OP-ED: Here’s One Four-Letter Word That Isn’t Dirty

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For some, data is a dirty four-letter word when juvenile justice reform is attempted. Reform means change and data is the evidence supporting change. This makes data an easy target among those who resist change. The resistance may create a paradoxical situation by treating data --probably the single most important tool driving successful reform -- as a profane and abusive contrivance used by reformers to mislead people to get their way. What is essential to explain the need for reform becomes instead something that can't be trusted.

OP-ED: Out of Crisis, a Better Approach to Juvenile Justice

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I never thought when I took the juvenile court bench that I would be working just as hard off the bench to help kids. My county here in Georgia has certainly had its share of misery in the last decade, including a decline in graduation rates, an increase in crime rates, school board mismanagement that resulted in loss of accreditation and removal of board members that led to a mass exodus of residents. The good news is that Clayton County, just south of Atlanta, is on the rebound with an increase in overall graduation rates and a decline in juvenile and adult crime. I have always said: so goes graduation rates, so goes the crime rate. Our venture to turn the ship around began when we decided to confront the challenges within our juvenile justice system -- soaring juvenile arrests, increasing drop-out rates, dangerous gang activity resulting in many drive-by shootings, and kids dying.

OP-ED: The Anatomy of Effective Reform

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Reform takes on many faces—sometimes the face of legislation, other times it smiles through a landmark court decision, but often times it's the scowling face of grassroots advocacy tapping on our shoulder reminding us we can do better. The most successful reform typically involves a combination of these faces that come together like a perfect storm. The civil rights movement achieved notoriety when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white person, leading to her arrest. It was 1955 and Dr. Martin Luther King was brand new to the scene in Montgomery. Let's not forget the fortuitous timing of another face of civil rights reform that made it's debut the year before, the notorious Brown v. Topeka Board of Education.

Resisting the Temptation of Jail: The Lesser of Two Evils

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The onset of my unruliness happened when I first noticed girls -- I mean really noticed them. I am not saying that girls are to blame for the trouble I gave my parents. That I blame on the creature of adolescent mayhem; puberty. In my day -- circa 1972 -- the thing to do was to ask a girl to go "steady." But "steady" isn't "steady" until the boy gives the girl a ring.

Real Reform is Real Change

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I read with interest the excellent op-ed by my fellow contributor John Lash titled "Putting a Face on Reform" and his comments gave me pause to consider those faces. To reform something is "to change to a better state, form, etc; improve by alteration, substitution, abolition, etc." My wife and I are undergoing a reformation of the second level of our home. Our house has undergone a "change to a better state," but not without some pain--to our pocketbook--and let’s not overlook the two months of agony throughout the construction. Despite the pain, the results catapulted us out of the harvest gold and avocado green colors of the 1970s and into this century.

Protecting School Campuses and Unintended Consequences

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During my testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on The Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights last month, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), chairman and majority whip, asked me if I am in favor of police on school campuses. To the dismay of some of my friends who stand by my side in this fight to dismantle the "school-to-prison pipeline," I answered a qualified yes. Police on campus, I explained, must be specially trained in adolescent development, crisis intervention and fostering positive relationships with students. Two days later, a deranged shooter entered the campus of Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. killing 20 children and six adults.

The Economics of Juvenile Justice

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Our Constitution sets forth in the preamble that one of the goals of government is to "promote the general welfare." This requires good policy decisions by our leaders that promote a strong economy. We are fortunate living in the land of the "free and the brave"—to exercise freedoms others only dream of. And many have money in their pockets to feed their family. Is it because we are one of the wealthiest nations in the world that we take economics for granted when it comes to criminal and juvenile justice issues?

Choosing to Stay and Fight For Kids in Trouble

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"What happened in your life that made you a passionate advocate for kids?" When Jane Hansen, Information Officer for the Georgia Supreme Court, asked me this question last week during an interview, I thought, "Whoa -- the question assumed something happened to me." Now I am paranoid -- what does she know that I don't? I have known Jane going way back to my days as a parole officer when she was a reporter for the Atlanta Journal Constitution -- she has a keen sense of things. This "happening" resides in the recesses of my mind, something that rises to the surface from time to time when triggered by an event, song, or a question.

It Is Time for a Change, When Schools traumatize Kids

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How we respond to young people when they make us mad can make or break them, emotionally and physically. Notwithstanding the studies showing genetic pre-disposition to alcoholism and other traits, we enter this world with a blank slate. We are born with great potential to do wonderful things and experience that happiness as referenced in the Declaration of Independence. Despite our inalienable right to pursue happiness, this pursuit is thwarted for many children and young people who are traumatized at the hands of their parents or caretakers through abuse, neglect, violence and other toxic stressors. The blank slate brought into the world gets filled with some pretty ugly scribbling that makes it difficult for the rest of us to understand, including the child.

What’s Our Excuse for Being Callous With Kids?

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I recently trained some probation officers on something called graduated sanctions -- a best practice in the supervision of juveniles that gives probation officers discretion to respond immediately to probation violations without having to file a petition, arrest the kid and appear before the judge. It’s worth mentioning, because a number of courts do not use it, but suffer busier dockets and tend to have higher detention and recidivist rates. It has confounded me why some of us in this business haven't figured out that keeping officers in the field and out of the courtroom, reduces recidivism. The real work, you might say, is outside the courtroom. But those of us doing graduated sanctions must do it correctly.