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Jailing Juveniles: The Dangers of Incarcerating Youth in Adult Jails in America
A new report, “Jailing Juveniles: The Dangers of Incarcerating Youth in Adult Jails in America,” released by the Campaign for Youth Justice provides a summary of the risks that youth face when incarcerated in adult jails, facts and figures about how many youth are incarcerated in jails nationwide, and a review of the limited federal and state laws protecting youth in jails.
Federal Advisory Committee on Juvenile Justice Annual Report 2007
The FACJJ developed 15 recommendations to the President and Congress that focus on the need to promptly reauthorize the Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Prevention Act, to amend the Act to improve juvenile justice, and to address critical issues confronting the states' juvenile justice systems.
Manual Introduces Juvenile Offenders to Community Service Learning
"Recently updated and revised, Giving Back: Introducing Community Service Learning provides skill-building strategies and materials to introduce juvenile offenders to fundamental concepts of community and community problems. Developed by the Constitutional Rights Foundation and the Constitutional Rights Foundation Chicago through a grant from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the manual is a useful resource for youth courts and other juvenile justice agencies seeking to apply school-based learning methods to court-mandated community service."
To view this manual, please visit:
http://www.crf-usa.org/YouthCourt/Giving_Back_2006.pdf
Screen & Assessing Mental Health & Substance Use Disorders Among Youth in the Juvenile Justice System: A Resource Guide for Practitioners (December 2004)
An American Travesty:
Legal Responses to Adolescent Sexual Offending
In An American Travesty: Legal Responses to Adolescent Sexual Offending, author Zimring argues that Megan’s Laws and other responses to these youths are based on certain assumptions about adult sex offenders—assumptions that don’t apply to adolescents. He finds there has been virtually no scholarly literature or research on the topic of adolescent sex offending: few scientific studies of sexual misconduct among children and adolescents, no rigorous assessments of strategies that address it, and no dialogue among legal scholars or judges.
The current adversarial approach to young sexual offending grows out of a report issued in 1993 by the National Adolescent Perpetrator Network (NAPN), a vocal and well-organized network that is part mental health treatment group, part victims’ rights lobby. The report, published in Juvenile Judge’s Journal, was the longest publication devoted to juvenile sex offenders in at least half a century. At its center are 387 unproven assumptions about adolescent behavior, dangerousness, appropriate justice system responses, and the impact of various interventions on long-term development and life opportunities. The Task Force behind the report included no physicians, no specialists in program evaluation and policy analysis, no experts in juvenile justice, and only one attorney, a former prosecutor. Yet the report has stood for more than a decade, virtually uncriticized and tremendously influential.
The NAPN’s report draws a picture of the adolescent sex offender that often seems similar to the image of the adult offender described earlier: deviant, recidivist, and a continuing danger to the community. The report advises treating all juvenile sex offenders as though they fit this image. It calls for prosecution in all cases, maintaining that prosecution and conviction themselves have therapeutic value for the offender. It defines all illegal sexual behaviors as abusive, regardless of the age of the child or the circumstances of the behavior.
Check out: http://www.mac-adoldev-juvjustice.org/AT.sepC.04.pdf
National Report Finds Mentally Ill
Youth Warehoused in Jails - July 7, 2004
U.S. Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Representative Henry
Waxman of California issued a report today finding that detention
centers for youth are routinely used to house children with mental
health problems. Few states rely on community-based mental health
services to serve youth and few states adequately fund those
community-based services which do exist.
The Impact of Zero Tolerance
Policies
Many defenders and court officials including judges, report that an increasing number of juvenile delinquency cases originate in schools. Historically, disputes among youth and/or with teachers were generally settled in schools. With the implementation of zero tolerance policies in schools throughout the U.S. in the 1990’s, school-based disputes are leading to the involvement of law enforcement which all too often results in youths becoming involved in the juvenile justice system.
As of June 2004, the NEJDC website is offering information and resources on the impact of and advocates’ responses to zero tolerance policies. We hope this information will support defenders’ challenges to arrests of youth arising from zero tolerance policies.
Girls in the Juvenile Justice
System
Attention has recently been focused on how the number of girls
involved in the juvenile justice system appears to be increasing.
The rate of increase and the causes of it are subjects for intense
concern and debate.
As of May 2004, the NEJDC website is dedicating space to this
issue and will offer readers data on rates, causes, and information
on sources of support for defenders on this section of our site.
Resources on Girls in the Juvenile Justice System:
Federal - NEJDC Weighs In On Senate Juvenile
DNA Sample Collection Legislation, March 2004
The NEJDC sent to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee a letter
strongly opposing plans to relax state regulations for collection
of juveniles' DNA data which has heretofore been highly regulated
and limited. The proposed legislation, found in Section 103 of
Senate Bill 1700, would reduce constraints on the state.
The NEJDC notes that Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire have
legislation permitting collection of DNA samples for very limited
purposes and for very limited offenses. Maine and Massachusetts
enacted these laws last year. To read the full text of the NEJDC's letter click below.
New England States Fare Badly in Nationwide
Survey of State Practices in Placing Children in Juvenile Justice
and Child Welfare Systems to Receive Basic Mental Health Services:
The Practice of Putting Parents in a Position of Needing to Relinquish
Custody to Receive Services for Their Children is Criticized.
BY STATE
CT - Juvenile Justice Strategic Plan: Building Towards a Better Future (August 2006)
CT - NEJDC Commissions Report on Juvenile Justice
Coverage in Connecticut
The NEJDC asked Professor James Simon of Fairfield University
to survey the level and quality of coverage of juvenile justice
issues in three major Connecticut newspapers between January 1
and March 31, 2002. Professor Simon's study located and analyzed
179 news articles and found that while juvenile justice issues
are given prominent play, 83% of the stories were episodic at
best, 93% were less than 7 paragraphs long and over 80% relied
solely on police as sources. The complete report is available
below.
ME - Comprehensive Three-Year Plan for Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
ME - NEJDC Attorney Successfully Challenges
Maine Department Of Corrections Treatment Of Juvenile In Custody, March 2004
Ned Chester, an NEJDC Board member representing Maine, filed
and recently settled a major case against the Maine Department
of Corrections charging a pattern of abuse and misconduct towards
a youth in its custody. The boy, "Michael T." was repeatedly
put in solitary confinement, sometimes for periods up to 87 days,
and repeatedly put in constraints, even when he posed no physical
danger to himself or others and was not acting out of control
in any manner.
MA - New report on youth being unlawfully held without bail.
MA - Overuse of Detention (Juvenile Defense Network)
MA - Survey of Immigrant Youth Reveals Interesting
Views of Police & Juvenile Justice System January 2004
The Juvenile Justice Center of Suffolk University Law School
recently published the results of its survey of immigrant youth
in the Boston area about a range of topics including their interactions
with police and the juvenile justice system. The survey was published
at the New Young Americans Conference; Charting a Course of Immigrant
Youth in a Changing Commonwealth, held January 8 and 9. One of
the topics of the conference was the impact involvement in the
juvenile justice has on immigrant youth with tenuous immigrant
status and strategies defenders can employ to best protect these
youth. The survey is available below.
MA - ACLU Report: Minority Confinement in Massachusetts:
Failures in Assessing and Addressing Overrepresentation of Minorities
in the Massachusetts' Juvenile Justice System, June 2003
Massachusetts has failed to address the overrepresentation of
youth of color in its juvenile justice system as required by federal
law, according to a report released by the American Civil Liberties
Union at a news conference with juvenile justice advocates today.
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