Community Center’s Low-Cost Music Program Breaking Down Cultural Walls

By |

Christine Streich / Youth Today

NEW YORK -- A shabby community center on the first floor of one of the 12 buildings that make up the vastGov. Alfred E. Smith public houses is where social workers and teachers are hoping music can break down cultural barriers. Melodies drift from the classroom in the tiny Two Bridges neighborhood of lower Manhattan, six days a week. It is in need of fresh paint. Mismatched desks are scattered amidst tables and other pieces of furniture. Remnants of English language lessons line the walls on yellowing easel paper.

Boys Growing Up to be Boys: Mandatory Minimums and Teens in Adult Prisons

By |

For teens sentenced as adults under Georgia’s SB 400, a paucity of resources create reentry challenges (and increased likelihood of recidivism) upon release

ATLANTA––In the best of situations, teen boys struggle with growing into good men. The challenge becomes enormous for Georgia teens convicted in adult court of certain violent crimes—the so-called Seven Deadly Sins—and subsequently locked away in adult prisons. In 1994, responding to rising juvenile crime rates and fears of a generation of teen “super-predators,” Georgia passed legislation requiring any kid age 13 to 17 accused of committing one of seven serious, violent crimes be transferred out of the juvenile system to face an adult court. Conviction meant a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years with no parole. With few positive role models and few opportunities for education while inside the prison walls, many former inmates convicted under the law say they are ill-prepared for life on the outside—a life requiring Social Security numbers, credit scores, balanced checkbooks and an entirely different set of interpersonal skills than those they’d learned in prison.

After-School Cuts to the Quick

By |

NEW YORK -- Last year, the after-school program at P.S. 102 in Elmhurst, Queens shut down due to funding cuts. Without the program, 11-year-old Savannah Colon thought she’d have to ride a city bus back and forth for three hours each day with her 6-year-old sister, until her mother finished work. Thankfully, that didn’t happen. Savannah’s mother found a city-funded program called Beacon at I.S. 5, just a couple blocks away. “My mom was really frustrated,” Savannah said.

Georgia Juvenile Justice Reform Bill Clears Committee

By |

A major reformation of Georgia’s juvenile justice system took a significant step toward passage in the state’s General Assembly Tuesday after it was voted out of the House Judiciary Committee. As JJIE reported earlier this month, the 244-page House Bill 242 grew out of a recommendation report from the Georgia Criminal Justice Reform Council and a years-long effort to update the state’s juvenile code. Much of the bill is modeled on reforms in other states such as Texas and Ohio. “The way we’re doing things now is not good for the children, so we’re altering those programs,” the bill’s sponsor and chairman of the committee, state Rep. Wendell Willard, R-Sandy Springs, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Tuesday. The bill includes reforms meant to address high recidivism rates and ease overcrowding in detention centers by placing a greater emphasis on community-based alternatives.

Georgia’s High Court Chief Justice Calls for Reform

By |

A call for juvenile justice reform, in Georgia and across the nation, was the main focus of Georgia’s State of the Judiciary Address today. Speaking before the state’s General Assembly in her fourth and final address, Georgia state Supreme Court Chief Justice Carol Hunstein, said the majority of kids in the juvenile justice system deserve a second chance. “When did we stop believing that children are different from adults and that teenagers do stupid things, act impulsively and consider themselves immortal?” she asked. “When did we forget what we were like as teenagers?”

To read the entire prepared address click here.

JJIE Adds New York Metro Bureau

By |

JJIE announced Wednesday the expansion of its juvenile justice coverage through the opening of a metropolitan New York news bureau. Housed at the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism, the new bureau is funded by a three-year, $255,000 grant from the Tow Foundation. The bureau will feature in-depth reporting from CUNY journalism students and will be run by journalist and adjunct professor Daryl Khan, who has written for The New York Times, Newsday and the Boston Globe. Leonard Witt, executive director of the Center for Sustainable Journalism, which publishes JJIE, said the addition of the New York Metro Bureau’s in-depth reporting fills a critical gap in juvenile justice coverage. “This gives us a presence in a major metropolitan region,” Witt said.

California Guarantees Chance at Parole for Juveniles Facing Life Sentences

By |

With the signature of Governor Jerry Brown, California, minus a few exceptions, joins the handful of states that guarantee an opportunity at parole to juveniles convicted of murder. After serving 15 years, most of California’s roughly 300 so-called juvenile lifers will get a chance to ask for something they thought they would never see: a reduced sentence. The new law allows judges to reduce a life-without-parole sentence to a 25-years-to-life sentence. That means the possibility of an appointment with the parole board. “It’s very exciting, it’s huge,” said Dana Isaac, director of the Project to End Juvenile Life Without Parole at the University of San Francisco School of Law.

VIDEO: A Former Georgia State Child Advocate Explains His Work Helping Kids in Guatemala

By |

The Georgia Juvenile Services Association (GJSA) recently wrapped its 2012 Training Summit in Savannah, Ga., an annual chance for juvenile court workers from across the state to share knowledge, network and blow off steam away from the daily pressures and demands of their often stressful work. GJSA members include employees at all levels of the state’s Department of Juvenile Justice, juvenile courts, county departments of family and children services and other organizations dedicated to helping children. Giving the keynote address Aug. 22 was Georgia’s former Child Advocate, Tom Rawlings, who spoke about lessons he has learned from his current job as Director of International Justice Mission’s Guatemala field office. There, Rawlings manages “a multidisciplinary team of attorneys, investigators, social works and psychiatrists which essentially acts as a combination district attorney’s office and child advocacy center,” he said.