Florida Symposium Focuses on Legal Representation for Abused and Neglected Children

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In Florida, a two-day symposium will bring together leading national advocates and experts to discuss the legal representation of abused and neglected children. Organizers of the symposium, sponsored by the American Bar Association, say there is an urgent need to raise public awareness that abused children need to have lawyers protecting them in all court proceedings. The program begins with a media briefing Thursday, Feb. 9 followed by a symposium Friday, Feb. 10.

Virginia State Senate Rejects Proposal to Try Repeat Juvenile Offenders as Adults

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A Virginia Senate committee shot down a proposed bill that would have automatically transferred juveniles with repeat violent offenses to adult courts. Under Gov. Robert McDonnell’s proposal, juveniles as young as 14 could have been tried as adults in Virginia’s courts. The bill, supported by Gov. McDonnell and sponsored by State Sen. Bill Stanley -- both Republicans -- would have also given prosecutors the ability to try juveniles charged with specific gang-related crimes or multiple drug offenses as adults. Had the bill passed, minors with more than one offense of selling marijuana could have potentially been prosecuted as adults within the state’s judicial system. By an 11-4 vote, a state Senate committee rejected the legislation, with several of the sitting members stating that they were reluctant to pass a bill that took away the discretion of judges.

From the Cold Case Files, a Child Who Shouldn’t Have to be Alone

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Jessica is 17 years old and has learned how to take care of herself. She doesn’t quite understand, though, that she shouldn’t have to. Jessica has been in the state custody of Georgia’s Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS) since October 2007 when she disclosed that her father had been sexually molesting her for the past two years. After she and her brother and sister were removed, her younger sister also disclosed that their father and their mother had sexually molested her. Both of her parents have been criminally charged, but the cases are still pending after more than three years.

Keeping Locked-Up Kids and Their Families Connected

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Arizona’s Legislature recently passed a law charging prison visitors a onetime $25 fee as a way to help close the state’s $1.6 billion budget deficit. Middle Ground Prison Reform, a prison advocacy group, challenged the law in court as a discriminatory tax, but a county judge upheld its constitutionality. Fees like that, slapped on prisoners and their families, couldn’t be more counterintuitive. But then again, so many of our criminal justice policies are just that. Since it is mostly the poor, the desperately poor who fill U.S. prisons, the $25 fee is one more economic hardship offenders’ families have to struggle with.

Razor wire fence borders the Metro Regional Youth Detention center in Atlanta, Ga. JJIE Staff, 2010. File photo.

Youth Transfers to the Adult Corrections System More Likely to Reoffend

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Juveniles transferred to adult corrections systems reoffend at a higher rate than those who stay in the juvenile justice system, according to a new report from the National Institute of Corrections (NIC). The report also found insufficient evidence that trying youths as adults acts as a crime deterrent. Entitled “You’re an Adult Now,” the report published in December 2011 is based on the findings of three-dozen juvenile justice and adult corrections experts convened by the NIC in 2010 to identify challenges when youth are transferred to adult court. Highlighted in the report, written by Jason Ziedenberg, director of juvenile justice at M+R Strategic Services, was research by the Centers for Disease Control that found youth transferred to the adult system are 34 percent more likely than youth who remain in the juvenile justice system to be re-arrested for violent or other crimes. The safety of juveniles in adult prisons is also a serious concern, according to the report, which cites a Bureau of Justice Statistics study that found, 21 percent of the victims of inmate-on-inmate sexual violence in jails in 2005 were under the age of 18.

Top Judge Speaks the Truth About Georgia’s Juvenile Justice System

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Anyone who has spent much time around a prison realizes it is usually not a place of healing or rehabilitation. The truth is prisons are mostly warehouses these days, places where we send people just to have them out of the way. A lot of those people have diagnosed mental health problems, and a lot more have, or also have, substance abuse and addiction issues. I can’t speak to all prison systems, but in Georgia the “treatments” that both of these groups have received in the past have been, well…, laughable. Short appointments with a psychiatrist and enough medication to keep them sedated was the course of action for guys with mental health issues, while guys with substance abuse problems attended “classes” where they heard a mishmash of moralistic judgments and pseudo-scientific theories.

Kansas Cuts Out Food Stamps for Many Children of Illegal Immigrants

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A new formula for calculating who receives food stamps in Kansas has left many U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants without aid. The change affects the Supplemental Nutrition and Assistance Program (SNAP), a federal program administered individually by the states. By law, illegal immigrants are not eligible for food stamps but their U.S.-born children are, according to The Kansas City Star. Previously, Kansas excluded illegal immigrants as members of the household in the formula but adjusted the family’s income proportionately. The new rule doesn’t adjust the income, so a family’s earnings are spread over fewer people in the calculation.

Investigation Leads to Sex Allegations at Augusta, Georgia Youth Detention Center

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The Augusta, Ga. youth detention denter, where a 17-year-old was beaten to death in November, continues to be the focus of an investigation by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI). A team of 20 agents conducted interviews Tuesday as part of the murder probe. They were also there to investigation new allegations of sexual contact (some confirmed) between security personnel and detained youth, according to The Athens Banner-Herald. Gale Buckner, commissioner of the Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ), briefed members of the Augusta legislative delegation on the ongoing joint investigation by DJJ and GBI.

State’s Juvenile Justice System Needs Overhaul, Says Chief Justice of Georgia’s Supreme Court

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At Wednesday’s annual State of the Judiciary Address, Georgia’s Supreme Court Chief Justice Carol Hunstein urged lawmakers to overhaul the state’s juvenile justice system, asking legislators to support more rehabilitative services for youth as opposed to incarceration of juvenile offenders. "The same reforms we are recommending to you for adults must begin with children," Hunstein said. “If we simply throw low-risk offenders into prison, rather than holding them accountable for their wrongdoing while addressing the source of their criminal behavior, they merely become hardened criminals who are more likely to reoffend when they are released.”

Hunstein noted that state budget cutbacks have limited services for many mental health and child welfare programs, which she said puts juvenile judges in a position to send youth to detention facilities “or nothing at all.”

She cited Department of Juvenile Justice statistics showing that nearly two-thirds of the approximate 10,000 incarcerated youth in the state suffer from substance abuse issues, while approximately one-third had been diagnosed with mental health complications. The Chief Justice warned legislators that statewide budget cuts have created massive backlogs of court cases in many of Georgia’s counties, which threatens to impede the progress of court resources across the state. Hunstein said she supported proposals from Republican Gov. Nathan Deal to create specialized courts to treat adults with substance abuse issues, as well as military veterans, stating that the system needs to examine the “roots” of offender behavior.