Teen Charged as Adult in Beating of 94-Year Old Man

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A teenager could face 20 years in prison if convicted of beating and robbing a 94 year old Marietta man.  The Marietta Daily Journal reports 15 year old James Glover will be tried as an adult. An 11-year old boy has already admitted his role in the crime, and testified against Glover at a hearing on Monday before Judge Juanita Stedman.  The 11-year old was sentenced to two year of state supervision, but according to the newspaper, he’s been released from detention. Prosecutors say the boys tricked 94-year old Paul Smallwood into letting them inside his home, then knocked him down and hit him on the head with a rock.

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.

Vote for the Best Teen Video on Underage Drinking

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High schoolers have produced some pretty creative videos about underage drinking and parent responsibilities. They are posted on  SchoolTube.  The Cobb Alcohol Taskforce is sponsoring a Youth PSA Contest and it’s time for you to vote for your favorite one. The video with the highest number of views will win a $300 prize. There will also be a runner up and a third place winner. Some of these teens have pulled out all the stops.

Why Kids End Up In Jail And What They Have In Common

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About 20 percent of kids in jail are there because of a violent crime and about 69 percent of those kids say they knew their victims. In addition, 44 percent of incarcerated youth were under the influence of alcohol or drugs when committing an offense and about 55 percent committed their current offense with someone else. This information comes from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, which released its latest bulletin called Youth Characteristics and Backgrounds that focuses on the characteristics of young people in jail to better understand the reasons why they’ve offended. The Office looked extensively at jailed kids between 10 and 20 years old. Here are some other fascinating facts:

Although boys on average commit more serious offenses like murder, rape, kidnapping and robbery, girls have been arrested more than boys in the past decade. The majority of kids locked up (51 percent) are 16 or 17 years old.

Steve Reba: Return of Silence

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There was no banner, no cake, and nobody waiting to cheer when he walked in the door. He simply entered the sparsely furnished, one-room apartment and placed his duffle bag on the bed. He rested his head on the mattress and felt pleasantly alone in the silence. The small studio apartment above the back garage of this neighborhood home was arranged by a volunteer who fundamentally changed his course in prison. In year four of thirteen, after spending over nine months in the hole, she came to him.

Hundreds of Young People March on Washington

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Hundreds of young people from Virginia and several other states are rallying in Washington, D.C. today to urge President Obama and Congress to pass legislation that protects children in the juvenile justice system. “Children as young as 14 can be tried as adults in Virginia courts, which is counterproductive,” Liane Rozzell, executive director of Families & Allies of Virginia’s Youth, told the Public News Service. The Justice Policy Institute says the majority of kids in juvenile detention are being held for nonviolent offenses and could be managed safely in the community. The protesters are advocating laws that rely less on putting young people behind bars and more on local and community-based programs.

The Community Justice Network for Youth is also hosting a national conference in D.C. today, according to the Center for Media Justice. Today’s events will launch the Network’s “Week of Action,” to push for reauthorization of the Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA).

Deal Taps Reese as Next DHS Commissioner

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Governor – elect Nathan Deal has nominated Clyde Reese to run the Department of Human Services.   The announcement came Friday afternoon, according to the Atlanta Business Chronicle. Clyde Reese is an attorney and currently serves as Commissioner of Community Health, which administers Medicaid, Peachcare and the State Health Benefit Plan. He was appointed to the post last April by Governor Sonny Perdue.   The DCH website describes Reese as a health care regulatory and administrative law specialist. He’s also been General Counsel for the State Health Planning Agency, and an Assistant Attorney General.

Common Strategies Actually Do Prevent Teenage Drinking

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Changing the environment of teen parties and places where alcohol is sold can go a long way to stop young people from drinking, according to a new study by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. The study looked at fourteen large public universities in California between 2003 and 2006. After finding that heavy drinking at off-campus parties was a common problem, tough new policies were put in place and enforced at half the universities, while the other schools were monitored for comparison. Universities that really focused on these strategies had the highest degree of success. Here’s what they used:

Nuisance party enforcement operations.

Free Online Course Teaches Ways to Stop Alcohol Sales to Teens

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There’s a new, online training course on how to reduce underage alcohol sales by conducting compliance investigations of alcohol retailers. The course is free and offered by Fox Valley Technical College's Underage Drinking Enforcement Training Center. The course, Conducting Compliance Check Operations, is four hours long and provides rationales for investigating establishments that sell alcohol. If you take the course, you’ll be able to:

Understand issues related to underage drinking and how retailers make alcohol available to teens. Implement step-by-step guidelines for carrying out compliance investigations.

School Crime Data Reveals Safety Concerns for Georgia Children

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A new report on school crime and safety shows that students and teachers still have serious concerns in Georgia and across the nation. The Bureau of Justice Statistics and the National Center for Education Statistics compiled data from 2008 - 2009 to give us a snapshot of what’s going on in public high schools across the state:

8.2% of Georgia students said they were threatened or injured with a weapon at school
4.2% admitted they carried a weapon to school during the month prior to the survey
11.7% were involved in a physical fight on school grounds
32.9% said drugs were available to them on school property
4.2% admitted using alcohol on school grounds
7,000 teachers (5.8%) said they were threatened with injury by a student
4,900 teachers (4%) said they were physically attacked by a student
35.2% of teachers said student misbehavior interfered with their teaching

The national snapshot is somewhat different, since the surveys included different age groups.  A startling number of children – 1.2 million – were victims of crime at school.  They reported 619,000 thefts and 743,100 violent crimes and assaults.  (Students surveyed in 2008 were 12-18 years old)  Here are some other surprising numbers:

15 homicides and 7 suicides of children at school during the 2008-2009 school year
8% of students were threatened with a weapon at school
20% of schools reported gang activity
32% of students said they were bullied in 2007