Kids Join Gangs for Protection, Respect & Friends, Report Says

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There's some new nationwide research on why kids are involved in gangs and how to stop them from joining up. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention released its December 2010 report called Gang Prevention: An Overview of Research and Programs.

The report highlights why kids join gangs and how communities can best combat gang activity. The OJJDP found that not all strategies work. But, here are a few that do:

Parent and family involvement
Training teachers and parents to manage unruly young people
Providing education that teaches kids interpersonal skills

For some insight on how to rescue a teenager from a gang, check out the column from Sedgrid Lewis in Ideas and Opinions at JJIE.org.

Survey Finds Physical Bullying Far More Common Than Online Bullying

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Kids are more likely to face a bully in person than online.   The 2009 OJJDP National Survey of Children’s Exposure to Violence surveyed almost 4,450 kids nationwide, between the ages of 10 and 17.  Here are some highlights:

21.6% said they had been physically bullied. 19.7% reported being teased or emotionally bullied. Kids between the 14 and 17 were more likely to be harassed online.  7.9% of this group admitted being bullied online. Boys were more likely to be bullied or threatened physically, where girls were more likely to be victims of internet harassment.

Free Webinar On New Way to Help At-Risk Teens

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If you’re interested in providing community services for high-risk teen offenders, check out a free webinar offered by the Office for Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. The webinar, called Court Coordination Program: Thinking Small May Be the Best Way to Accomplish Something Big, takes place January 6, 2011 at 3 p.m eastern. The web conference is designed to help juvenile justice practitioners learn how to get the attention of a juvenile court judge and gain public and private agency assistance in helping youth. Click here to register.

Congressional Earmarks Fund Georgia Programs for Kids; Future Earmarks in Jeopardy

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The Justice Department has published the list of OJJDP congressional earmarks for the 2010 fiscal year.  Twenty-one programs in Georgia got funding for a total of $3.2 million.  Here are some of the largest awards along with congressional sponsors:

$500,000   City of Valdosta    Sponsors: Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Savannah), Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA)
$300,000   Georgia Bureau of Investigation     Sponsor:  Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA)
$250,000    University of West Georgia    Sponsors:  Rep. Phil Gingrey(R-Marietta), Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA)
$250,000    Rockdale County    Sponsors:  Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Lithonia), Rep. David Scott (D-Jonesboro), Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA)
$250,000    Project Rebound, Inc.    Sponsor:  Rep. Sanford Bishop (D-Albany)
$200,000    City of Moultrie Police Department    Sponsors:  Rep. Jim Marshall (D-Macon), Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA)
$150,000    Truancy Intervention Project Georgia, Inc.     Sponsor:  Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA)

Earmarks may be on the endangered list next year, according to Youth Today, which tracks federal earmarks for youth projects.  Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) and Tea Party supporters want a ban on earmarks. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) are also on board. President Obama wants to limit earmarks, and some congressional Democrats facing reelection in 2012 are under pressure to stop the practice. Earmarks aren’t the only source of federal funding for juvenile justice projects. Another $2,480,463 in competitive grants also went to agencies based in Georgia. Here’s that list from OJJDP:

$349,969     Family drug court programs in Chatham County Juvenile Court
$300,000   GBI law enforcement strategies to protect children from commercial sexual exploitation
$409,390    Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force at the GBI
$296,104     Juvenile Drug Courts and Mentoring Initiative in Columbus
$625,000     Young Adult Guidance Center, Inc. for the Second Chance Act Juvenile Mentoring Initiative
$500,000     The Center for Working Families, Inc. for Strategic Enhancement to Mentoring Programs

In addition, $42 million was allocated to the Boys and Girls Clubs for mentoring programs across the nation through their headquarters in Atlanta

Feds Target $37M to Fight Bullying and Other Childhood Violence

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About 1 out of 10 kids in 6th – 10th grades are getting bullied, according to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and they believe that 13 percent of kids in that age group are doing the bullying. “Bullying can have long-term consequences for the safety of youth, as evidenced by the fact that two-thirds of school shooters reported having been bullied or having bullied others,” Jeff Slowikowski, OJJDP’s acting administrator, points out in his Department of Justice blog. The Department of Justice has launched the Defending Childhood Initiative, which is a nationwide campaign focusing on children exposed to different forms of violence including bullying. DOJ spent $5.5 million last year and hopes to increase the budget to $37 million in FY 2011.

Teen Crime Trends: Understanding Why

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Juvenile crime rates have dropped in the past 20 years and new research is showing why. The greatest reduction involves kids who commit crimes together, according to research from the OJJDP.   The study cites some reasons that could apply across the country:

More participation in religious and volunteer groups
A reduction in the use of guns
The drug market shifted from selling crack cocaine to selling marijuana

Which kids are more likely to offend? Those exposed to violence, childhood abuse and neglect, according to this research. Crime is also more likely to happen in small, geographical areas such as individual street blocks. For the detailed report, click here.

OJJDP Praises Atlanta’s Art-at-Work as a Program that Works for At-Risk Kids

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Looking for a way to help at-risk youth in your community? Start an arts program. Arts programs for at-risk youth in Atlanta and two other cities show measurable success in helping kids stay out of trouble and develop a more positive attitude about their future, according to research sponsored by the OJJDP and the National Endowment for the Arts. Art-at-Work in Atlanta started 14 years ago as a collaborative effort between the Fulton County Arts Council and Juvenile Court. The program was designed to provide art instruction, job training and literacy education to a small group of first-time status offenders, primarily truants, from 14 to 16-years old.

Reducing Gang Activity: OJJDP Best Practices

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Looking for some help to reduce gang crime in your neighborhood? Doing a thorough assessment of the nature and scope of the youth gang problem in your community is just one of the Best Practices from OJJDP. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention has just released a new report called Best Practices To Address Community Gang Problems: OJJDP’s Comprehensive Gang Model, which includes nationwide research on effective gang reduction methods. Some of these Best Practices include:

Addressing the problem
Holding youth accountable
Providing relevant programming
Coordinating community participation

For the full model, click here.

New Census Counts Children on Probation

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New data is coming in about how many children are on probation.  It’s a national snapshot from October 21, 2009.  Here’s a breakdown:

Total youth on probation:  196,806
16 year olds on probation:  49,841 (largest category)
10 – 12 year olds on probation:  3,923

The latest available data from Georgia shows 9,486 kids on court-ordered probation in April, 2005.   To get this number, researchers polled probation offices.  It is not clear whether they polled both DJJ probation offices, as well as independent court probation offices.  Georgia's independent courts handle about 50% of the state's juvenile cases, and may not always share data with the rest of the state. The 2009 Census of Juveniles on Probation was conducted by George Mason University for the OJJDP at the U.S. Department of Justice.  Researchers are still working with the data, so we may get new information as it becomes available.   Currently you can search for data based on gender, age, case load at juvenile probation offices, and more. Thanks to reclaiming futures.org for the alert.

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.