Occupy Atlanta Protestors Clash with Police, 20 Arrested

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Woodruff Park in downtown Atlanta was once again the scene of protests and arrests Saturday night as Occupy Atlanta demonstrators clashed with police. Nineteen protestors were arrested, many for refusing to stay on sidewalks and blocking city streets, after demonstrators began an impromptu march down Peachtree Street. Occupy Atlanta demonstrators vowed to once again camp out in Woodruff Park despite a warning from Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed that anyone remaining in the park after it closed at 11 p.m. would be arrested. However, protestors began exiting the park shortly after the deadline as dozens of police officers on motorcycles and horses—some in riot gear, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution—encircled the park preparing to make arrests. A handful of protestors remained in the park and were arrested, a symbolic move by the protestors one Occupy Atlanta spokesperson told Atlanta’s WSB-TV.

Commissioner Amy Howell DJJ GJSA

Georgia DJJ Commissioner to Resign

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Amy Howell, the first woman to head the Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice is stepping down, according to a resignation letter obtained by JJIE. Gov. Nathan Deal, a former juvenile court judge, appointed Howell in January 2011 soon after he was inaugurated. An official announcement is expected Monday. The spokesperson for the DJJ declined to comment. According to the letter, at the request of Deal, Howell will become General Counsel for the Department of Behavioral Health & Developmental Disabilities (DBHDD) to "ensure one of our major agencies is running smoothly through a federal settlement and transition in service delivery."

Penalties For Drug Use at NCAA Schools Varies Widely

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At the end of October, three Louisiana State University football players were suspended for one game after testing positive for synthetic marijuana. This week, three University of Georgia running backs were suspended for one game when they tested positive for marijuana use. While the NCAA publishes an annual list of banned substances, each school may enforce that ban differently. In the wake of the LSU and UGA suspensions, CBS Sports surveyed nearly 70 public NCAA Division I schools about what their specific policies are. According to the CBS story, Georgia suspends players for 10 percent of games on the first positive test and 50 percent on the second positive.

Students Hopeful New College Loan Program Will Take the Pressure Off

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Beginning in January, students who borrow to pay for college will keep more of their paycheck when it comes time to pay the loans back. Last Wednesday, President Barack Obama announced a plan that would cap monthly payments on federal student loans to 10 percent of the borrower’s discretionary income. The change comes after a petition on the White House website asking for student loan forgiveness received 32,000 signatures. Although the focus of the plan is not on debt relief, the new proposal would forgive student loan debt after 20 years of payments. The program is a modification of an earlier proposal approved by Congress that would have taken effect in 2014 and capped monthly payments at 15 percent of a student’s income.

Meth Use on the Decline, But Still a Dangerous Plague

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Oct. 23 is the beginning of Red Ribbon Week, a national campaign to -- in the words of the organizers -- "unite and take a visible stand against drug abuse." One of the substances the campaign will have no trouble getting people to stand against is methamphetamine, a drug that has ravaged the nation for years. One look at the powerful images of the effects the substance can have on a user can push one toward action. While not in the headlines as frequently as in the past, statistics clearly show it is still a serious problem in the United States.

Judge Teske Gives Voice to Juvenile Justice Reforms on National Stage

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Regular JJIE contributor Judge Steve Teske was recently featured in The Washington Post for his crusade to end the school-to-prison-pipeline. The Post examines how Teske’s work to reduce schools’ referrals to juvenile court has gained a national audience.

Teske says zero tolerance policies have resulted in too many kids entering the juvenile justice system. In Teske’s opinion, “zero tolerance often means overpunishment for low-level misdeeds,” according to The Post. Because of that, he helped bring reforms to his home community of Clayton County, Ga., where Teske is chief juvenile judge. Since implementing the changes, juvenile crime has dropped, recidivism is down and graduation rates are up.

Teske, the story says, remains tough on crimes involving guns and drugs.

“The cases we have in court now are the burglars, the robbers — the kids who scare you, not the kids who make you mad,” Teske told The Post.

As Teske travels the country speaking about the need for reform, the success of Clayton County, The Post notes, is now inspiring communities in Connecticut, Indiana and Kansas, among others, to implement similar reforms.

And Teske is quick to point out his own teenage lapse in judgment, a school prank that today would have landed him in juvenile court. At 13, he pulled his school's fire alarm but his principal insisted the school handle Teske's punishment.

“Would I even be a judge today had I gone to jail that day?” he asked in The Post.

Americans Believe in Treatment Over Incarceration for Youth, New Poll Finds

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A majority of Americans favor rehabilitation and treatment of youth over incarceration, new national poll found. The survey, commissioned by the Campaign for Youth Justice (CFYJ), also found most Americans, 76 percent, believe youth should not automatically be sent to adult court. The poll was given to 1,000 U.S. adults.

"This public opinion research demonstrates Americans’ strong support for rehabilitation and treatment for court-involved youth, over incarceration and automatic prosecution in adult criminal court," stated CFYJ’s President and CEO Liz Ryan in a press release. "In light of this research, it is urgent that state officials accelerate youth justice reforms to reduce the incarceration of youth and prosecution in adult criminal court, and that Congress and the Administration reject deep cuts to juvenile justice funding."

Other highlights from the poll include:

A large majority of the public, 89 percent, would prefer youth to receive treatment, counseling and education.
Family is an important component in the juvenile justice system. Eighty-six percent of Americans favor involving the youth’s family in treatment while ensuring youth remains connected to their families.
Sixty-nine percent of Americans believe children should not be placed in adult prisons and jails.
Many Americans, 71 percent, favor providing more funds to public defenders to represent youth in court.
Eighty-one percent of Americans trust judges over prosecutors when determining if a child should be tried as an adult.

In New York and Across Nation, Demonstrations Grow As Media Begins to Pay Attention

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Demonstrations that began in the financial district of Lower Manhattan are spreading to cities across the United States, and now Ireland, fueled in large part by social media and the Internet. Collectively known as Occupy Wall Street, the protests are a response to what protestors view as income inequality and “greed and corruption” among the nation’s richest one percent, according to a website loosely affiliated with the movement. Protestors call themselves the “99 percent.”

Initially ignored by major news outlets (NPR, for example, declined to cover the protests their first week), the protests have grown through word-of-mouth on the Internet and through social media such as Twitter. Media have criticized the protests for lacking clear goals.

“We went from media ignoring us to controlling the news cycle. It's important to celebrate victories 4 morale & this change is a Victory,” wrote OpWallStreet on Twitter.

In a nationally televised press conference on October 6, President Barack Obama said the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations are a product of “broad-based frustration about how our financial system works.”

Largely viewed as a reaction by the left, prominent conservative activists have responded to the protests with their own “We are the 53 percent” website, referring to the number of Americans they claim pay income taxes. The assumption is that the protestors on Wall Street are part of the 46 percent who do not pay income taxes and that the protestors have failed to take personal responsibility for their economic plight.

But as The Washington Post points out, this is a strange position for conservatives to take as it flies in the face of decades of conservative tax policy aimed at reducing or eliminating Americans’ tax responsibility. In fact, The Post says, tax cuts put in place by both Republican presidents George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan lowered the tax liability for income levels across the board, not just for the wealthy.

Despite the criticism from the right, the protests have spread to cities across the country. Demonstrations have popped up in Atlanta, San Francisco and other cities. English language Al Jazeera features a map of all the demonstrations. Protests in Boston lead to the largest mass arrest in that city since the Vietnam War. Police arrested veterans and others after the protestors refused to move from a series of parks known as the Rose Kennedy Greenway, according to The Boston Globe.

New Juvenile Justice Database in Georgia Puts Pieces of Puzzle in One Place

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With the goal of presenting “the most current and accurate juvenile crime data available,” Georgia's Governor’s Office for Children and Families (GOCF) launched a new website this week. The Georgia Juvenile Justice Data Clearinghouse aggregates data from multiple partners such as the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice.

“It’s a way to synthesize the information so people can look at it and say, ‘OK, this is what we’ve got,'” said Joe Vignati, director of Justice Programs at GOCF.

“You’ve got pieces of the puzzle all over the place,” Vignati said. And not all counties are able to report their data yet. In fact, one county, Vignati said, is still using paper records.

Georgia's First Lady, Sandra Deal, was the inaugural visitor to the website a few days ago. After signing on, she said, “I am confident that this effort will go a long ways in helping improve outcomes for Georgia’s Youth, “said Mrs. Deal.

The site is broken into three main sections: Reports and Dashboards, Interactive Map and Pre-made Maps, each providing multiple ways of exploring the data from spreadsheets to pie charts.

Fractured Leg, Fractured Family: A Misdiagnosis Leads to Allegations of Child Abuse

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When Anthony Richards, Jr., was born on an early Sunday morning in June, the only complications involved his family getting the cameras in focus to capture his arrival into the world. He was a healthy baby and his parents, Queenyona Boyd and Anthony Richards, Sr., couldn’t have been happier. Yet, only four days later Anthony was put in foster care after doctors discovered an unexplained broken femur, his distraught parents the suspects of child abuse. A Protective Father's Discovery

After the hospital discharged Boyd and her baby boy, Richards took the two straight home later that Sunday. The following day, Boyd slipped out to pick up her prescriptions at a pharmacy only a short drive away.