because of pandemic-driven job losses. For these youth, remote schooling might mean attending class in a shelter room they share with their mother and two siblings. It might mean missing classes due to glitchy Wi-Fi or insufficient cellphone data. And, especially for homeless youth who are on their own, it might mean not having an adult who can help them with assignments and prod them to stay on track.
JACKSONVILLE, Florida — Rosie Brooks has experienced both of a mother’s worst nightmares involving gun violence. Her son spent a decade behind bars for an accidental shooting in which a young woman was killed. Then, instead of a joyous reunion when he was released from prison in January 2018, it was a day of mourning. He went from behind bars to standing at his mother’s side at his sister’s funeral. Brooks’ daughter Sahara Barkley had been shot on New Year’s Day at a gas station.
Across the United States, surging COVID-19 cases are risking the health and safety of youth in juvenile justice facilities. In November, the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice (CJCJ) released a report examining a summer outbreak inside California’s state-run youth correctional system, the Division of Juvenile Justice (DJJ).
Shortly after our report was released, a second outbreak sparked. As of Nov. 30, confirmed COVID-19 cases spiked by 20 youth in a single week (97 total youth cases to date). DJJ’s first COVID-19 crisis serves as a warning: Lawmakers and service providers must step up to protect our nation’s youth.