A Look at Girls in the Juvenile Justice System

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A report released this month takes an in-depth look at how girls are represented in North Carolina's juvenile justice system, how the numbers have shifted over the years and why females are the fastest growing segment of the juvenile justice system despite the overall decrease in juvenile crime. Representing Girls In the Juvenile Justice System, released by the North Carolina Office of the Juvenile Defender, looks at not only the characteristics and risk factors of girls in the juvenile justice system, but also offers several best practices to best serve the unique issues this population faces. Since the early 1990s, due to policy changes, the number of girls in the juvenile justice system has been on the rise. Basically, the increased amount of girls in the juvenile justice system can be credited to the “relabeling of girls’ family conflicts as violent offenses, shifting police practices concerning domestic violence, processing of misdemeanor cases in a gender-biased manner and a misunderstanding of girls’ developmental issues,” according to the report. Currently, it’s estimated that girls make up 30% of youth arrested and 24% of youth serving time in detention centers. Studies show that girls are more likely than boys to be placed in these centers for less serious offenses.

Q&A with Shay Bilchik, Former Head of the Federal Office on Juvenile Justice

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The Juvenile Justice Information Exchange recently sat down with Shay Bilchik, director of the Center for Juvenile Justice Reform at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., to ask how juvenile justice issues have fared under the Obama administration. Bilchik served as the administrator of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention in the U.S. Department of Justice from 1994 to 2000 under President Bill Clinton. He left that position to work as president and CEO of the Child Welfare League of America. Below are excerpts from the discussion. JJIE: How does Congress’s understanding of juvenile justice issues compare with how it was in the 1990s?

Sentencing Youth as Adults Harms Us All

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On August 15, 2012, when most teenagers were enjoying the last few weeks of summer vacation, 16-year-old Fernando Garibay-Benitez was shot in the head outside an apartment complex on Rolling Green Court in Raleigh, N.C. A rising sophomore at Millbrook High School who played soccer, Fernando was dead when police arrived. By the end of the next day, a 13-year-old and a 15-year-old had been arrested in connection with the shooting. Their names have not been released, because state law requires that juvenile court records be withheld from the public absent a court order. The juveniles have been charged with first-degree murder. If the state demonstrates at the next hearing that there is “probable cause” or a reasonable ground to suspect that the youths committed the crime, they will be tried automatically as adults in state superior court. Consistent with the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Miller v. Alabama, if convicted they will face sentences of either life without parole or life with the possibility of parole after 25 years imprisonment. It has not always been possible for kids as young as 13 to be prosecuted as adults in North Carolina, but a single case two decades ago brought about a change in the law. When 13-year-old Gregory Gibson brutally murdered an elderly widow in 1992, he was given the harshest penalty available at the time: commitment to juvenile prison (formally known as “training school” or “youth development center”) until his 18th birthday. As a result of public outcry over the state’s inability to try Gibson as an adult, the Legislature subsequently lowered the minimum age of transfer to 13. North Carolina is not alone in its ability to try very young teens in adult criminal court. In fact, more than 30 states allow for this type of “transfer” to occur at age 13 or younger, with approximately 20 states not imposing any age restriction at all for certain offenses.

In African Prisons Support Comes From the Inside

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LONDON -- There were few surprises when it came to the medals table at this year's Olympics, although the host nation was particularly proud of its performance, and in hosting the Olympics in general. More was invested in hosting the games than the GDP of many of the countries participating. However, if we compare medals won with GDP, a different picture emerges, and many of the world's poorer countries performed unexpectedly well, including West Indian and African nations, despite their relative inability to invest in the training and development of athletes. The world's wealthiest countries, led by the United States, invest huge amounts on criminal justice and imprisoning their citizens. The prison budget in the United States in 2009 was $60 billion, Uganda's GDP in 2009 was estimated at $41 billion.

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

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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.

Restorative Circles and the Heart of Justice

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My first “live” Restorative Circle happened a few days ago, in Rochester, New York. The circle started with seven people, and it ended with more than 50. It had really started a few weeks before. My partner and I had been hurt by an email that I had received, an email that we perceived as judgmental and prejudiced. The author sat across from us, along with one of her friends.

The Complex Picture of America’s New Immigrants

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With President Barack Obama’s mid-June executive order that protected certain children of illegal immigrants from deportation, and the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that invalidated most of Arizona’s anti-immigrant law, immigration has finally been yanked onto the front burner. And with that spotlight has come some misleading shorthand: that immigrant means Latinos and illegal, and that legal immigrants, including immigrant youth, if mobilized to become citizens will vote Democratic. But immigration in the United States today is far more comprehensive than stereotypes and myths can convey, and we owe it to ourselves to understand the nuance of their politics and influence on our country, especially in an election year. There are about 40 million immigrants in the United States today, and according to the U.S. Census Bureau, that is more than at any time in U.S. history. Almost two-thirds of them have arrived during the past 20 years. Immigrants, defined as people born outside the United States and residing here legally or illegally, now comprise about one-eighth or 12.5 percent of the U.S. population.