Grassroots Push Central to Juvenile Sentencing Reforms

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — Since last summer, state legislatures around the country have been scrambling to comply with a U.S. Supreme Court ruling prohibiting states from sentencing children to mandatory life terms in prison without the chance of parole. Significant grassroots pressure remains necessary to ensure state legislators don’t try to create wiggle room around the court’s ruling in Miller v. Alabama, said youth justice advocates at a recent panel discussion organized by the American University Washington College of Law in Washington, D.C. Members of the panel argued that sentencing reforms should take into account the cognitive and developmental differences between adolescents and adults. Among the legal complexities unleashed upon states by Miller v. Alabama last June are the questions of whether the ruling applies retroactively to sentences already handed down, and whether, regardless of mandates, life terms without parole or other long-term sentences that effectively ensure death in prison are ever acceptable for juveniles, panelists said. Twenty-nine states currently have laws that directly contradict the Miller decision, said Daniel Gutman, a state strategist for The Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth, which lobbies for the abolishment of life sentences without parole for all juveniles. “When we’re talking about legislative reform in response to the Miller decision, it’s a very difficult process and there’s lots of different statutes at work,” Gutman said.

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.

Bill Sealing Washington State Juvenile Records Moves Closer to Law

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The Washington state House of Representatives unanimously passed a proposal Wednesday that would effectively seal most juvenile records from public view. House Bill 1651 reverses an almost four-decades-old state law that keeps most of Washington’s juvenile records open. Exceptions, however, are included for individuals found guilty of some sex offenses, arson and serious violent offenses, the Tacoma News Tribunes reported. Under the current law, juvenile offenders may petition the court to have their records sealed, but few requests are approved. If the new bill were to become a law, only judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys would have full access to juvenile records.

Hadiya Pendleton Gun Control Bill Gets Nod from Senate Judiciary Committee

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Reporters are shown a funeral program for Hadiya Pendleton’s services/Photo by Safiya Merchant
This story is from the Chicago Bureau

IN BRIEF: The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee has sent to the full body a gun control bill aimed at so-called straw buyers and that, in part, is named for slain Chicago teen Hadiya Pendleton. Hadiya, who was part of a presidential inaugural show this year, was slain on Chicago’s South Side shortly after returning home, and just a short distance from President Barack Obama’s home here. Her death helped marshal the anti-gun push that gained much traction after the December Connecticut school massacre. The committee, headed by chief sponsor Patrick Leahy of Vermont, voted 11-7 to OK the bill. It was co-sponsored by senior Illinois Senator Dick Durbin and junior Senator Mark Kirk and got the nod from a single Republican on the panel, Iowa’s Chuck Grassley.

Shake-up Underway at Federal Office of Juvenile Justice

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(L-R) Robert Listenbee, Joe Torre, Melodee Hanes
Major changes in leadership, structure and funding are underway at the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, changes that are likely to impact the way the office extends assistance to the field. For starters, the office will soon get its first permanent chief in more than four years. Robert Listenbee Jr., a widely-praised juvenile defense attorney from Philadelphia and the Obama administration’s pick for office administrator, will probably start work by early next month, several nationally connected juvenile justice leaders said. By the time Listenbee takes over from acting Administrator Melodee Hanes, the office will already be operating under a new streamlined vision and a major reorganization of its staff, programs and grants. The restructuring, which has been under development for months and is happening now, includes the creation of new office divisions focusing on policy areas like youth development, community development and juvenile justice improvement, Hanes told members of a national advisory committee this week.

Progress in Georgia, and the People Agree

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A study released March 5 by the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Public Safety Performance Project focuses on the attitudes of Georgia voters about the juvenile justice system. In light of the projected passage of a major rewrite of the juvenilecode the report’s release is a timely confirmation that legislators are moving in a direction supported by most people of the state. “[V}oters want a juvenile justice system that keeps communities safe and holds youth offenders accountable while helping them become productive citizens,” the report said. “Georgians strongly support proposals to reduce the size and cost of the juvenile corrections system and to reinvest savings into effective alternatives to secure facilities.” These attitudes carried across party lines with small margins of difference. Statements such as, “Send fewer lower-risk juvenile offenders to a secure facility and use some of the savings to create a stronger probation system that holds juvenile offenders accountable for their crimes.” and “It does not matter whether a juvenile offender is in secure custody for 18 or 24 or 30 months.

Progress in Georgia, and the People Agree

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Gov. Pat Quinn announced a doubling of anti-violence program in his budget address/Photo by Gage Skidmore
Written by James Swift and Eric Ferkenhoff
During his Fiscal Year 2014 Budget Address - in which Gov. Pat Quinn announced sharp cuts to education that worried many teachers and youth workers – there was a bit of good news on the juvenile front. Quinn, battling massive pension problems and a fiscal situation that can’t seem to stop bleeding, looks to boost funding for the anti-violence and youth-engagement program Redeploy Illinois. The program, which is statewide under the Bureau of Youth Intervention Services, is expected to see its coffers swell, more than doubling to $4.9 million for the new fiscal year that begins July 1. The budget proposal still faces the legislative back-and-forth. But according to literature on the Redeploy, it is designed as a youth deterrent targeted at those “between the ages of 13 and 18 who are at high risk of being committed to the Department of Corrections.”
It comes at a time of high crime in Chicago and Cook County, which has generated much national and even international attention – even bringing President Obama to town to discuss the violence in his hometown.

A House of Art Offering Inner-City Youth a Creative Out

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Originally appeared in The Chicago Bureau 
Miguel Rodriguez, director of the Graffiti Zone, sitting outside the program’s home/Photo by Samantha Caiola
In a two-story brick residence in Humboldt Park, three teen artists sit around a table discussing their plans for an original neighborhood mixtape. There’s a tripod and a can of spray paint on the table, as well as a pile of paperwork, including grant proposals. The walls are covered in painted portraits. When these three turn 18, they’ll have the opportunity to live in this house as part of Graffiti Zone’s Artist-in-Residence program, which pays young artists a weekly stipend to hone their passions and, they hope, beautify a neighborhood too often making headlines for its violence. The teens – currently ages 16 to 17 – were commissioned to the house by Miguel Rodriguez, who at 20 is the director of Graffiti Zone, a Chicago nonprofit that helps at-risk teens express their talents.