Families of Incarcerated Youth Demand Say in ‘Dysfunctional’ System

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Jeannette Bocanegra, a community organizer from New York City, told a gathering of juvenile justice system practitioners and advocates in Houston last week that as a mom with a child who was incarcerated, “This system made me feel like I was a dysfunctional parent, a bad parent … without realizing I raised six other children who never went into the system.”

Now she and other members of Justice for Families, an advocacy group, are out to prove that, in her words, “We are not dysfunctional … the system is dysfunctional.”

Liane Rozzell, another parent on the panel, said afterwards, “We don’t have 24-hour remote control over our children.”

During the panel discussion, Rozzell said when her son was first put into detention she thought it might be a good thing, it would teach him a lesson. But she did not realize how negatively he would be affected by the experience. She also recalled being in a meeting where a teacher from a correctional institution off handedly mentioned sending kids to “an inherently violent place like a juvenile correctional center.”
After hearing that phrase, Rozzell said, “I was just stunned that we can just casually talk about sending our children to an inherently violent place.”

In June, Justice for Families will be releasing an in-depth report, underwritten by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. The report includes results of a survey of 1,000 family members who have had children incarcerated and examines how families of the incarcerated are portrayed by the media. Justice for Families co-director Grace Bauer says family involvement and networking is necessary because, “No one knows what it is like to struggle with a child in the system better than another parent.”

However, according to Bauer, early findings from the report reveal, “Families are not consulted.

Reform Justice System that Destroys Young Lives: Casey CEO

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Patrick McCarthy,President & CEO of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, today called for transforming the juvenile justice in the United States into “a system that saves young lives rather than one destroying young lives. It will happen if the people working with youth “have the will, commitment and the courage” to make the changes needed. He made his remarks at the Casey Foundation hosted Juvenile Detention Alternative Initiatives conference in Houston. He added, "This moment in history is filled with opportunity to make a real difference, and to end forever the misuse of detention and the folly of the reformatory. If we miss this opportunity, this moment may not come again for many years.

The Success of the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative

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Bart Lubow is the designer and manager of the Annie E. Casey Foundation's Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative. The JDIA focuses on reducing unnecessary detention of juveniles in the nation. With a track record of reducing detention by more than 40 percent, JDAI is the nation's most widely replicated juvenile justice system reform project. He recently spoke to Reclaiming Futures' Liz Wu about the program's successes.  

A Letter to My Friends

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A colleague recently called to complain about the criticism heaped on him for his efforts to bring detention reform to his community. He has been called a lot of names and doesn't know if he can continue to endure the emotional pain. It made me think of others doing this work and the same painful darts they're enduring. So I will share with you what I shared in part with him. By now it should be no surprise that as judges go I am left-of-center.

A Season to Imagine a Better World

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Let’s face it — the practice of juvenile justice does not work for the most part. I applaud the efforts of those pushing our juvenile code rewrite here in Georgia, but will the changes produce drastic outcomes for delinquent youth?  Drastic outcomes require drastic changes — I mean controversial and blasphemous changes! To achieve drastic outcomes, we have to change the starting place. We already know — or should know — what to do with delinquent youth. The question is where do we do what with them?  Despite the significant progress to develop effective community-based programs such as cognitive behavioral training, Multi-Systemic Therapy (MST), and Functional Family Therapy (FFT), they become insignificant if the costs to support them are dedicated to the brick and mortar to house youth.

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.

KIDS COUNT: Georgia Ranks Near Bottom of States Due to Increased Poverty

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For the third year in a row, the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s KIDS COUNT Data Book ranked Georgia 42nd overall. The KIDS COUNT report ranks states by measuring the health and safety of children using a variety of indicators. Georgia ranked in the bottom half of all indicators nationally. The study found 37 percent of Georgia children lived in a single-parent household in 2009, a 1 percent increase from the year before, ranking Georgia 41st in the nation in this category. Georgia saw increases in almost every measurement including:

Children living in poverty (+2 percent)
Children living in families where no parent has full-time, year-round employment (+4 percent)
Teens aged 16-19 not in school and not working (+1 percent)
Teen deaths from all causes (+2 percent)

Only two measurements improved: The teen birth rate declined across all age groups and the number of teens aged 16 to 19 not in high school, who have not graduated fell by one percent.

KIDS COUNT: Significant Decline in Children’s Economic Well Being Over Past Decade

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There has been a significant decline in economic well being for low-income children and families in the last decade, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s annual KIDS COUNT Data Book.

Among the findings, the official child poverty rate, a conservative measure of economic hardship according to the report, increased 18 percent between 2000 and 2009. The increase represents 2.4 million more children now living below the federal poverty line, returning to roughly the same levels as the early 1990’s.

“In 2009, 42 percent of our nation’s children, or 31 million, lived in families with incomes below twice the federal poverty line or $43,512/year for a family of four, a minimum needed for most families to make ends meet,” Laura Speer, associate director for Policy Reform and Data at the Casey Foundation, said in a press release. “The recent recession has wiped out many of the economic gains for children that occurred in the late 1990’s.”

Photo credit: Clay Duda/JJIE.org

‘Evening Reporting Center’ Keeps Kids Out of Trouble During Peak Crime Hours, Administrators Say

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Two years ago Eric Claros, 17, was barreling headfirst on a path of self-destruction. When he wasn’t skipping school or getting high smoking marijuana, he was breaking into homes with his friends just for the heck of it. He eventually got arrested and spent some days in a local detention center outside of Atlanta. After his release, a probation violation eventually landed him in a program in Clayton County, a suburban community just south of the city. The Evening Reporting Center (ERC) is a juvenile court run alternative to incarceration program.

Judge Steve Teske: The Blame Game – The Winner Loses and The Kids are Hurt

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It was 1999, I was recently appointed to the juvenile bench, and we had a new presiding judge. A meeting was called to discuss the direction of the court.   Among several issues, we were concerned about the number of complaints filed by School Resource Officers (SRO) and decided to meet with the Chief of Police to discuss other alternatives to filing complaints.  We were prepared for the meeting. We had data reflecting an increase in referrals by over 1,000 percent since the inception of the SRO program in the mid nineties.  The data was broken down by offenses and most were misdemeanors primarily involving school fights, disorderly conduct, and disrupting public school.