When a safe haven for youth is lockup

A recent Op-Ed in the Boston Globe discusses how juvenile crime may be driven, in part, by youth who see detention facilities as a safer alternative to their own neighborhoods.  How common do you think this thinking is among young people?  Do you think that the perception of lockups being safer than home influences those working in the juvenile justice system when they make decisions about juveniles?

When a safe haven for youth is a lockup

(Getty Images)

By Taisha Sturdivant August 2, 2010

ARE THINGS so bad in Boston neighborhoods that some young men willingly get themselves sent to juvenile detention in order to be safe?

A close friend from Dorchester told me it is safer in lockup because, “If you have drama with someone, the correction officers separate you. In the hood there are no time outs or mediators. If you have problems, you face them, alone. Even when you no longer want to be involved, they will find you.’’

For some, juvenile detention is very much like summer camp — most people hate being shipped off, some never get adjusted, but after a while it’s not as bad as it seems. Good behavior is rewarded, and detainees can earn take-out, movie, and video game rights. Still, that is not what makes detention appealing. For some, it is the certainty that they will see another day.

Still boys, soon to be fathers – The Boston Globe

A recent Boston Globe Op-Ed featured a discussion with three young men who are part of Trinity Foundation’s Street Potential, a therapeutic group that engages high-risk youth through the arts.  Through quotes from these boys, you can see how growing up without a father has impacted them, as well as their hopes to be a role model for their children.

Still boys, soon to be fathers

By Tom Matlack June 18, 2010

I RECENTLY spoke with three fatherless teenage boys at Street Potential in Roxbury. The program was designed by Trinity Church in conjunction with the Massachusetts Department of Youth Services to help boys through the creation of visual art and hip-hop music. Two of the three boys have girlfriends who are pregnant.

■Who taught you how to be a man?

“I learned about manhood in the projects.’’

“[I learned] just manly stuff — how to beat people up, like . . . get money to bring home any way you have to. Because honestly, when my father left, I said, I’m always going to be looking for a father figure. He didn’t leave all my life . . . until this day, still like once a month. ‘Ooh, I see my father fight this dude. That must be manly.’ So it’s what it takes to be a man. Yeah.’’

“I learned from personal experiences . . . and that doesn’t make you a man because you’re going to end up being locked up. And I want to be there for my son, and if I’m in jail, he ain’t going to look at me like a man.’’

DYS Youth Reflects on His Educational Experiences

In response to a CommonWealth Magazine article on education in the Department of Youth Services (DYS), a young man who has spent time in DYS reflects on his educational experiences in the system:

“Honestly speaking as a man who has actually lived it, D.Y.S has a lot of reconstruction to do, especially in the education department. Funds have to be being either misused or the state simply needs to boost funding. My first experience of school in D.Y.S was how the hell I am in class with a grown man! And why are we doing word searches? I was fourteen and it was my first time locked up. I was in for a month because of violation of probation. From the first day on, school in there was always disrespectful to my intellect. The teachers had a wild range of ages in their classes so they kept work easy enough for everyone to get.

“Over all, I’ve probably lost a little more than two years of my life to D.Y.S. I’ve been shipped to many different settings such as facilities in metro area, northeastern, and western Mass. And through my journey, I’ve matured a great deal, and it finally hit me that the facilities in the more suburban settings make the facilities in poorer settings look like the bottom of the refrigerator. I always found it funny that the suburban D.Y.S always had better schools curriculums, better teachers, cleaner kept facilities, more helpful clinicians. I learned more there than I have ever learned in school. It was just that I need supplies, encouragement to do the right thing, and that little extra push to help create a better mindset that changed my life.”

Shakespeare as an Alternative for Juveniles

A court in Western Massachusetts is referring juveniles to a Shakespeare troupe as an alternative to community service or lock-up.  This type of program takes into account some positive youth development principles, focusing on youths’ strengths and building positive relationships and roles for them.  What other programs are out there that take this approach?

Caught in the act: Juveniles sentenced to Shakespeare

By Louise Kennedy, Globe Staff  |  May 18, 2010

LENOX — Tonight, 13 actors will take the stage at Shakespeare & Company in “Henry V.’’ Nothing so unusual in that — except that these are teenagers, none older than 17, and they have been sentenced to perform this play.

The show is the culmination of a five-week intensive program called Shakespeare in the Courts, a nationally recognized initiative now celebrating its 10th year. Berkshire Juvenile Court Judge Judith Locke has sent these adjudicated offenders — found guilty of such adolescent crimes as fighting, drinking, stealing, and destroying property — not to lockup or conventional community service, but to four afternoons a week of acting exercises, rehearsal, and Shakespearean study.  Read more…

Restraints in Juvenile Court

On April 5 we posted about the new restraints policy in Massachusetts, limiting the use of shackles for juveniles in court.  On Monday, Suffolk Law School professor Kim McLaurin spoke on NECN about the new policy and how legal advocates were instrumental in its adoption.  See the video here.

New Restraints Policy

One of the topics to be featured at the Suffolk Law School Juvenile Justice Conference on April 30  is the use of restraints  (i.e. shackles) on children when they are in court – and the new policy, which became effective March 1, limiting their use. While we have requested an official copy of the new policy from the Juvenile Court and the Trial Court, we have not yet received it. However, we have received a copy from other sources.

The policy is available as a pdf here:  New Restraints Policy

DYS Budget

The current budget crunch is a serious concern for the Department of Youth Services. FY2010 and proposed FY2011 funding for DYS has dropped below what is needed just to maintain current programs. Moreover, DYS needs additional funds to enable it to oversee secure Alternative Lock-up Programs for youth arrested when courts are closed. Please see CfJJ’s DYS Budget Fact Sheet 2010 for more details.

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.