Jails and Playgrounds

The New York Times recently reported on a Brooklyn neighborhood that had a “jail” as part of the local playground.

A ‘Jail’ for Children Stirs a Ruckus in Brooklyn

By Cara Buckley and Mick MeenanRobert Stolarik for The New York Times A maintenance worker prepared to paint over the word “Jail” at a playground at a public housing project in Brooklyn on Wednesday.

Playground controversies usually involve bickering parents, unruly dogs or bullies.

One exception is at the Tompkins Houses, a city housing project in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, where an orange jungle gym adorned with the word “Jail,” a cell door and prison bars has, six years after its installation, set off outrage in the neighborhood and the blogosphere, along with a hasty official response.

Radio Series on Juvenile Justice in Illinois

WBEZ Radio in Illinois has been running “Inside and Out”, an interesting series on the juvenile justice system in Illinois. This week’s segment, On the Line: A Day in St. Charles Youth Prison, provides a glimpse into the daily reality for young people in a Chicago-area youth facility. Media access to juvenile facilities is almost unprecedented — protecting the privacy of juveniles but also shielding juvenile justice agencies from public scrutiny.

How does the description of the facility in Chicago compare with your perceptions and experiences with juvenile facilities in Massachusetts?

Boston by Night Tour

The Boston Globe recently reported on bus tours conducted by The Boston Foundation that bring participants into “some of the city’s roughest neighborhoods.”

“Dubbed the Boston By Night tour, the four-hour bus trip ferries 15 to 20 participants into parts of the city they might otherwise never see, especially after dark. Run by the Boston Foundation as a fund-raising tool for its StreetSafe Boston initiative, the outreach program works with young people in high-crime neighborhoods. The tour is an amalgam of sociological field study, criminal justice seminar, and donor sales pitch, its itinerary typically made up of community centers, housing developments, and law enforcement outposts along a 2-mile stretch of Blue Hill Avenue.” Full text

The article was accompanied by a video with footage from one of the tours:

A letter to the editor was published several days later, criticizing both the tour and the Globe’s coverage.

“This type of article further enforces every stereotype people have about certain communities and why they should avoid them. It’s sad that the only way for people to feel safe visiting a two-mile stretch of Blue Hill Avenue was on a tour bus whose stops were “carefully chosen for maximum emotional impact.’’ A “sociological field study’’? Please.” Full text

What are your thoughts?  Post in the comments.

Tough love in juvenile court

We thought you might also be interested in reading an article in Monday’s Boston Globe, “Tough love in juvenile court” which describes a reporter’s brief observation of a juvenile court session in Pittsfield. The article is also available here. By Karen Shepard | March 1, 2010 DELINQUENCY DAY in Pittsfield’s Berkshire Juvenile Court. It’s 9:15 and Judge Judith Locke is already impatient. One boy has owed fees forever. “Do the math,” she says. “It’s not even 10 cents a day. It’s outrageous.” The bailiff tells the boy to take his hands out of his pockets. The boy, affectless, complies. His phone rings. Judge Locke tells him to leave the room and read the sign outside. He says he knows: no cell phones. She lowers her voice: go read it anyway. Over 40 minutes, she’ll give the boy, his father, or the defense mini-exhortations on respect, responsibility, future plans. She’ll suggest the best way to take Adderall. She’ll praise his penmanship. She knows he’s angry, and he’s entitled to his feelings, but how will he deal with them? He’s welcome to come relate the successes she knows he’ll have.

The Cost of Confinement

Dear CfJJ Members and Friends:

In case you haven’t read it yet, we suggest looking at the Justice Policy Institute’s report The Costs of Confinement: Why Good Juvenile Justice Policies Make Good Fiscal Sense. The report highlights the high rates of youth incarceration across the country and describes how relying on confinement is both costly and ineffective at reducing recidivism. The report goes on to identify the progress that a number of states have made in reducing confinement of youth and highlights several effective community-based alternatives.

It should be noted that Massachusetts has been experiencing substantial decreases in the number of youth held in secure confinement. Detention admissions (youth held in secure facilities while awaiting trial) was 22% lower in 2009 than 2008, and new commitments (youth adjudicated and sentenced to the Department of Youth Services) went down 13% within this one year period as well.