The Plague of Bullying

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The U.S. Department of Education held the first summit on school bullying this week. It comes in the wake of several high profile suicides linked to bullying, including two children in Georgia.   Education Secretary Arne Duncan called bullying in schools across the country “a plague.”   The Christian Science Monitor provides these alarming statistics:

Nearly 1 out of 3 students in middle and high school said they had been bullied in 2007. 1 out of 9 high schoolers – 2.8 million students – said they had been pushed, shoved, tripped, or spit on during the last school year. 900,000 high schoolers reported being cyberbullied in 2007.

Teen Brain Science: False Promise?

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The movement to excuse teenage transgressions based on developmental neuroscience may be unwise, according to the Notre Dame Law Review.  Terry Maroney, Associate Professor at Vanderbilt University Law School, examines the current science, the legal factors, and the role teen brain research is playing in juvenile courts and state capitols where laws are made. Maroney says, “the fascination with adolescent brain science has begun actively to percolate through legal theory, advocacy and lawmaking.”  She cites the  Supreme Court ruling to abolish the juvenile death penalty as an example. But Maroney warns that neuroscience only makes generalizations about teens, and does not deal with the individual child or the child’s intent to commit a crime. Nor does it factor in the role of schools, families, economic conditions, mental health care and other issues that play a role in child development. She suggests that teen brain science should be considered one source among many for judges and lawmakers to use when making legal decisions about adolescents as a group.

Child Prostitution

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The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children estimates that between 100,000 and 300,000 American children are forced into prostitution every year - sometimes through being kidnapped near their homes.  Some are as young as 12 years old. The Department of Justice says  the average age at which girls first become victims of prostitution is 13.  About 75% of girls engaged in prostitution work for a pimp

Wanted: Insights on Trauma and Delinquency

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Exposure to trauma, delinquency and school failure are related, according to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF).  More than sixty percent of children have witnessed violence and 46.3 percent have experienced physical assault.

If you have direct experience with kids who’ve gone through traumatic experiences, you may want to join the online forum called "Chronic Trauma and the Teen Brain". Benjamin Chambers writes that the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is collecting information and data.  If you can answer the following question, this forum is for you:

“Where are there opportunities within these adolescent systems to better identify, assess and intervene to support the needs and healthy development of young people affected by chronic trauma?”

For more information:

Chronic Trauma and the Teen Brain - An Online Forum

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Drug Abuse and Mental Health

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85% of children treated for substance abuse also have mental health problems. The Child Welfare League of America reports this is a growing problem across the country.  In addition, 23.1 million people age 12 or older needed treatment for drugs or alcohol in 2008.  But only 9.9% of them got help at a specialty facility.

The Power of Partnerships

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Advocates for troubled teens can greatly benefit from partnering with families, according to the National Juvenile Justice Network.   NJJN’s An Advocates Guide to Meaningful Family Partnerships: Tips from the Field outlines ways to build advocate and family coalitions that push for practices that are fair and appropriate for kids. Louisiana’s Tallulah Correctional Center for Youth was infamous for “broken bones, black eyes, fractured jaws, and rapes” according to a report in Alter Net: Civil Liberties.  The facility was finally shut down once a major family group merged with a major advocacy group, the National Juvenile Justice Network points out. For more information about advocates partnering with families:

An Advocates Guide to Meaningful Family Partnerships: Tips from the Field

National Juvenile Justice Network

Moms Want Justice: Meaningful Family Partnerships in Juvenile Justice Reform

Alter Net: Civil Liberties

Children’s Programs Need Data to Survive

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Children’s programs funded by the federal government may be cut if evidence based data does not prove they are successful.  Youth Today looks at the dilemma facing well established programs such as Outward Bound and Teach for America because of new funding rules.  Just because a program has a positive public image does not mean it will get money in the 2011 fiscal year budget.  Juvenile justice programs that provide alternatives to prison could be at risk without evidence based data. Non-profit agencies that depend on federal funding are now scrambling for congressional support and some are arguing that evidence based data may not be the most accurate way to evaluate their work.

FBI Targets Child Sex Trafficking

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At Atlanta man is under arrest for sex trafficking involving children. Demetrius Darnell Homer is accused of recruiting and maintaining three young girls for prostitution.  U. S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates said, “This defendant allegedly recruited very young girls and turned them into prostitutes, robbing them of their youth, their dignity, and their freedom. Vigorously prosecuting those who exploit children and young women is a top priority for our office.”

Atlanta is considered a hot spot for child prostitution.  An estimated 7,200 men are paying for sex with teenage girls every month in Georgia, according to a study called “Men Who Buy Sex with Adolescent Girls.” The report, commissioned by the campaign called A Future Not a Past, paints an alarming picture of the sex trade in North Georgia. 12,400 men pay for sex with young females each month; 7,200 of them end up having sex with underage girls. While many men were not looking for sex with teenage girls, close to half were willing to go through with the transaction even after they found out they would be hooking up with someone under 18.

Delinquents and Career Crime Not Linked, Study Finds

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Children who get in trouble with the law early in life do not necessarily become lifelong criminals, according to the Marburg Child Delinquency Study.  Researchers in child and adolescent psychiatry in Marburg, Germany followed 263 people who were arrested for crimes before they turned 14.  They found “Offenses committed in childhood, whether known to the police or not, had no effect on the later (chronic) course of delinquency.”

Some of the indicators for a life of crime were the same as those for mental illness. Plus they cited three risk factors specific to criminal behavior in later life:   Boys, very aggressive behavior early on, and explosure to the negative influence of delinquent peers. Read the full Marburg Study here.

Most Kids Arrested Are on Drugs

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More than half of teens arrested in San Diego County, CA last year tested positive for at least one drug, and 94 percent admitted using drugs or alcohol at some point, according to research from the San Diego Association of Governments.  Marijuana was the most common drug, with 51 percent testing positive at the time of arrest.   47 percent of these kids said their parents abused alcohol or drugs, too. Half said a parent had been previously arrested and jailed.  Read more in the San Diego Union-Tribune