Snapshots From the Inside, A Powerful Photo Exhibit Explores the Cruelty of Juvenile and Adult Detention

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NEW YORK -- As Ara Oshagan rocked his first-born son to sleep he prepared to meet monsters. While he bounced and cooed his boy, Sebouh, to sleep to the achingly plaintive melody of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata he was the image of a doting father, but in his mind he was quietly bracing himself to meet some of what many considered to be California’s youngest and most dangerous criminals. The geo-physicist turned documentary photographer had never been behind the walls of the juvenile detention facilities that dot the outskirts of Los Angeles along the spine of Interstate 5 in the Central Valley, but the following morning he was going to take his camera, walk in, and take pictures of killers and gangsters. “I expected the worst,” he said. “The worst of the worst; The ones glaring at you in those orange jumpsuits.

Finding the Time to Make Real Change in Juvenile Justice

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It is a fundamental principle in effective supervision of juvenile offenders that the optimal caseload size should be 25. It is still common throughout the country to find caseloads exceeding 60 and sometimes more than 100. When I took the bench in 1999, our caseload size was 150 - it was not pretty! Today, it’s 25. The kids who scare us get intensive supervision, the kids who make us mad are referred to a system of care for services.

Suspense Builds in Advance of Supreme Court Ruling on Juvenile Sentencing

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WASHINGTON - While most of the nation anxiously awaits a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court on the constitutionality of the federal health care law, juvenile justice reform advocates are on tenterhooks over a ruling expected next week over mandatory sentencing of juveniles to life without parole. At stake is the question of whether it is cruel and unusual punishment to put minors in prison for the rest of their lives without any possibility of release, even if they killed someone or were involved in a murder, without considering their age or circumstances. The court’s ruling will be on two separate but related cases involving two 14-year-old boys sentenced to life without parole under mandatory sentencing laws in their states, Alabama and Arkansas. On two previous occasions, the Supreme Court has affirmed that under the Eighth Amendment, juveniles could not be given death sentences or life sentences without parole for crimes other than murder because to do so would be excessive. Now, it must decide whether it is excessive for states to do so even in the case of murder or manslaughter.

Focus on the Infant while Understanding Teenage Parents

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If you’ve worked with, defended, advocated for or made decisions about at-risk youth, you’ve surely run into the difficult problem of teenagers becoming parents themselves. As a juvenile judge in Florida, I remember becoming frustrated at the apparent immature, selfish, unrealistic and irresponsible behavior displayed by these young moms and dads in dealing with life’s most important task: raising a child. But, you know what? I often forgot about the baby. In my haste to modify probation and curfew to allow, in fact encourage, these young parents to accept an equal responsibility for their infant or toddler, I often ruled without considering the newborn’s needs.

A Punishment Beyond the Punishment

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This past weekend I made a trip to Kentucky with my girlfriend, and on the way back we travelled through the north Georgia mountains. Not far from our route was Lee Arrendale State Prison, in Alto, Georgia. I was incarcerated there from 1985 to 1989, and it was by far the worst prison I did time in. Today it is very different, housing women instead of male teens, and with only a few of the buildings left that I knew. As I neared the prison my body grew cold and numb, my heart rate and breathing increased, and I seemed to have trouble thinking straight.

Report Urges State Agencies to Address Growing Kinship Care Needs

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A new report finds that more American children are living under kinship care with relatives or family friends instead of their parents, than a decade ago. The report, published by Annie E. Casey Foundation’s KIDS COUNT project , entitled "Stepping Up for Kids: What Government and Communities Should Do to Support Kinship Families", found that approximately 2.7 million children are currently living with people other than their parents, an arrangement also known as kinship care. The report also found that about 9 percent of the nation’s youth will live under care of an extended family member for at least three months at some point in their childhood. The authors of the report claim that kinship care needs to be addressed by both community and government programs, as many times family members or friends that assume parental responsibilities are hampered by limited income and the legal inability to obtain basic medical services or authorize medical consent for the children in their care. According to the report, kinship care guardians are very likely to be poor, single, older, less educated and/or unemployed and are often unfamiliar with federal assistance programs, such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).

The Heavy Price Society Pays for the No-Daddy Factor

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Lennie came to me about 18 months ago, with an attitude. He was a gangbanger and liked to rob people -- by force. Not a very nice kid. His mother cried in court as Lennie looked on with emotion -- the kind where the eyes roll and he is thinking, "Whatever!" So back during that bad time: Lennie is making straight "F's," doesn't come home some nights, curses his mother, and Daddy is not around.

The Quiet Power and Effectiveness of Restorative Justice

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What does restorative justice look like? We hear and read a lot about it, and its popularity is on the rise, but when I ask people to tell me what it means to them I often get vague answers. The truth is that restorative justice is taking forms undreamed of by those that started the movement decades ago. Their basic principles are intact: responsibility, care for all stakeholders, putting those harmed in the center of the process, repair instead of retribution, etc. The manifestations continue to multiply though.

Powerful Tool Shines Light on Secrecy in Juvenile System

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Traditionally, juvenile courts have protected children from lasting stigma and emotional trauma through aggressive secrecy, in contrast to their adult counterparts. But the anonymity provided by the juvenile system is a direct impediment to journalists and others charged with delivering information to the public. But a powerful new tool, published this month by the Reporters’ Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP), provides a state-by-state breakdown of access to juvenile courts. The report, funded by a grant from the McCormick Foundation, appears in the Spring 2012 issue of RCFP’s quarterly publication, The News Media & The Law. Each state is profiled in detail, describing which juvenile proceedings and records are available to the public and which require special permission.

Book Review: ‘Born, Not Raised’ by Susan Madden Lankford

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The most engaging elements came from the kids themselves. Scrawled on the bottom of handouts, the backs of postcards or between the lines of wrinkled notebook paper, the writings from the kids in a San Diego-area juvenile hall provide a window into much more than just their mind and soul. “I Really don’t Remember my childhood because I’ve tried so hard to block it out,” Brown, a 16-year-old girl inmate, wrote as part of an assignment “Born, Not Raised” author Susan Madden Lankford handed out. “The earliest memory I have is at the age of 11 when I was malested by my grandfather.”

Some wrote elegantly, poetically even, with a form that can only come from practice and attention in literature class – or perhaps just attending class at all. Others struggled to string together coherent sentences, or express their ideas and feelings in terms that could be understood.