Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/tag/news-system/page/50/)
The Juvenile Court Family Treatment program in Douglas County just celebrated five new graduates. The program is growing more successful, and some graduates are returning to help mentor their peers. Two are participating in the Georgia Meth Project. One of the tactics that seems to be working is handing out small gifts. Small presents like picture frames and coupons can be good motivators. Read more in the Douglas Neighborhood Newspaper.
Under new rules from the Justice Department, juvenile sex offenders may not have to appear on the public sex offender registry. States now have options to shield juveniles, according to Youth Today. This shift in policy loosens up requirements of The Adam Walsh Act, which creates a national sex offender database. Originally the government mandated that all teens 14 or older, convicted of aggravated sexual assault, must appear on the registry. In May, the Justice Department gave states the choice to exempt children whose cases are handled in juvenile court. Georgia did not put juveniles on the sex offender registry before the Walsh Act. And now the new state sex offender law enacted May 29th says “conduct which is adjudicated in juvenile court shall not be considered a criminal offense against a victim who is a minor." Georgia is one of 47 states that have not officially complied with the Walsh Act.
Michael Cabral got his GED last year while serving 15 to life for murder. On the back of his diploma he proudly wrote: “One step closer to home.” And that’s not all Cabral is writing. He joined a writing workshop called The Beat Within, which encourages young people in prison to share their ideas and life experiences with writing instructors. The program changed him. From his cell in a California prison Cabral wrote this letter, which The Beat Within has shared with us:
Mi Carnalito,
Where do I begin? I was recently told a little bit about you by a mutual friend who is very concerned for you.
When 16-year old twins Tasmiyah and Jasmiyah Whitehead were arrested earlier this year for murdering their mother, family friends seemed hardly surprised. The mother’s boyfriend, Robert Head, speculated the girls killed their mom for money. A neighbor, Angela Avery, said the mom lived in fear of her daughters. In police photos the twins look particularly mean. And news reports have, in many ways, already convicted the girls although they have yet to be tried. Their arrests have raised the question in local and national media of whether girls, particularly teens, are becoming more violent. Ironically, rates of murder by girls are at their lowest levels in forty years -- but lately the number of female juvenile delinquents has exploded.
Gay teens are sent to prison in disproportionate numbers and face violence and discrimination inside, according to a report in The Nation. Attorney Daniel Redman, from the National Center for Lesbian Rights, writes about antigay policies across the country. He says gay kids are twice as likely as straight kids to land in prison for nonviolent offenses such as truancy, running away and prostitution, and they face hostility from peers and prison guards. One teen serving time in Louisiana told researchers, “I was scared to sleep at night because I didn’t know if I was going to wake up in the morning.”
States that are looking for ways to reduce the costs of keeping young offenders in prison are taking a fresh look at the Missouri Model. Missouri abandoned the traditional approach to prison in the 1980s. The state adopted a system of small, regional treatment centers that provide education, job training and 24-hour counseling, aimed at helping kids turn their lives around. As a result, Missouri has cut its recidivism rate for parolees down to 10%. A report from WBEZ radio in Chicago gives us a peak inside a youth prison that has adopted the Missouri Model. --Photo courtesy WBEZ radio and Rob Wildeboer
Across the nation people are talking about this video of a police officer punching a teenage girl in the face during an altercation in Seattle. What lead to this moment, captured by a witness with a cell phone, may well be a case study in police reaction and teenage judgment. It started when Officer Ian Walsh spotted four girls jaywalking. He asked them to step over to his patrol car. According to police officials, the girls were “verbally antagonistic. “
The officer was alone on the street. One of the teens allegedly touched his arm. Pushing and shoving escalated into a struggle, and things quickly got out of hand. The police department at first defended the officer and blamed the girls for resisting arrest. But now the police chief is reviewing procedures and conducting an internal investigation. The police union says the officer was justified and followed his training.
Elisabeth MacNamara retired from her job as Deputy Chief Assistant District Attorney in charge of the Juvenile Court Division in DeKalb County just two weeks ago. Today, she is the newly elected President of the League of Women Voters of the United States. She won a two-year term by unanimous vote from more than 600 delegates meeting in Atlanta on Tuesday. MacNamara was an assistant district attorney in DeKalb County since 1986. She’s been a League member even longer, serving as president of the Georgia League, and most recently, first vice president of the national League. During the convention here, the League of Women Voters of the United States set an agenda to study the federal role in public education and privatization of government functions.
By Ken Watts
Their voices cracked with emotion as they recalled a devastating loss. Don and Tina King's 13-year old son Jonathan hanged himself after a teacher locked him in a windowless 8X8 closet called a "seclusion room." Jonathan was a student in the Alpine Program, a public school in Gainesville, Ga. for students with emotional and behavioral problems. A few weeks before his death in 2004, Jonathan told his parents that teachers had put him in "time out." "After he died, we found out that Jonathan wasn't in there for minutes," Don King said.
More than 1 million children are detained through justice systems worldwide at any one time, although this is likely to be a significant underestimate given the difficulties in obtaining data about the many unreported children in custody. Not only are data collected inconsistently, they often do not include children awaiting trial, young children detained with their parents or children held temporarily by the police. Among 44 countries for which data were available, around 59 per cent of children in detention had not been sentenced. The vast majority of children in detention have not committed serious offenses. Many are only charged with status offenses, such as running away from home, violation of child-related curfews, truancy or alcohol use.