Meth Project Ads Effective at Preventing Drug Use, Study Says

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The Meth Project’s graphic ads are effective at deterring meth use, according to new research by the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. The new study, “How Disgust Enhances the Effect of Fear Appeals,” compared ads that rely on disgust and fear with ads that use fear alone as the deterring element. Researchers showed a series of three ads to a group of college students. Each of the ads had an identical message, but the images were different. Those that relied only on an element of fear did not lead to immediate changes in attitudes or behavior.

Razor wire fence borders the Metro Regional Youth Detention center in Atlanta, Ga. JJIE Staff, 2010. File photo.

‘Corruption’ Rampant Inside Troubled Augusta YDC, Former Interim Director Says

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Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) Commissioner Gale Buckner appointed a new director this week to lead the troubled Augusta Youth Development Campus (YDC). Ronald Brawner will take over from Interim Director Gary Jones, who is returning to his post as Sardis Police Chief, according to WJBF in Augusta. In November, DJJ and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation began a joint investigation at the facility after the beating death of an inmate. Another inmate was later charged with murder in connection with the death. The investigation led to the firing of almost 20 YDC personnel amid charges of sexual abuse and inmate possession of contraband.

Department of Education

Education Data Shows Disproportionate Minority Discipline, Opportunity Gaps For Public School Students

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Newly collected data from the Department of Education shows that minority students are disproportionately subject to harsher disciplinary actions in public schools than their peers and offers insight into opportunity gaps for public school students around the country. More than 70 percent of students involved in school arrests or law enforcement referrals were black or Hispanic, according to the report. Black students were three and half times more likely to be suspended or expelled than white peers, the New York Times reported. The Civil Rights Data Collection’s 2009-10 gathered statistics from 72,000 schools, serving about 85 percent of the nation’s students from kindergarten through high school. While the disciplinary data is probably the most dramatic, the statistics illustrated a range of racial and ethnic disparities.

Media Access to Courts Involving Minors Sparks Debate in Los Angeles

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This March, Los Angeles’ dependency courts -- where rulings are made whether children remain in foster homes or return to their parents’ or previous legal guardians’ custody -- opened to the media for the first time since the 1960s. After an attempt to open the state’s children’s courts failed in a state Assembly committee in 2010, Supervising Judge Michael Nash ordered that the dependency courts of Los Angeles County be open to the media last month. A number of organizations, including the Children’s Law Center of Los Angeles (CLCA) and the Los Angeles Dependency Lawyers (LADL) have publicly criticized the decision. Supervising CLCLA Executive Director Leslie Starr Heimov said that the decision to allow press in courtrooms places an additional burden on the county’s publicly appointed attorneys, who sometimes work as many as 150 cases simultaneously. “What we’re asking for is an orderly procedure where we get more than three seconds to make our case,” Heimov told the Pasadena-Star News.

Children’s Right to Attorney Not Universal, Washington State High Court Rules

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A Washington state Supreme Court ruling Thursday upheld a state law allowing trial judges to appoint attorneys to foster children in cases where a court is considering removal from their family. However, the law does not require children to have an attorney, and the justices ruled 9-0 that the right to an attorney is not universal, according to The Seattle Times. While children have a right to due process, trial judges “have the discretion to decide whether to appoint counsel to children who are subject of dependency or termination proceedings,” the justices wrote in their ruling. "It is the child, not the parent,” the ruling continued, “who may face the daunting challenge of having his or her person put in the custody of the State as a foster child, powerless and voiceless, to be forced to move from one foster home to another.”

Children’s rights advocates were disappointed in the ruling, The Times reports, arguing the ruling departs from other decisions that have upheld children’s universal right to counsel. Still, the ruling notes children would be denied attorneys only in rare cases.

Georgia Juvenile Code Overhaul Clears State House

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After five years of work, a 243-page overhaul of Georgia's juvenile code passed the state House of Representatives unanimously on Wednesday. The bill -- endorsed by judges, prosecutors, defense lawyers, state agencies and child advocates across Georgia -- now moves to the Georgia Senate. House Bill 641 creates a broad array of programs for neglected children and for children who leave the foster-care system at age 18; strengthens protections for children in juvenile court; clarifies when the state may remove a child from home or seek to terminate parental rights; and adopts best practices from across the country for handling deprivation and delinquency cases. "People will quite often address us as elected House members and say, 'Why do you do that? Why do you run for office?"

Expert Says Stress Levels in Children Could be Key Variable in Neurological Development

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“We’re living in the midst of a revolution in neuroscience, molecular biology and genomics,” said Dr. Jack Shonkoff, chairman of the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, at Tuesday’s “Breakthrough Research on Building Better Brains” presentation in Atlanta. The lecture, sponsored by the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation Speaker Series and the national nonprofit research center Child Trends, focused on the influence of “toxic stress” on the development of children, which Dr. Shonkoff called both a major psychological and physiological detriment to youngsters. He began the presentation by speaking about the “plasticity” of brains for young children, which he said is firmly influenced by early childhood experiences. “Early life experiences are built into our bodies, for better or for worse,” Dr. Shonkoff said. “Things that happen early in life are creating physiological changes later on.”

He said children that experience a lack of response from adults, primarily parental figures, in their formative “birth-to-5” years are much likelier to suffer from “toxic stress,” which he said may potentially weaken neuroconnectors in the brain.

Juvenile Life Without Parole At Issue in Case Before U.S. Supreme Court

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In March, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in two cases that could determine whether life sentences without parole for juvenile killers is unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment. Attorneys for the two 14-year-olds involved in the cases will argue forensic evidence shows adolescent brains are not fully developed and that teenagers consequently take too many risks, according to The Los Angeles Times. "Adolescents, because of their immaturity, should not be deemed as culpable as adults," Temple University psychology professor Laurence Steinberg, who spearheaded the research, said. "But they also are not innocent children whose crimes should be excused." The high court abolished the death penalty for juveniles in 2005 and ruled in 2010 that life sentences without parole for juveniles were unconstitutional except in cases of homicide.