Young People Use Slurs Online, See Them As Jokes

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Young people are more likely to use slurs online, and most see discriminatory language as joking, according to an Associated Press-MTV poll of 14- to 24-year-olds conducted nationwide in 2011. Seventy-one percent say they are more likely to use slurs online or in text messages than in person. Also, most young people don’t worry about whether the words they post on their cellphones and laptops could reach a wider audience or get them in trouble, according to the ABC Action News article. "People have that false sense of security that they can say whatever they want online," Lori Pletka, 22, told the reporters. Although most people see slurs as joking — 57 percent say people are "trying to be funny" — a significant number of youth are getting upset, especially when they are in the group being targeted.

Serious Juvenile Offenders: Do Mental Health Problems Elevate Risk?

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The general adolescent population is estimated to have a rate of 9 percent to 21 percent in occurrence of diagnosable psychiatric disorders. In comparison, researchers have established that the juvenile offender population has a disproportionately high rate of mental health problems, with estimates suggesting it is as high as 50 percent to 70 percent. Additionally, a majority of the diagnosable youth in the juvenile system have a co-occurring substance-use disorder. Many initiatives dealing with mental health problems in juvenile offenders have treated them as a criminogenic risk factor; positing that, if these problems are addressed, youth’s risk for repeat offenses will decrease and their involvement in pro-social activity will increase. It is important that mental health problems be addressed for these youth,  but we require a better understanding of the role mental health problems play for offending to better inform program development.

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.

Casey Foundation Effort Aims to Half Incarceration of Juveniles

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The Annie E. Casey Foundation is commencing a new juvenile justice initiative aimed at reducing juvenile incarceration by 50 percent in 10 years, beginning with the release of a report that makes the case for such a drastic reduction.

“An avalanche of research has emerged over the past three decades about what works and doesn’t work in combating juvenile crime,” stated the report “No Place for Kids,” written by freelance reporter Richard Mendel for the Baltimore-based foundation. “We now have overwhelming evidence showing that wholesale incarceration of juvenile offenders is a counterproductive public policy.”

Bart Lubow, Casey's director of programs for high-risk youth, said the foundation will begin work next year with a series of states where officials want to make policy shifts that will affect their reliance on youth correctional facilities.

“The report marks the launch of an extended period of work intended to limit youth incarceration and replace it with a dispositional system that will work better and produce better results,” Lubow said in an interview with Youth Today.

Children of Alcoholic Parents Drink More When Stressed

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Children of parents with a drinking problem are more likely to drink in stressful situations, according to a recent Swedish study. This new research by Anna Söderpalm Gordh furthers the already-supported idea that children of alcoholics drink more. It was published in the most recent issue of the journal Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behaviour. Her process involved dividing 58 healthy people into two groups based on whether their parents had a drinking problem. The groups were randomly assigned to two situations, one of which was more stressful.

Can The Internet Be Used to Fight Human Trafficking?

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The Internet, like all tools, can be used for good or bad. Human trafficking, a form of modern day slavery that often involves forcing people, including children, to have sex for money, is part of the dark side. It’s well-known that traffickers get online to exploit victims and advertise their services through social media and classified sites. But what if the Internet were used against these traffickers? A year-long investigation into technology and human trafficking showed that online traffickers leave behind a trail, which can be followed by investigators working to combat human trafficking.

Troubling Trend of Young Adult Cigar Use Studied for the First Time

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In recent years, more young adults are choosing the lower prices and sweeter flavors of cigars and the longer, slimmer cigarillos over cigarettes. Troubled by this trend, health experts are releasing a seven-year study in the October issue of the American Journal of Public Health that addresses which specific young adult populations are using them and which brands are their favorites. According to a press release, 19- to 26-year-olds who are black, non-Hispanics, who engage in risky behaviors and smoke cigarettes, marijuana or blunts would be most likely to smoke one of these brands—Black & Mild, Swisher Sweets, Phillies, White Owl or Garcia y Vega—which all primarily produce cigarillos or little cigar products. This is the first study about young adult cigar smoking that uses national data and was conducted by the nation’s largest organization devoted to preventing and stopping tobacco use. “While much effort has been focused over the past decade to increasing awareness about cigarettes and the dangers of smoking, cigar products have emerged as a profitable product for tobacco companies that, unlike cigarettes, are currently unregulated by the FDA and are taxed at a much lower rate,” Dr. Cheryl G. Healton president of the organization, said in the release.

Youth Violence Can Be Reduced By Increasing Alcohol Controls, Studies Suggest

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Make access to alcohol more difficult and young adults are likely to commit fewer violent crimes. That’s what two studies by University of California at Riverside researchers showed recently, according to an article published by CBS Los Angeles. The first study, which examined 91 of the largest American cities in 36 states, found a link between alcohol store density and violent crime among teens and young adults aged 13-24. In the second study, researchers found higher rates of violent crimes in neighborhoods near alcohol outlets with more than 10 percent of freezer space for single-serve containers. The researchers described the effect as “modest,” yet crime did increase in areas with a higher percentage of single serve alcohol containers.

Increased Teen Driver Restrictions May Not be Working

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A lot of debate exists about whether teen driving restrictions are successful, and a new nationwide study says graduated driver licensing programs placed on younger teens are merely shifting the dangers to older teens, according to the Los Angeles Times. But then others still support a study published last year in the journal Traffic Injury Prevention that found the rate of fatal crashes to be lower and the accident rate for 18- and 19-year olds to be essentially the same. For more than a decade, many states have enacted laws to restrict their newest teen drivers, such as restricting the hours when they can get behind the wheel and whom they can bring along as passengers, and public officials believed they were saving lives. Now, this new study published in the latest edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association, suggests otherwise. When the researchers examined data on more than 131,000 fatal crashes involving teen drivers from all 50 states and the District of Columbia between 1986 and 2007, they found that the number of fatal crashes among 16- and 17-year-old drivers has fallen.

Photo credit: khteWisconsin/Flickr

Young and Poor in America

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Some 46 million people (a number representing more than 15 percent of the population) in the nation now live below the poverty line. Dismal figures released by the Census Bureau last week not only brought news of a record number of poor living in poverty in the United States, they also revealed that young people have suffered more than any other group during the nation’s economic downturn. Young people between the ages of 15 and 24 saw their family’s income fall 15.3 percent between 2007 and 2010, the most precipitous decline of any group. They were followed by those aged 45 to 54, who witnessed a fall off of 9.2 percent, while those 65 and older saw incomes rise by more than 5 percent, according to the Census. Poverty experts have good reasons why the young have absorbed much of the pain.