Georgia Agencies Offering $6 Million for Juvenile Reinvestment Proposals

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On Friday, Georgia’s Governor’s Office for Children and Families (GOCF) and the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council (CJCC) announced a call for proposals, with $6 million in grants being offered to reduce recidivism rates among juvenile offenders. “We aim to incentivize court projects that provide services which hold juveniles accountable for their actions,” stated GOCF Executive Director Katie Jo Ballard. “While also holding our juvenile system accountable to taxpayers.”

The agencies are currently looking for in-state projects, involving evidence-based models that have been proven to reduce juvenile offender recidivism. The state will fund $5 million, with counties prioritized based on recidivism rates, while the GOFC will be providing an additional $1 million in federal funds. Funding applications are due by June 21, with award notifications expected to be announced on July 22.

Florida Juvenile Murderers May Face 50-year Minimum Sentences

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This week, Florida’s state Senate Criminal Justice Committee approved a bill that could establish new minimum and maximum juvenile sentencing standards within the state. Under Senate Bill 1350 (SB 1350), juvenile offenders convicted of murder may be given a minimum sentence of 50 years behind bars, while young people convicted of non-murder offenses would have maximum sentences of 50 years. The bill, approved by a 4-2 vote, also leaves room for judges to give life sentences for juvenile offenders charged with murder, pending outcomes from a review that takes into consideration several factors, including the nature of the offense and the offender’s mental competence. Upon rejecting a life sentence, SB 1350 would require state judges to impose the 50-year minimum sentence. According to The Ledger.com, the proposal has the backing of both the Florida Sheriffs Association and state prosecutors.

Pittsburgh Juvenile Detention Center Facing State Probes

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Pennsylvania officials are investigating administrators at a Pittsburgh juvenile detention center amid charges of mismanagement and favoritism. Last month, two of Shuman Juvenile Detention Center’s highest ranking administrators were given one-week suspensions, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports. William Simmons, director of the Allegheny County facility, was placed on unpaid suspension for two days last month, and county controller’s office records indicate he will serve an additional three-day leave without pay in April. Lynette Drawn-Williamson, the facility’s deputy director, was also suspended last month, serving a five-day leave in March. Both suspensions come on the heels of a county report highly critical of the management at Shuman.

Blacks Represent 93 Percent of All Curfew Arrests in New Orleans

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Recent data released by the New Orleans Police Department reveal a staggering number of black young people have been arrested on curfew violations, with black males arrested at a rate 16 times higher than that of the city’s white young people. Nearly 93 percent of all young people arrested for curfew violations in New Orleans from 2009 until 2012 were black, The New Orleans Times-Picayune reported. In 2009,  98 percent of all youth detained for violating curfew laws were black. Of the 1,416 curfew arrests in New Orleans in 2009, just 26 of the young people arrested were white. In total, white males and females  represented about 7 percent of all curfew arrests over the three-year timeframe.

Idaho JDC Wants Records Sealed

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The Associated Press reports that the Idaho Department of Juvenile Corrections (IDJC) is pushing to have all of its records — from juvenile offender files to personnel records — sealed from the public in the wake of a lawsuit filed by employees at a detention facility in Nampa, Idaho. Last year, the group filed a federal suit, alleging employee fraud and inaction on the behalf of managers to rectify unsafe policies or reprimand juveniles for inappropriate contact with one another. The employees also allege that at the Nampa facility, several staffers had sex with underage residents. The state’s Department of Juvenile Corrections recently asked the attorney of the employees that filed the suit to agree to a proposal that would keep the Department’s records confidential, even once the case is decided. The IDJC has informed Andrew Schoppe, the attorney representing the suits’ plaintiffs, that it will release certain documents about sexual abuse policies and material related to reported incidents of sexual abuse at the facility.

Overhaul of Nebraska Juvenile Justice System Takes First Step Forward

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Photo courtesy of Nebraska State Government
Last week, The Lincoln Journal Star reported that state senators in Nebraska gave unanimous approval to Legislative Bill 464 (LB 464), with the proposed legislation passing through the state’s single-house system with a 39-0 vote. If the bill becomes law, it would require that all criminal charges pressed against individuals ages 18 and younger in the state would have to be filed in a juvenile court. Currently, Nebraska allows juvenile cases to be filed in adult courts before being filed in juvenile courts. With prosecutors having vast authority to decide whether or not a juvenile is charged in an adult or juvenile courtroom, nearly half of the juvenile cases in Nebraska are prosecuted in an adult court. Under LB 464, cases may still be transferred to an adult court, however, pending both a motion by a prosecutor and a previous hearing in a juvenile court.

New OJJDP Report Shines Light on Demographics, Conditions for Youth in Placement

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Photo courtesy of Rutherford County Government
The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention(OJJDP) recently released a new report, titled Survey of Youth in Residential Placement (SYRP) 2003. The report, released via the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data, contains information culled from a national survey conducted a decade ago, involving more than 7,000 young people in almost 300 facilities. The report details, among other areas, survey findings about young people and their family backgrounds, their facility experiences and the quality of medical services they received while in placement. About three-quarters of survey respondents were young males, with Caucasian, African-American and Hispanic subjects making up fairly equivalent proportions of the total population surveyed. Regarding upbringing, about 80 percent of respondents said they grew up with a mother as their primary caretaker, with about half the number of respondents stating that they grew up with a father in the same role.

Georgia’s Juvenile Code Rewrite Passes Senate

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Thursday afternoon, House Bill 242 — Georgia’s sweeping juvenile justice reform bill that would also re-write the state’s juvenile code — passed the state Senate vote with unanimous approval. Last week, HB 242 was mildly altered in a Senate Judiciary Committee session. The Senate version of the bill also includes several related legislative proposals, such as House Bill 219, which would give courts the ability to vacate delinquency convictions for underage youth charged with sex crimes in the instance the juveniles were the victims of sexual exploitation or trafficking. The 248-page bill not only impacts juvenile justice in the state, but also includes statute alterations to, among other issues, state laws regarding adoption policies, deprivation cases and parental rights. Rep. Wendall Willard (R-Sandy Spring), the bill’s primary sponsor, has said that the reforms included in HB 242  would ultimately end up saving the state $88 million over five years, primarily by diverting juveniles away from detention facilities and into community-based alternatives.

Commission Report Critical of Conditions at West Virginia Youth Facilities

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West Virginia Industrial Home for Youth / Photo by WV Division of Juvenile Services
This week, West Virginia’s Adjudicated Juvenile Rehabilitation Review Commission approved a report citing numerous concerns about Division of Juvenile Service programs at the Industrial Home for Youth in Salem, W. Va., and the Kenneth “Honey” Rubenstein Juvenile Center in Davis, W.Va. Established in 2011, the Commission completed a full report on conditions at the two facilities last December. Initial Commission findings included cold cells, limited showering opportunities and “questionable quality and quantity of food.” Additionally, the Commission reported that residents had limited academic services, virtually no behavioral management unit services and no gender-specific programming in place for female detainees. The Commission was originally established to investigate the death of a resident at the Industrial Home for Youth in 2009. While an official cause of death was never determined by the Commission, investigators said that “it can be safely concluded that procedures were not followed” at the facility.

2013 National Youth Violence Prevention Week Underway

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This week, the National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC) is celebrating National Youth Violence Prevention Week, which seeks to raise awareness of methods that may deter juveniles from engaging in violent activities. The weeklong observance is an initiative of the National Association of Students Against Violence Everywhere (SAVE). Each day this week, the SAVE Youth Advisory Board will highlight a specific youth violence prevention technique, which runs the gamut from promoting tolerance and respect in communities to conflict management strategies. Sponsors for this year’s event include the American School Counselor Association, theAssociation for Conflict Resolution, Youth Service America and the National Association of Youth Courts. On the official SAVE website, the organization lists numerous National Youth Violence Prevention week awareness activities, as well as strategies for building community coalitions.