Funding Dilemma in Forsyth County

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Nonprofits continue to grow in Georgia while funding is waning, according to a report in Forsyth News. This year, Forsyth County contributed to 10 local agencies that work with the juvenile court. New nonprofits, such as Mentor Me North Georgia and the Children’s Center for Hope and Healing are struggling to provide services with limited resources. “The agencies themselves are saying that even in this tough economic time, we have got to figure out how to provide those services,” Chairwoman Nicole McCoy told Forsyth News. Some agencies are trying to vary their funding sources by using both grants and donations.

Federal Funding Hinders Juvenile Justice Reform

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The federal government expects the states to do more to prevent delinquency but is offering up less money to help with the problem. That’s a formula for tension, which became apparent this week as a 15-member federal committee heard state officials’ complaints about the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, according to Youth Today. The committee, which is charged with assessing juvenile justice reform, heard plenty at its second meeting about the OJJDP from Joe Vignati of the Georgia Governor’s Office for Children and Families, among others. Vignati and two others spoke about OJJDP compliance monitoring and funding issues. The three state officials agreed that OJJDP’s training and technical assistant is exemplary, but argued that the lack of funding is hindering efforts to support programs.

Twenty states now receive only a minimum allocation of $600,000 through the OJJDP. Funds for alternatives to imprisonment, such as emergency foster care and shelters, “have dried up,” said Nancy Gannon Hornberger of the Coalition for Juvenile Justice in Washington, D.C.

Among the concerns Vignati raised:

Data on juvenile justice and delinquency is inconsistent between the states.

Boy Scouts Clamp Down on Sex Abuse

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The Boy Scouts of America appear to be taking child molestation more seriously after settling a $20 million lawsuit, according to Youth Today. In the 1980s, former Assistant Scoutmaster Timur Dykes was convicted in Oregon of abusing Boy Scouts, including former Scout Kerry Lewis. Lewis filed suit against the BSA for failing to act on “the perversion files,” confidential files that red-flagged potential molesters in Scouting. Five other victims of Dykes have also filed lawsuits against the BSA. Lewis, the first to be awarded, received $1.4 million for negligence and $18.5 million in punitive damages in April.

Teens Turn in Classmate for Facebook Threats

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A Paulding County teenager faces three felony charges of making terroristic threats, plus one count of disrupting a public school, after police say he posted threats against three classmates on Facebook. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, other teenagers read the threats late Wednesday, told their parents, and called the Sheriff’s Department. WXIA TV reports deputies were searching for the 16 year old boy at North Paulding High School as buses were arriving Thursday morning. The teen turned himself in at the Sheriff’s office.  He will be held at a youth detention center until Monday, when he faces a hearing in juvenile court. While some people use Facebook as an outlet to blow off steam, threats are keeping police busy around the world right now.

Cobb Alcohol Taskforce Targets Adults, Recruits 100+ Teens

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The Cobb County Alcohol Taskforce has a unique approach to curbing the number of young people who drink illegally – crack down on adults. “It’s about rattling adults out of complacency and rubbing the sleep out of politician’s eyes to get them to wake up to the problem of underage and youth binge drinking that affects thousands of youth everyday,” says Youth Council Manager, Afiya King. Unlike many organizations that tend to exclusively focus on discouraging youth from drinking alcohol, this one, formed in March of 2000 to address underage drinking conditions in Cobb, targets the actions or inaction of adults. “We’re not about changing kids, we’re focused on the adults,” explains Taskforce Communications Manager Alisa Bennett-Hart. “Adults enable kids to have access to alcohol knowingly or unknowingly; through commission or through omission.

Conference on Racial Disparities

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The Coalition for Juvenile Justice is holding its National DMC Conference October 23 – 25.  The OJJDP is expected to share preliminary results from the 2010 Disproportionate Minority Contact survey.   Some of the sessions will focus on:

Policies that unfairly shift youth of color into the juvenile justice system
Diverting youth of color: What a community with limited resources can do
The role of Schools in combating DMC
Effective police interactions with youth

The conference is in Jersey City, New Jersey. Details here. http://www.juvjustice.org/media/resources/public/resource_451.pdf

New Census Counts Children on Probation

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New data is coming in about how many children are on probation.  It’s a national snapshot from October 21, 2009.  Here’s a breakdown:

Total youth on probation:  196,806
16 year olds on probation:  49,841 (largest category)
10 – 12 year olds on probation:  3,923

The latest available data from Georgia shows 9,486 kids on court-ordered probation in April, 2005.   To get this number, researchers polled probation offices.  It is not clear whether they polled both DJJ probation offices, as well as independent court probation offices.  Georgia's independent courts handle about 50% of the state's juvenile cases, and may not always share data with the rest of the state. The 2009 Census of Juveniles on Probation was conducted by George Mason University for the OJJDP at the U.S. Department of Justice.  Researchers are still working with the data, so we may get new information as it becomes available.   Currently you can search for data based on gender, age, case load at juvenile probation offices, and more. Thanks to reclaiming futures.org for the alert.

September is National Youth Court Month

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Youth court, which provides an alternative for kids who are first time offenders, is being celebration nationally this month, according to the National Criminal Justice Reference Service. In most youth courts, offenders are facing a misdemeanor or status offense for crimes like theft or vandalism. Youth court provides them with a network of community and juvenile justice experts to respond to their problems.

If your organization has planned activities, we’d love to hear about them. Email me at kedwar35@students.kennesaaw.edu

ACLU Challenges School Arrests

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School systems across the country will be watching as the American Civil Liberties Union confronts the New York City school district for allowing police to arrest kids for things like drawing on school desks. The ACLU is working on behalf of five kids who were arrested, claiming police used excessive force to get kids to follow school rules. In a memorandum of law, the ACLU sites cases like this:
Plaintiff L.W. was sixteen when School Safety Officers at his Queens school punched him repeatedly in the head, poked him in the eye, and handcuffed him—all because they suspected he had a cell phone, which he did not, and because he indicated that he did not want to be searched. Click here for the full memorandum.

Delinquent Kids: Focus of New Senate Hearing

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How judges handle delinquent kids could change under proposals for a new juvenile code in Georgia. SB292, Article 7 focuses on kids who’ve committed acts that would be considered crimes if they were adults. Read SB292 here

Read Article 7 of the Proposed Model Code

Julia Neighbors of JUSTGeorgia tells me, “This article will primarily effect defense attorneys, district attorneys and superior court judges.” Article 7 will allow attorneys to access more of a child’s information as well as give superior court judges other options aside from detention. Article 7 fundamentally works to separate “unruly” kids from “delinquent” kids.  Delinquent kids now have alternatives of their own, such as the option to request bail. The Senate Judiciary Committee takes up these changes on September 30th at 2pm in the Capitol, room 450.