What Every Reader Asks: ‘What’s It Got to Do With Me?’

This post first appeared on Beacon Broadside (9/28/11). David Chura, a writer and educator, worked with at-risk youth for many years and shares the voices of young people that he met as a teacher in a New York prison in his new book I Don’t Wish Nobody to Have a Life Like Mine: Tales of Kids in Adult Lockup. We highly recommend David’s excellent blog, Kids in the System, and are so grateful to him for letting CfJJ share his post.

She was pretty upfront about it: she didn’t want me there.

“It’s not you personally,” Marge explained. “It’s the book.”

Marge was the moderator, researcher, engine, really, of a local reading group. She was good at what she did, I was told, and I believed it. She was pretty thorough at listing all the reasons why she didn’t want to read or recommend to the group my book, I Don’t Wish Nobody to Have a Life Like Mine: Tales of Kids in Adult Lockup, about my ten years teaching teenagers in adult detention.

Kids in the System

This post first appeared on Beacon Broadside (7/20/11). David Chura, a writer and educator, worked with at-risk youth for many years and shares the voices of young people that he met as a teacher in a New York prison in his new book I Don’t Wish Nobody to Have a Life Like Mine: Tales of Kids in Adult Lockup. We highly recommend David’s excellent blog, Kids in the System, and are so grateful to him for letting CfJJ share his post.

A Different Kind of Commencement

Now that all the high school graduations are over and the backyard barbecues celebrated, I’m finally coming down from the contact high of all that youthful exuberance and optimism.

It’s easy to get swept up into those good feelings. But now as I move into summer’s quieter months, I can’t help thinking about the high school students I taught in a county penitentiary and what “commencement” meant for them.

Teen Prostitution–Criminal Behavior?

By: Madeline Levitt, CfJJ Intern

The number of children who become victims of sexual exploitation in the country is truly shocking. The Children’s Defense Fund estimates that about 100,000 American children between the ages of 11 and 14 enter into prostitution each year. Sadly, the average age of these girls has been declining, the number of girls involved is increasing, and the problem is spreading to more towns and cities annually.

Society’s response has traditionally been to prosecute both these girls and the men who take advantage of them. But in the last decade, new attention has been drawn to the issue and multiple states have begun to consider teen prostitution as a child welfare issue: Why are these girls living on the street rather than with a loving family in a safe home?  Furthermore, will criminal prosecution help or will it simply traumatize them further and hamper their reintegration into society? Just recently, Connecticut, Washington, Illinois, New York, California, and Texas have passed legislation to decriminalize teen prostitution.

Juvenile Justice and the War on Drugs

By: Julia Quinn, CfJJ Intern

After more than three decades of prohibitionist and militaristic rhetoric surrounding efforts to combat illegal drug availability and consumption, it appears that world leaders and drug experts have acknowledged the need to reframe the debate.  Yesterday, NPR’s Tom Ashbrook convened a discussion about the Global Commission on Drug Policy’s claim that the war on drugs has failed.  The participating experts called for a dramatic shift in the way Americans think about drug use, urging the government and the public to shift from an emphasis on incarceration to a focus on prevention, education, treatment, and rehabilitation, addressing nonviolent drug use as a public health problem. 

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

The following excerpt comes from “JJ Today”, the juvenile justice blog of Youth Today.

***Day number 809 without a nominee from the Obama Administration to serve as administrator of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. When the administration decides on an appointee, according to David Baumann of Main Justice, it could result in a quick movement from nominee to administrator.

Update on Federal Funding in Juvenile Justice

The following post originally appeared in “JJ Today”, the juvenile justice blog of Youth Today.

UPDATED Weekly Notes: White House stands down on juvenile justice overhaul; new trainings; and more

April 01, 2011 by John Kelly

[Note: The first entry in this column was updated after additional information was announced by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevetion].

***The big news: Veteran juvenile justice reporter Ted Gest broke the story on The Crime Report today that the Obama administration has backed off its proposal to change the way the Justice Department would offer funds to states for juvenile justice purposes.

Traditionally, a sizable amount of the juvenile justice funds from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention goes directly to states, partially in a formula grant and partially in a block grant. The formula funds are to a large extent contingent upon compliance with the four core requirements of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act; the block grant is given out each year to every state, regardless of how good or lousy they are on juvenile justice.

Obama’s initial proposal was to take all of that money ($120 million for 2012), make it a competitive grant process, and make compliance with JJDPA the criteria just to compete for some of it.

Gest reported this morning: “Assistant Attorney General Laurie Robinson told the House subcommittee that funds the Justice Department on Wednesday that the White House would come up with a new plan that allocates 90 percent of federal aid to improve juvenile justice by formula to the states.”

OJJDP clarified the revisions in a statement on its website this afternoon:

“The Administration has developed an alternative to its original Race to the Top-style incentive grants program and is now proposing that the $120 million in the budget could be allocated in the following fashion:

• $110 million as formula funding
  • $80 million under Title II, Part B of the JJDP Act–Formula Grants program
  • $30 million under the Juvenile Accountability Block Grants (JABG) program
• $10 million in a demonstration program to encourage innovation and juvenile justice system improvements.

Amazing turn of events. About a month ago, there was panic that attention to JJDPA compliance would wither. Now, compliance might become more important than it was before the proposal.

The Enemy Within–Toddler Edition

Monday’s Colbert Report tackled the issue of how we treat young people who break laws.  Check it out!

Contact Your Senators for Juvenile Justice!

Please join advocates around the country in asking for an Administrator for the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), the main federal agency for juvenile justice.  Go to change.org and send a letter to your Senators!  The following piece introduces the letter campaign on change.org:

Make Juvenile Justice a Priority: Appoint an OJJDP Administrator

Juvenile Life Without Parole Sentence Commuted in California

Sara Kruzan, who was sentenced to life without parole in California for a crime committed at 16, just had her sentence commuted by Gov. Schwarzenegger to include the possibility of parole.  See Sara’s story in her own words:

Shut Those Doors

Like many states, Massachusetts has seen a dramatic reduction in the number of youth who are held in detention (awaiting trial).  Due to both falling juvenile crime rates and the admirable efforts of the Department of Youth Services (DYS) to promote the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI), the number of detention beds has declined by 50% in the last 3 years.  As the editorial from Monday’s New York Times (below) shows, New York has had less success in closing down juvenile facilities, despite a decreasing juvenile population.

As soon as Governor-elect Andrew Cuomo takes office, he should close a half-dozen more of New York’s ruinously expensive, and half-empty, juvenile detention facilities. He should also press the State Legislature to revoke a wasteful law that keeps facilities scheduled for shutdown open and staffed for a full year, even when there is not a single child in custody

These moves would save millions of dollars, and improve public safety and the lives of troubled children.