Mass. courts’ juvenile cases plummet

The Boston Globe (12/6/10) featured two front page articles on the real stories behind juvenile crime.  In stark contrast to expert predictions and the nearly constant warnings of rising youth crime, Massachusetts is seeing a significant drop in its juvenile caseload.  Another article highlights the complex issues facing many of these young people.

Drop unexpected in hard times

A 15-year-old left Middlesex Juvenile Court in Lowell with her mother after a recent hearing. (Joanne Rathe/ Globe Staff)

By Peter Schworm Globe Staff / December 6, 2010

LOWELL — Criminal and child welfare caseloads in the state’s juvenile courts have fallen sharply over the past three years despite economic turmoil that has placed enormous strain on many families, a dramatic decline that confounds social workers, lawyers, and child and family advocates.

Juvenile Offenders and Jobs: Time for CORI Reform

This post first appeared on Beacon Broadside (10/27/10). 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.

At the beginning of my ten years teaching teenagers in a county lockup, years I chronicle in I Don’t Wish Nobody to Have a Life Like Mine: Tales of Kids in Adult Lockup (Beacon Press), I was always surprised, and yes, disappointed, when one of my students got rearrested.

Jail’s a sobering place no matter how tough you want to think you are. The deprivation, brutality, and oppression gets your attention especially if you’re 15 years old. So once locked up, many of the kids I taught saw my jailhouse classroom as an opportunity to do something productive. Along with education, some got counseling to deal with their addiction and anger problems; others reconnected with family and church. When they were released, they talked about changing their lives for the better. They were sincere and determined, and I was hopeful that they would do just that.

Reflections on Youth in Gangs: Beyond the Headlines

Speakers at Youth in Gangs: Beyond the Headlines

By: Tristan Walsh, CfJJ Intern

Last week, Citizens for Juvenile Justice hosted a forum at the Boston Bar Association about youth in gangs in Massachusetts.  People from the community and many parts of the juvenile justice system joined in a discussion with a panel consisting of an academic researcher, service providers, and four former gang members.

For me, the forum was an eye-opening experience.  Everything I knew before about gangs came from news stories, tv, and other media.  Among other things, I believed gangs had grown dramatically in recent years and were inextricably linked with the drug trade.

Judges Forced to Revisit Juveniles’ Life Sentences

The Wall Street Journal recently (10/29/10)  featured an article on states’ responses to the Supreme Court’s decision in Graham v. Florida, which ruled life sentences without parole (LWOP) for juveniles to be unconstitutional for non-homicide cases.  Although a number of states are reviewing sentences that fit narrowly into this category, others are examining the larger issue of whether juveniles should ever be sentenced to LWOP.  Massachusetts currently has at least 57 people serving life without parole for crimes committed when they were under 18.

By NATHAN KOPPEL

Judges are grappling with whether it is ever proper to sentence a juvenile to life in prison without parole in light of a Supreme Court decision that such a punishment for non-murderers is cruel and unusual.

Arts Programs Help Break the Cycle of Delinquency and Violence

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention‘s September/October “News @ a Glance” highlighted arts programs working with juveniles.  Massachusetts is home to Shakespeare in the Courts, one of these creative programs.

Originally posted on OJJDP News @ a Glance, September/October 2010

 

©Shakespeare Festival/LA
Youth from Richmond, VA, performing in Will Power to Youth's production of Romeo and Juliet in August 2007.

A growing body of research indicates that arts programs can play a vital role in improving academic performance, school attendance, and critical life skills for youth across the socioeconomic spectrum. For at-risk youth, participation in arts programs can interrupt the drift to a negative lifestyle, helping to replace destructive behavior with positive activities and interests. In one research initiative sponsored by OJJDP and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), arts programs for at-risk youth in three cities were found to reduce court referrals for delinquency while increasing school achievement, effective communication, and teamwork.

Another OJJDP Candidate: Jane Tewksbury

CfJJ is excited to share the news that Jane Tewksbury, Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Youth Services (and one of CfJJ’s founders)  is among the top candidates for Administrator of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.  CfJJ Executive Director Lael Chester and other advocates quoted in the blog post from Youth Today (please see below) praise her leadership in Massachusetts and her qualifications to head OJJDP.

October 20, 2010 by John Kelly

California judge and former prosecutor Kurt Kumli was the only name that had reached  JJ Today from the recent round of interviews by the Justice Department of Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention candidates. But it appears that Jane Tewksbury, commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Youth Services, has interviewed for the job, too,  and is at least as likely as Kumli to get the nomination.

Sources close to Tewksbury said that, like Kumli, she is committed to going becoming OJJDP administrator if she is the Obama administration’s choice.

Tewksbury, by any measure, is a well-rounded candidate. She has served as commissioner of DYS since 2005, which for a modern state-level JJ director is a lifetime. Tewksbury was nominated by then-Gov. Mitt Romney (R) but was kept on by current Gov. Deval Patrick (D).

Why ‘Adult Time for Adult Crime’ Doesn’t Work

Written by Matt Kelley, the following originally appeared on Change.org’s Criminal Justice Blog (10/14/10).

Trying children in adult courts and locking them in adult prisons and jails is cruel and counterproductive, and a new report from Baltimore shows us just how badly “adult time for adult crime” policies have failed.

Released last week by a coalition called the Just Kids Partnership, the report details the cases of 135 juveniles charged as adults in Baltimore — and the results speak volumes. Most revealing is the fact that only 10 percent of juveniles charged as adults actually ended up sentenced to serve time in adult prison. Most cases were either dismissed outright or transferred back to juvenile court. And while this pointless charade played out, the kids involved spent an average of five months in adult jails, without the education and social services they need.

Parent-Child Privilege

By: Tristan Walsh, CfJJ Intern

Prior to starting my internship here at CfJJ, I had limited experience in the world of juvenile justice.  As such, there have been a number of things I’ve learned in the past few weeks that have surprised me, but perhaps the most was that here in Massachusetts parents can be compelled to testify against their minor children.  When I was asked to work on a memo regarding a proposed bill that would prevent this by establishing a parent-child testimonial privilege here in Massachusetts, my reaction can only be summed up as: “wait, don’t we already have that?”

Making an Issue

About 22 percent of Massachusetts residents are under 18, according to the U.S. Census. As political debates heat up from the local to the national level, are you hearing candidates talk about how they’ll serve that 22 percent? Vague references to “our children’s future” don’t count.

It falls to adults who care about children to make sure that issues such as educational equity and juvenile justice get front-burner treatment this election season.  The good news is: You don’t need a multi-million dollar advertising program to make that happen. Something as simple as posting a question on a campaign’s Facebook wall lets candidates know that voters care about kids’ issues. A letter to the editor, a question at a candidate forum, even a chat with a door-to-door volunteer can get kids on a candidate’s radar. Imagine if everyone committed to doing just one such thing a month.

Teaching the Hard to Reach: Working with Juvenile Offenders

This post first appeared on Beacon Broadside (9/10/10). 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.

Over any teacher’s career—in my case, 26 years of teaching high school English to at-risk teenagers, the last 10 of those years in an adult county jail—you get asked lots of questions. Some about the topic you’re teaching; others, well, it’s hard to know where they come from. But there’s one question I heard a lot, most frequently from my jail students, “Why don’t you teach in a real school?”

This usually happened when a lesson went well and a kid really got what we were talking about. “That was a good lesson, Mr. C.  You should teach in a real school instead of here.” That last part was typical of incarcerated kids. Instead of taking credit for understanding some new idea, the student was quick to give it to me.

I knew where the “real school” remark came from. My students were mostly poor youth of color; many bereft of families. The education they received in their home districts was pretty bogus, and they knew it. Minimal supplies. School buildings as dilapidated as the warehouses (called “public housing”) they lived in. The curriculum dummied down because “they can’t handle the real thing.” For these locked up kids a “real school” was one they weren’t in.

They knew my take on the “real school” remark. My classroom was a real school; they were real students doing real learning; and I expected them to act that way. I confess, I wasn’t always polite about it. It made me mad—at them; at the educational system; at society; at myself. And it made me sad because within that comment was their bone-deep belief that they were worthless.