Craigslist Sex Ad Investigation

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The internet has become the favorite place to sell women for sex, according to a CNN report. Now there is a national campaign against Craigslist and its popular “adult services” section. Police and anti- sex trafficking groups are pushing to end the “adult services” ads, arguing that underage girls are being exploited. "Craigslist is like the Wal-Mart of online sex trafficking right now in this country,” said Andrea Powell of the anti-trafficking group The Fair Fund. Watch CNN reporter Amber Lyon grill Craig Newmark, the founder of Craigslist, about sex ad's on his site.

Justice Targets Child Sex Trade

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Georgia’s child prostitution problem will get some new attention from the Justice Department. Attorney General Eric Holder spells out the first National Strategy for Child Exploitation Prevention in a 280 page report. The plan focuses on child prostitution, child pornography, sex tourism and child exploitation in Indian Country.  It’s a multi-agency effort that includes a national database to allow federal, state, local and international law enforcement to work together better and analyze trends.  The Justice Department is adding 38 new Assistant U. S. Attorneys devoted to child exploitation cases.  And the U.S. Marshals Service is targeting the top 500 most dangerous sex offenders in the nation. The extent of Georgia’s child sex trade came to light last spring, when a study done for A Future Not a Past revealed that an estimated 7,200 men are paying for sex with teenage girls every month in the Atlanta area.

DMC and DSO are Priorities for GA

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Disproportionate minority contact and detention of status offenders are the core issues for Georgia’s juvenile justice system, according to Joseph Vignati, Justice Programs Coordinator at the Governor’s Office for Children and Families.  Vignati will testify at a hearing on reauthorization of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act in Washington D.C. this week.  He speaks with a loud voice, because he’s also the National Juvenile Justice Specialist for the Coalition for Juvenile Justice, representing 56 states and territories. Vignati says the JJDP Act requires states to focus on four core issues:

Removing juvenile offenders from adult jails
Separating juveniles from adults if they are held in the same lockup
Disproportionate minority contact
Minimizing the detention of status offenders

He believes the first two issues are less significant now than they were 20 years ago, because Georgia and other states have laws against housing children with adults, and separate detention centers for kids.  Vignati points out, “In FY 2009 we had only 23 juveniles locked up as adults across the state, and 20 of them lied about their age.

Kid Lifers Test Supreme Court Ruling

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Appeals are starting to roll in on behalf of convicts sentenced as teenagers to life without parole. Some will try to test the intent of the Supreme Court decision from May. There are more than 2,000 juvenile lifers across the nation, and 90 percent were convicted of homicide, so on the surface the high court ruling would not apply to them.  But advocates are focused on the majority opinion. which argues adolescent brains are not fully developed and, therefore, they have limited responsibility for their criminal actions. So far, five juvenile lifers convicted in homicide cases have filed appeals in Pennsylania.

Playing Football Without a Helmet

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Working with kids in juvenile court is fast moving, intimate and direct...a lot like playing football without a helmet. That insight comes from  retired juvenile court prosecutor Elisabeth MacNamara.  This former ADA in DeKalb County, Georgia says the courts need more programs to help families and children in crisis. MacNamara spent four years supervising  prosecutors  in juvenile court,  and 20 years in Superior Court. She retired last May to become the President of the League of Women Voters of the United States.  She shares some candid and surprising views about the juvenile justice system.

Teen’s Murder Prompts Town Hall Meeting

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Eighteen-year-old Katerius Moody was in the midst of belting out a verse of the song he’d penned with fellow Polo Boys singing group members, when bullets peppered the crowd during their performance three weeks ago at an East Point block party. The young crooner, a recent Mays High School graduate, was gunned down and four other teens were wounded before he could finish the lyrics to “We Go.”

The June 26th tragedy, and others like it, have inspired an Atlanta community leader to call an emergency town hall meeting Monday, where she says “frontline” child services workers, local leaders and, more importantly, young people themselves, will get to suggest ways to curb youth violence in metro Atlanta. Atlanta Public Schools staffer Tanya Culbreth contends Moody’s death and a recent outbreak of teen violence during the popular Screen On The Green event at Atlanta’s Piedmont Park inspired her to coordinate the event. Culbreth says she wasn’t satisfied with the outcome of a similar town hall meeting Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed called following the Piedmont Park incident. “I applaud the mayor for calling an emergency meeting, but there wasn’t enough representation there from young people and those of us who work directly with young people every day,” contends Culbreth, the Home-School Parent Liaison for B.E.S.T. Academy, an all-male middle school  in Northwest Atlanta. “We’re the experts and more of our voices need to be heard.

SB 292: Rethinking 17 vs. 18

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What is Georgia’s definition of a “child” when it comes to crime? The issue came up Monday at a hearing of the state senate’s Juvenile Code Re-write Subcommittee, which is dealing with a proposed new juvenile code expected to be introduced during the next legislative session. Georgia law says a child who is the victim of abuse or neglect becomes an adult at 18.  Deprivation cases are handled in Juvenile Court. The same person, if accused of an act of delinquency, is considered an adult at 17.  The case goes to adult court. Now a suggestion is on the table to split the issue by raising the age to 18 in misdemeanor cases but leaving it at 17 for felonies.

New bullying law: Will it be enough?

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Now that Georgia has one of the toughest anti-bullying laws in the nation, school administrators have new responsibilities:

Investigate incidents – not just in the school yard, but also online. Notify parents of both bullies and victims.
Develop anti-bullying policies for schools, including the elementary level. The tougher law comes in the wake of two deaths in Georgia.  High School junior Tyler Long took his own life last October.  His family has filed a wrongful death suit against the Murray County school district, claiming he was bullied at school for years and school officials failed to intervene.   11 year old Jaheem Herrara also killed himself last year in DeKalb County.  Jaheem’s parents says his elementary school knew about repeated harassment and did nothing to stop it. Will new school intervention strategies be enough?   Newsweek.com reports that no U.S. program has been shown to significantly reduce bullying.  Finland and Norway are taking a different approach:  Lessons on stereotyping and emotional IQ are part of the daily curriculum. And for one more take on the issue, Psychotherapist Carol Smaldino writes about Georgia’s new law in the HuffingtonPost.com.

Long road to new Juvenile Code

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The next session of the Georgia General Assembly is months away but advocates are busy polishing a major bill that could affect children and their families across the state. In fact, they’ve been working on this legislation—a complete revamp of the state’s juvenile code—since 2004. A new code, the first in four decades, was introduced in 2009 as The Child Protection and Public Safety Act but failed to make it to the floor for a vote by the end of the two-year legislative term. To be considered in the term that begins next January, it must be reintroduced.   Its supporters want to make sure it’s in good shape.  “Our goal is to work through the 2009 bill as a draft,” said Kirsten Widner, director of policy and advocacy at the Barton Child Law & Policy Center at Emory University, “and to have an edited version for the next legislative session.”

“We’re going to take the opportunity to make some technical changes and changes all the stakeholders can agree to,” said Mindy Binderman, director of government affairs and advocacy of Voices for Georgia’s Children, a policy advocacy group. A hearing on the proposed code is set for June 28 at the Capitol.  More meetings and hearings are expected over the summer.

Seclusion and Restraint Hearing June 9th

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The State Board of Education is holding a Public Hearing on June 9 from 1pm – 2pm to generate public discussion around the proposed Rule 160-5-1-.35 that would limit the practices of restraint and seclusion in public schools. A 2009 report by the National Disability Rights Network stated that 41 percent of states and territories have no laws, policies or guidelines concerning restraint or seclusion use in schools.  Currently, students in Georgia can be restrained or placed into seclusion for any reason. The proposed rule follows the tragic death of 13-year old Jonathan King who hung himself while secluded in a Gainesville, GA school. Concerned citizens, in conjunction with the Georgia Advocacy Office (GAO), Georgia Council on Developmental Disabilities (GCDD), Center for Leadership in Disability at Georgia State University, Institute on Human Development and Disability at the University of Georgia and Parent to Parent of Georgia, are pressing for a tougher revised rule that also addresses accountability and data collection.