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Travis Ballard: A Troubled Life Travis Ballard was a kid with a long history of entanglement with the juvenile justice system, social services, and mental health and none of them did very well by him. He reported using marijuana around age 9 and started drinking alcohol at age 12, according to a 2003 evaluation. Last week the 17-year-old Kentucky youth shot and killed a police officer and then killed himself. ++++++++++ Red Lake High School Shooting Articles Schools using many lessons of Columbine – The state of school safety around the country, post-Columbine and a reminder of how many potential incidents have been stopped. Killings spotlight school safety – Comparison between the way the police handled the Red Lake shootings and the police response to the Columbine shootings, statistics about the rarity of violent deaths at school, improvements in school security. School Violence: A National Health Issue – the Connect for Kids web site has posted a page of resource links and information on school safety, gun safety, and talking to children. Jourdain’s case a rarity for federal courts – Brief article on the rare group of juveniles who are involved in the federal court system. Less than 1% of the 70,092 criminal cases prosecuted last year in federal courts were juvenile cases. ++++++++++ Reducing Gun Violence: Operation Ceasefire in Los Angeles Operation Ceasefire began in Boston in 1996 and used a combination of sanctions and incentives in a highly successful attempt to reduce youth homicide. Los Angeles used the Boston program’s process governing the design and implementation of the intervention, setting a manageable and measurable objective and focusing on the specific problem of gun violence. The LA program didn’t achieve the same results Boston achieved, but they did show that government agencies, community-based organizations, and researchers can successfully form partnerships to address violent crime. ++++++++++ Justice Assistance Grant Program The program will allow states and local governments to support a broad range of activities to prevent and control crime and to improve the criminal justice system. JAG will replace the Byrne Formula and LLEBG programs with a single funding mechanism that will simplify the administration process for grantees. Information at this BJA site includes JAG purpose areas and a section titled “Why You’d Want JAG.” ++++++++++ Reducing Gun Violence: The St. Louis Consent-to-Search Program This report evaluates an innovative police program that used community-based sources to identify homes where juveniles might be harboring guns. Police then sought parental permission to search for and confiscate illegal guns. It was a success in its first year, but experienced serious implementation problems thereafter. This report describes both the program’s successes and its problems. 28 page pdf file. ++++++++++ FBI Says Murder Is Up. Everything Else Is Down Every type of violent crime fell last year except murder, which was up for the 4th straight year. The murder rate has jumped more than 6% since 1999, but is still 29% lower than the homicides in 1994. James Alan Fox says the recent rise in murders is partly traceable to an upsurge in urban youth gang violence. The FBI report says there were 819 juvenile gang killings last year, compared with 580 in 1999. ++++++++++ Juvenile Arrests 2002 In 2002, the juvenile arrest rate for Violent Crime Index offenses reached the lowest level since at least 1980. The rate, which grew substantially during the late 1980s and peaked in 1994, has decreased for 8 consecutive years. In 2002, it was nearly half its 1994 peak level. This new OJJDP Bulletin provides a summary and analysis of national and state juvenile arrest data presented in the FBI’s report Crime in the United States 2002. Findings are derived for data reported annually by local law enforcement agencies across the country to the FBI. 12 pages. Downloadable pdf file. ++++++++++ Ten-year-old Charged with Murder A ten-year-old Texas boy has been charged with the shooting death of his father. The boy allegedly shot his father when he picked up his two sons from his ex-wife’s home for a weekend visit. Age 10 is the youngest age at which any person can be charged with a crime in Texas. ++++++++++ National Portrait of the Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative This first report from the program’s multi-site evaluation describes the evaluation process and contains detailed descriptions of reentry programs and activities under way in the 69 sites funded through SVORI. The complete report is 246 pages. You can download it by section to avoid giving your printer hysterics. ++++++++++ Trends in the Murder of Juveniles: 1980-2000 Between 1980 and 2000, approximately 434,000 persons were murdered in the United States. About 1 in 10 of these victims were juveniles. The number of youth murdered in 2000 (1,610) was considerably below the number of youth murdered in 1993 (2,880), the peak year in the period covered by this bulletin. In fact, the murder rate for juvenile victims in 2000 was lower than in any of the preceding 20 years and the murder rate for youth dropped 47% in just 7 years. The news isn’t all good – the murder rate for children younger than age 1 was higher than the rate for all youth ages 1-15. Juvenile Justice Bulletin, 8 page pdf file. ++++++++++ Fascination with Fire – Juvenile Arson More than half of all arsons nationwide are committed by children. Each year, youths start more than 70,000 fires, cause at least 300 deaths, 2,000 injuries and more than $300 million in damage, according to the National Fire Data Center. The Scranton Times (Penn.) looks at juvenile arson arrests in the community which are up 42% since 1999. One part of a four part series. ++++++++++ Youth violence is sharply on rise Boston is experiencing rising murder rates. Twenty-two people under the age of 24 had been murdered as of last week, compared with 13 by that date last year. The rise in young murder victims is attributed in part to a growth in the city’s juvenile population. ++++++++++ Victims of Violent Juvenile Crime New Juvenile Justice Bulletin shows that 19% of the victims of nonfatal violent crimes were victimized by a juvenile offender – either a juvenile acting alone, multiple juveniles, or juvenile and adult offenders acting together. Most of the victims (95%) of sexual assaults committed by juveniles were younger than 18, as were 43% of victims of robberies by juveniles, 53% of aggravated assaults, and 61% of simple assaults. 8 page pdf file. ++++++++++ With the help of the California AG, a paralyzed teenager may buy out and shut down the manufacturer of the Saturday-night special that paralyzed him This is, I believe, the longest headline I’ve ever written, but nothing less would do justice to this unique story. The California AG’s office has intervened in a federal bankruptcy trial in a way that could help a teenager buy out and shut down the manufacturer of the gun that paralyzed him at age 7. The teen and his attorney have already forced the manufacturer into bankruptcy proceedings. Brandon Maxfield and his attorney are trying to raise at least $150,000 to buy out the company, one of the leading makers of inexpensive handguns, and melt down its inventory of 75,000 handgun frames and slides. ++++++++++ Virginia Teen’s Hands Mutilated in Machete Attack A 16-year-old Alexandria, Va. boy’s hands were mutilated with a machete when he was attacked by several people believed to be members of a rival gang. Physicians were able to reattach both hands, but the victim lost four fingers. Today’s Update on this Story - Fairfax County police say arrests are imminent and police presence has been stepped up in malls and other places where teenagers gather. ++++++++++ The Cost of Fighting Crime – It’s Up Justice Expenditure and Employment in the United States , 2001 The Bureau of Justice Statistics just released a report that in 2001 the United States spent a record $167 billion for police protection, corrections, and judicial and legal activities. This is $20 billion more than was spent on the criminal justice system in 1999 and 366% over 1982, when the total cost was $36 billion. Adjusted for inflation, the increase was about 150%. The New Landscape of Imprisonment (loads slowly) In a related report, the Urban Institute reviews the growth in recent decades in the number of people in U.S. prisons, the largest in history, and the commensurate growth in the number of prisons in the country. The prison population increased by more than one million between 1980 and 2000. The number of state prison facilities increased from about 600 prisons in the mid-1970s to over 1,000 prisons by the year 2000. The Cost of Fighting Crime Is Higher (Read this article online until May 10, 2004) Fox Butterfield in the New York Times reports on the new BJS Bulletin and its implications, political and social. ++++++++++ Boston ’s Operation Ceasefire is Transplantable Operation Ceasefire, introduced in Boston in 1996, has been successfully transplanted to more than a dozen cities across the country. The idea behind Operation Ceasefire is straightforward: Identify the multiple street groups, often enmeshed in the drug trade, that are committing the bulk of killings. Then set down a vigorously enforced standard: harm anyone, and your entire group will be punished. This article reports on the program’s inception in Rochester, New York. ++++++++++ GAO Report on Weed and Seed Management This new report from GAO (Government Accounting Office) reviews the recommendations it made in 1999 on the improvement of the program’s management and finds that, while some progress has been made, the GAO management improvement recommendations have not been fully implemented. The Department of Justice has agreed to strengthen controls on documentation and to take further steps to define and apply criteria for self-sustainability, two of the recommendations. This report can be viewed in a one page highlight version or as the complete report. ++++++++++ Gun Pipeline Runs from Mississippi to Chicago The Chicago Tribune examines the southern gun route to Chicago in which family members or acquaintances buy guns for Chicago gangs then run the guns back to Chicago. Gun laws in the south are much more lenient than in the north. Anyone with a Mississippi I.D. can walk into a dealer’s shop and get as many guns as desired, without a waiting period. ++++++++++ Juvenile Arrests 2001 This newly released Juvenile Justice Bulletin was written by Howard Snyder, Director of Systems Research, at the National Center for Juvenile Justice, the NCJFCJ research arm. The report provides a summary and an analysis of national and state juvenile arrest data presented in the FBI report “Crime in the United States 2001.” The bulletin reports that juvenile violent crime arrests have maintained their steady decline for the seventh consecutive year. In 2001, the juvenile arrest rate for violent crime was 44% below its peak in 1994, reaching its lowest level since 1983. The juvenile arrest rate for each of the offenses tracked in the FBI’s Violent Crime Index (murder, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault) has been declining steadily since the mid-1990s. For murder, the rate fell 70% from its 1993 peak through 2001. 12 pages. Pdf file. ++++++++++ Youth Gun Deaths Rise in Miami in 2002 Gun related deaths in Miami-Dade County among those 17 and young more than doubled in 2002 from the year before. In 2002 there were 14 gun-related deaths of people 17 year old and younger. Nine of those were homicides, four were suicides, and one was an accident. In 2001 there were three homicides, one suicide and two accidents. Law enforcement officials and crime prevention experts say the surge can be attributed to a troubled economy and funding cuts in crime prevention programs. ++++++++++ Crime Rate Up – But Slightly Crime rose for the second year straight according to a new FBI report for 2002. The total number of crimes reported to police last year represented an increase of less than one-tenth of 1 percent from 2001. Rapes, homicides, and burglaries all increased, but most property crimes were down slightly. The overall number of crimes reported in 2002 was still 16% lower than that reported to the FBI a decade go. See these articles, by no means carbon copies of each other, for more: - USA TODAY
- Washington Post
- New York Times
++++++++++ 18 Violent Deaths in Schools since mid-August Fatal shootings, stabbings and other attacks threatens to make the 2003-2004 school year one of the deadliest in years. These 18 deaths are already more than reported in either of the previous two years. Young people are dying at the hands of classmates, parents, and strangers. ++++++++++ - Violence in the Lives of Children
- From the Child Trends Data Bank, comes CrossCurrents, a new series of data briefs on issues affecting children. This brief examines the most common forms of violence in children’s lives: media violence, physical fighting, severe spanking, carrying weapons, contemplating suicide. Age and gender affect the types of violence young people experience as does race and/or ethnicity. The brief points out the most pressing missing data, including accurate estimates of domestic violence in households in which children reside and actual levels of physical abuse experienced in the home by children.
++++++++++ Crime Rates Drop in 2002 to the Lowest Level in 30 Years The annual survey by the Bureau of Justice Statistics shows that the rate of violent and property crimes dipped in 2002 since records started being compiled 30 years ago and have dropped more than 50% in the last decade. - The rate of violent crimes (rapes, robberies, and assaults) was about 23 victims for every 1,000 U.S. residents 12 or older. In 2001, the rate was 25 victims per 1,000; in 1993, 50 per 1,000.
- Property crimes such as burglary and car theft were 150 crimes per 1,000 last year, down from 167 the previous year, and 319 in 1993.
Click here to read what experts think about why the crime rates have dropped. Click here for a link to Criminal Victimization, 2002 ++++++++++ Stalking Resource Center The Stalking Resource Center at the National Center for Victims of Crime provides a number of useful documents, statistics, and information. Here’s a sample: Stalking in America- National Violence Against Women Survey - some of the information from that survey: § One out of every 12 women will be stalked during her lifetime § One out of 45 men will be stalked during his lifetime § 94% of stalkers identified by female victims were men § 60% of stalkers identified by male victims were men § 87% of stalkers overall were men Stalking Fact Sheet – Very good single page summary of facts about stalking ++++++++++ National Governors Association Center for Best Practices Issue Briefs - Dealing with Violent Juvenile Offenders
++++++++++ Myths and Facts about Youth and Crime - CJCJ online Journal monograph. ++++++++++ At the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control,these links: ++++++++++ Children, Youth, and Gun Violence In the latest issue of The Future of Children Journal, the Packard Foundation has, as usual, done a thorough, thoughtful, and exhaustive study of its subject matter. The report recommends four strategies: - Reducing children’s unsupervised exposure to guns
- The report calls for careful parental monitoring and in the home, storing guns locked, unloaded, and separate from ammunition.
- Research indicates that educational efforts aimed at persuading children and youth to stay away from guns or behave responsibly around them are of limited effectiveness
- Engaging communities and strengthening law enforcement.
- Evidence suggests that community leaders can promote young people’s safety by sending an unequivocal message to youth that gun violence is not an acceptable way to resolve conflict.
- Changing the design of guns
- Requiring product safety features on guns could reduce unintentional shootings among children and youth.
- Limiting the flow of illegal guns to youth.
- Federal and state laws regarding gun sales should be tightened so that fewer weapons are accessible to youth.
The Future of Children Journal is free to anyone who asks for it. You can see a complete list of past issues and subscribe at the Packard Foundation web site. This is one of the most valuable publications I get and I recommend it highly.
++++++++++ Fatal shootings, stabbings and other attacks threatens to make the 2003-2004 school year one of the deadliest in years. . Young people are dying at the hands of classmates, parents, and strangers.
++++++++++ Fatal shootings, stabbings and other attacks threatens to make the 2003-2004 school year one of the deadliest in years. . Young people are dying at the hands of classmates, parents, and strangers. |
