In Georgia, Two Differing Opinions About how to Revamp the Juvenile Justice Code

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Most of the people who know anything about Georgia’s four-decades-old juvenile code agree it needs changing. There is, however, disagreement over how, and how much, it should be changed.
Today, the JJIE brings you two differing opinions on the subject, something that will likely prove to be a major issue when the state Legislature begins its work next year.
Judge Robert Rodatus is a juvenile court judge in Gwinette County, Ga. He has worked in his current position since 1991 and has held a number of positions in the state’s Council of Juvenile Court Judges.
Kirsten Widner is director of Policy and Advocacy for the Barton Child Law and Policy Center at Emory University School of Law in Atlanta. In the recent past, she has become one of the key representatives for groups and individuals working towards revision of the state’s juvenile code.

Is Juvenile Justice the Missing Link in Georgia Corrections Reform?

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Golfers love being on the leader board. Corrections officials, not so much as there is nothing to celebrate about Georgia being the national leader with the highest percentage of its adults under corrections system supervision. The ratio is 1-in-13 and it is the worst in the country.

Not only does it cost lots of money -– more than $1 billion per year in state dollars to run prisons -– but lofty incarceration, probation and parole statistics send the wrong message nationally and internationally when Georgia tries to market itself as a leading edge economy and destination.

Over the next several months you will hear extensive discussion about adult corrections system reform. A commission created by the 2011 General Assembly was told to develop proposals to streamline Georgia corrections without an adverse impact on public safety. The report is due to Gov. Nathan Deal in seven weeks, with legislation possible next year.

Not much of the process is being conducted in public -– there have been just three public meetings -– and the process does not include a juvenile justice system review. That is an unfortunate and perhaps costly oversight. Doesn’t it make sense that a high percentage of adults who commit felonies and fill our prisons began their criminal careers as troubled youths?

“It seems to me that if we were to concentrate a lot of our efforts more in the juvenile justice arena then we might have greater success later in terms of reducing the crime rate,” said Judge Cynthia Wright, chief judge of the Fulton County Superior Court. Wright appeared on a public safety panel hosted by Women in Leadership last week at The Commerce Club in Atlanta.

National Recovery Month Q&A with Teresa Johnston of the Center for Young Adult Addiction and Recovery

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September is National Recovery Month in the United States. As the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration puts it Recovery Month “promotes the societal benefits of treatment for substance use and mental disorders, celebrates people in recovery, lauds the contributions of treatment providers, and promotes the message that recovery in all its forms is possible. Recovery Month spreads the positive message that behavioral health is essential to overall health, that prevention works, treatment is effective and people can and do recover.”

Nicely, and succinctly, put.

Simply ideas tend to make for movements. And that seems to be the case with Recovery Month. All over the nation events are going on aimed at increasing awareness and, yes, celebrating countless victories.

The JJIE is housed at Kennesaw State University, in metro Atlanta. We had a number of Recovery Month events here and we are fortunate enough to be the home of the Center for Young Adult Addiction and Recovery. Its director, Teresa Johnston, is an expert in the field and a forceful advocate for those in recovery.

The Continuing Problem of Child Poverty in the South

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If you are a child in the United States living in poverty you probably live in the South. According to U.S. census data from 2009 (the last year data are available) the 10 states with the highest rates of child poverty were all in the South. All 10 states had child poverty rates more than 20 percent. In Mississippi, one out of every three children lives in poverty.

A look at teen birth rates reveals a similar cluster. The South is home to all 13 states with the most teen births.

For those who have watched Southern society for many years, the problem is as much cultural as it is economic.

According to Dr. Harvey Jackson, an expert on Southern history and Eminent Scholar in history at Jacksonville State University in Alabama, the statistics are not surprising.

“There are more children in poverty because there are more adults in poverty,” Jackson said. “This is a region of the country in which adults are poor and yet adults continue to have children even though they are poor.”

The problem is social, he says, especially concerning teen births.

“There are real cultural attitudes [in the South] that have to do with large families and premarital sex,” Jackson said. “And it is less condemned in certain communities in the South, particularly among the poor.

States Respond to Budget Shortfalls with Hodgepodge of Juvenile Justice Cuts

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Around the nation, states continue to grapple with the reality of budget shortfalls with a hodgepodge of cuts to various programs, including juvenile justice.

North Carolina’s Department of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention is being forced to cut spending by 10 percent while eliminating roughly 275 positions, a 15 percent decrease in work force, under the new FY 2012 budget.

Also gone are 75 beds from the state’s seven youth development centers, raising concerns that serious offenders may end up back on the streets to make room for new juveniles entering the facilities.

Alabama’s Department of Child Abuse & Neglect Prevention has a FY 2012 General Fund roughly half that of FY 2011. The department saw a 74 percent drop in state funding and significant cuts from the federal-level.

Texas Under Rick Perry Makes Strides in Juvenile Justice Reform, say Advocates

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Under Gov. Rick Perry, Texas’ juvenile justice system has seen a dramatic transformation from a system plagued by a sexual abuse scandal to one of the most progressive systems in the nation, say long-time advocates in the state. Texas, one of the country’s most conservative states, succeeded in reforming the system by finding a common goal for both the left and the right, even if they took different paths to get there. “In Texas,” said Deborah Fowler, deputy director of Texas Appleseed, “we have been lucky to have a very conservative organization,” the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), “advocate for many of the same juvenile justice reforms that organizations like

Overloaded Public Defense Systems ‘Jeopardizing The Fairness of Our Justice System,’ Report Finds

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The ongoing overburdening of U.S. public defense systems that serve millions of people annually is jeopardizing the fairness of our justice system and can result in more and longer prison sentences, concludes a recent report published by the Washington D.C.-based Justice Policy Institute (JPI). According to the report, 73 percent of county-based public defender offices lacked the requisite number of attorneys to meet caseload standards, while 23 percent of these offices had less than half of the necessary attorneys to meet caseload standards. With an increasing overload of cases, lack of quality defense and a shortage of resources, the report argues, justice is not being served and the wellbeing of millions of people is at stake. The findings in System Overload: The Costs of Under-Resourcing Public Defense echo the perspective shared by Jonathan Rapping, associate professor at Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School and founder and CEO of the Southern Public Defender Training Center, which trains public defenders across the southeastern United States. Rapping tells JJIE.org, “we need to make sure that we create a campaign to view juvenile defenders as part of the larger public defender community; they’re just as important as their counterparts in the adult system.

Peter Lindsay On Bad Teachers and the Language of Young People

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A good way to think about what makes for a really good teacher is to ask what makes for a really bad one. Not only is failure in education easier to see than success, its presence is far more effective at highlighting just what the art of teaching is all about. Nothing, for instance, demonstrates the importance of enthusiasm more readily than a monotoned teacher lulling a class into peaceful slumber. If you want other examples, have a look at this summer’s movie, Bad Teacher. That isn’t an artistic recommendation; the movie has little to offer from that perspective.

Georgia Youth Workers Celebrate GJSA’s 40th Training Summit

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SAVANNAH, Ga. -- Professionals from every major youth-oriented field in the state of Georgia, governmental and non-profit, converge on Savannah this week for the Georgia Juvenile Service Association’s (GJSA) 40th Training Summit. The three-day event, Aug. 23-25, will host a long-list of speakers, workshops and society happenings. Members can choose from a spread of workshops covering everything from Georgia’s Cybersafety Initiative to tactics for reintegrating juvenile offenders upon their release.

Beyond Scared Straight Producers Make Donation to Program Featured in Recent Episode

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Sheriff Chipp Bailey, of Mecklenburg County, N.C., has confirmed to JJIE his office received a $10,000 donation from the producers of “Beyond Scared Straight” following the appearance of the county’s “Reality Program” on the controversial A&E television show. Bailey said the money, provided by Arnold Shapiro Productions, would be used to offset the costs of the food and field trips that are part of the aftercare portion of the “Reality Program." It is unclear whether the producers have made similar payments to other programs filmed for “Beyond Scared Straight”. The “Reality Program” is designed, according to Bailey, to educate at-risk youth on the realities of prison life and help them avoid making decisions that would land them in jail. In the initial portion of the program, teens are brought to the county jail, and dressed in prison uniforms while deputies intimidate, yell at and berate them.