Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/tag/probation/page/5/)
Twenty-two years seems like an awfully short time to already be talking about redemption. But the young man sitting on the velvet couch in the splendor of the Omni Parker House Hotel’s mezzanine is living proof that for someone who has survived the juvenile justice system in America, there is a fine line between ending your life and turning it around.
Combined with revolutionary advances in brain science and adolescent development research, the Chicago Crime Lab studies help to clarify the dimensions of a new and more targeted approach for combating delinquency and improving outcomes for high-risk youth generally. If only our nation’s juvenile justice systems took proper notice.
Despite wearing an ankle bracelet, a Henry County, Ga., teen allegedly went on a wild crime spree. The 16-year-old, now in police custody, is accused of two carjackings, the theft of a third car and armed robbery in the early morning hours of July 8. The boy was finally tracked down by the LoJack device in the stolen Land Cruiser he was driving and not by the GPS monitoring device strapped to his ankle, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The ankle bracelet was for earlier armed robbery charges. As JJIE reported last September, Georgia’s Department of Juvenile Justice has been using ankle monitors for years.
Three teens convicted of raping a 13-year-old classmate were sentenced to probation by California juvenile officials after serving 120 days behind bars. The charges, forcible rape in concert and lewd acts with a child under 14 – both felony accounts – carried a maximum punishment of nine years in juvenile detention, The Press-Enterprise of Riverside, Calif. reported. Some members of the community said probation was too lenient of a punishment for something as serious as rape, but youth law experts contended the juvenile justice system was designed to give offenders the opportunity to reform. Juveniles convicted of rape in California do not have to register as sex offenders, said The Press-Enterprise.
Charles Taylor Gould, a former co-worker of mine, is a juvenile probation officer in Multnomah County, Ore., who's been hearing stories for 15 years from teenage girls in the juvenile justice system who've been sexually exploited or victimized by sex trafficking. So what did he do? He did what anyone would do: he made a full-length documentary. And along the way, he interviewed people like U.S. Senator Ron Wyden and actress Daryl Hannah. Your American Teen "follows three teens for approximately two years.
The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, The Department of Justice, and the Office of Justice Programs offers grants for the Probation Census Project. This project helps the Department of Justice collect data and to establish national statistics on the number of kids in the nation who are on probation. This also helps gather information on the offices that help supervise kids on probation. The deadline for this grant is 11:59 p.m., EST. June 29, 2011.
Read up:
Governor Deal (GA) signs Human Trafficking bill into law:
http://bit.ly/k5dzBP
OJJDP census of kids on probation:
http://bit.ly/kidsonprobi
CDC teen pregnancy stats 1991-2009 [infographic]:
http://bit.ly/preginfo
Justice Department report sheds light on human trafficking stats:
http://bit.ly/traffstats
Youth Justice Barbecue celebrates year of progress:
http://bit.ly/voxbbq
Host: Ryan Schill
Video: Clay Duda
Just joining us? This is part five of a five part series. Start from the beginning. Cobb County, Ga’s., Juvenile Court Judge Juanita Stedman’s office overflows every Wednesday at 4 p.m. For an hour, with therapists and probation officers filling every chair and – with several sitting on the floor – Stedman and her juvenile drug court team do a rundown of every kid currently in the program. One by one, Stedman calls out the name of each of 30 or so kids.
Using evidence-based practices in the juvenile justice system reduces delinquency and avoids costs. Those of us in the field hear this regularly – but it can be hard to see their impact on a day-to-day basis. How do we know they work? Let's start at the beginning. What we commonly refer to as "evidence-based practices" in the juvenile justice field are based on over 40 years of research regarding what works to reduce juvenile crime.
Probation was the most serious verdict in one-third of teen crime in the U.S. In 2007, 1.7 million delinquency cases were handled by courts with juvenile jurisdiction. This has increased 34% over the past three decades. Nearly 60% of the cases were ordered by the court while the remainder agreed to some form of voluntary probation. This is according to a report by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.