Celebrities Leverage Online Video to Combat Child Sex Trafficking

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The Demi and Ashton (DNA) Foundation recently launched a high-profile online video initiative to fight child sex trafficking. The series "Real Men Don't Buy Girls" features major celebrity appearances by names like Bruce Willis, Justin Timberlake, and even Pete Cashmore - founder of the social media news site Mashable.com. The interactive campaign encourages users to submit their own "Real Man" video - using the slogans "I am a Real Man" or "I prefer a Real Man" - and upload them to the DNA Foundation's Facebook fanpage. In the video above, Isaiah Mustafa (commonly known as "The Old Spice Guy") and Mashable founder Pete Cashmore tip their hat to the cause. According to the DNA Foundation, the videos - and the organization itself - aim "to raise awareness about child sex slavery, change the cultural stereotypes that facilitate this horrific problem, and rehabilitate innocent victims."

Alternatives to prison: Group of multicultural arms an hands forming circle reaching to each other with multi-colored puzzle pieces

Journeys

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Life is a great adventure, but it’s not always easy. For all the joy, excitement and feelings of accomplishment we experience, there’s just as much sorrow, boredom and defeat. It’s like any journey. You know you can deal with the easy parts; the challenge is how to get through the bad times. The Juvenile Justice Information Exchange will start focusing on one aspect of those bad times in a few days when we profile Kyle Boyer, a teen from suburban Atlanta who went from a hopeless addiction to prescription drugs to recovery.

bullying

Bullying May Cause Long-term Social Anxiety, Study Finds

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We all know that bullying is unpleasant, but new findings suggest it could lead to long-term social anxiety for the person being bullied. Recent experiments at Rockefeller University found that consistently bullied mice showed signs of exaggerated anxiety and nervousness around new mice.  They also experienced higher levels of sensitivity to the hormone vasopressin, which controls social behaviors. "The identification of brain neuroendocrine systems that are affected by stress opens the door for possible pharmacological interventions," Yoav Litvin, the study’s coauthor says. "Additionally, studies have shown that the formation and maintenance of positive social relationships may heal some of the damage of bullying.”

The vasopressin hormone is associated with aggression, stress and anxiety disorders in humans.  Earlier studies suggest that human brains can bounce back given time. You can read the full study here.

Grant Analyzes Gangs For Prevention

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The Office of Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Office of Justice Programs (OJP)are offering the Gang Field Initiated Research and Evaluation Program Grant. This grant hopes to gain more insight into gangs. It hopes to answer how kids get into them, what their involvement is once inside them and how to keep kids away from gang-related crime. It also will try to measure how effective prevention is when it comes to at-risk kids joining the gangs and the effectiveness of the current intervention programs. Another objective of this grant is to understand the nature and scope of the youth gangs currently in the juvenile justice system.

Drug Use, Addiction and Science

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The Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) are sponsoring the Science Education Drug Abuse Partnership Award. This grant seeks to find new programs and materials to understand how drug abuse and addiction really impact kids; what it does to the neurons of their brains and how kids behave on a daily basis.  This grant will focus on drugs or drug topics that are not well addressed in existing efforts by the educational community or media.

Fewer Than Half of Crimes Against Children Reported to Authorities

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Crimes against kids go largely unreported, says a study by researchers at the University of New Hampshire.  Of the more than 4,500 children ages 10 to 17 surveyed for the study, 58 percent reported being the victim of a crime in the last year.  However, only 46 percent reported the incident to authorities. The study, published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, says that, because of the fear of retaliation, cases of abuse and violence against children often go unreported.  In many cases families chose to handle incidents informally, without involving police, due to the sensitive nature of the crimes.  The study’s authors say this often prevents the victims from receiving needed counseling. Crimes most likely to be reported included bullying, neglect and theft, researchers said.

Juvenile Justice | Week in Review | April 8, 2011

April 8, 2011

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Read up:

FBI Probing Possible Civil Rights Violation of Teen:
http://bit.ly/Amerson

New Comcast 'On Demand' Show Seeks To Find Missing Children:
http://bit.ly/comcastkids

Juvenile Justice Journeys (series launching Monday, April 18):
http://bit.ly/JJjourneys

- - -

Host:
Ryan Schill, JJIE Reporter

Multimedia team:
Clay Duda, Social Media Strategist

Grant Helps High School Drop Outs

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The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation offers the Pathways Out of Poverty Grant. This grant will help prevent low-income students and at-risk kids from dropping out of school. The grant aims to bring attention to the needs of kids and issues surrounding the factors that cause them to quit or to consider quiting  school. The grant should find ways to help kids and nurture them so that they can move forward through their education to become successful members of the community.

Update: Federal Civil Rights suit aimed at Alabama Sheriff who ran Scared Straight-like Program

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The Anniston Star is reporting that a federal civil rights lawsuit has been filed against a Calhoun County, Ala., Sheriff who is accused of running a program that put juveniles into close contact with hardened criminals in a manner that is similar to the "scared straight" programs.

The Star quotes experts as saying the way Sheriff Larry Amerson operated the program runs contrary to federal and state law. The suit was brought by the father of a juvenile identified as J.B. It alleges that at one point during a recent visit by J.B., a deputy and an inmate verbally and physically abused him, pushing him and hurling racial slurs at him. The suit says that Amerson later came to speak to the boy. The Star obtained a copy of a video of part of that conversation, showing Amerson  "grabbing and holding down a boy dressed in an orange-striped inmate jumpsuit. The boy, whom the suit identifies as J.B., is shackled and has his hands cuffed behind his back during the incident," wrote The Star's Cameron Steele.