|
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. ++++++++++ NACo Resolution for Inmates in County Jails to Retain Medicare and Medicaid Medical Benefits In the CJJeMonitor, published by the Coalition for Juvenile Justice, the Coalition reports on Medicaid/Medicare detention reform. Juveniles and adults are stripped of their Medicare and Medicaid benefits if they are charged with a crime and incarcerated. Local governments must carry significant health costs and thus have fewer funds available for education and other services. Last month the National Association of Counties (NACo) adopted a resolution to support retention of Medicare and Medicaid benefits for eligible juvenile and adult inmates in county facilities. I made a copy of the materials in the newsletter about that resolution and will make it available to you by email. Send me an email asking for a copy of the NACo Resolution and I’ll return it to you via email. ++++++++++ NJDA Downloadable Curricula The National Juvenile Detention Association is making a number of curricula available for download from the internet. They include: - Balanced & Restorative Justice (BARJ) Curriculum
- Jurisdictional Teams Strategic Planning Curriculum
- National Curriculum for Educators of Youth in Confinement
- NJDA Juvenile Detention Careworker Curriculum
++++++++++ Young Offenders at Risk in Florida The Florida state Department of Juvenile Justice is responsible for 661 cases of abuse or neglect since 1994 and nearly two-thirds of these cases have occurred in the past four years. Since 1998, at least six boys died from injuries suffered at juvenile justice facilities. This investigative report by the Orlando Sentinel reveals cases of abuse and neglect throughout the statewide network. The Sentinel says that 80% of the department’s abuse and neglect cases happened in privately run programs. ++++++++++ Assessing Risk for Re-Offense: Validating the Washington State Juvenile Court Assessment: The State of Washington developed a statewide risk assessment to assign youth to programs based on their level of risk and risk profile. The assessment was a two-stage process. All youth received a pre-screen assessment and the full assessment was required only for youth assessed as moderate or high risk on the pre-screen. Both work. The report documents the validity of each. ++++++++++ JJEEP: Juvenile Justice Educational Enhancement Program If you have anything to do with education in juvenile facilities, looking over this site is a must. JJEEP staff members were presenters at the conference in Las Vegas last week. The organization is dedicated to improving educational services in Florida ’s juvenile justice facilities. Lots of good things to look at this site. You can take a virtual tour of JJEEP then look over the technical assistance resources. I downloaded one on entry and exit assessments in juvenile justice facilities and Chapter 7 of the 1999 Annual Report to the Florida Department of Education on best practices in juvenile justice education. ++++++++++ Juvenile Boot Camps: Cost and Effectiveness Vs. Residential Facilities Although this report is somewhat dated, I don’t know of a more recent publication about this subject of equal quality. If you know of one, please lead me to it. This report on Juvenile Boot Camps is a White Paper from the Koch Crime Institute. The report (16 pages including reference materials) contains an overview of juvenile boot camps in the U.S. , research findings, and recommendations for operating a juvenile boot camp. ++++++++++ Curriculum for Training Educators of Youth in Confinement OJJDP Fact Sheet announces the availability of this curriculum, how it was created, and its contents. The curriculum is intended to educate educators about juvenile justice, its population of kids in confinement, their problems, and how to teach under these circumstances. Intended primarily for use in pre-service training of teachers new to juvenile confinement education programs. ++++++++++ Performance-based Standards for Youth Correction and Detention Facilities The Council of Juvenile Correctional Administrators (CJCA) developed these standards to improve conditions of confinement in youth correction and detention facilities. These include web-based data protocols to help facilities perform regular self-assessment, to evaluate their performance, and to promote effective practices. This is a great tool!! This site is exhaustive, wide-reaching, and eminently useful. ++++++++++ Youth Violence in Maryland Facilities California isn’t the only place experiencing increasing levels of violence within its youth prisons. This article reports on recent attacks on youths in juvenile detention centers. In Prince George ’s County four detention center staff members were charged with holding down a 17-year-old and striking him repeatedly. In another attack, five youths in state custody at the Baltimore City Juvenile Justice Center severely beat a 16-year-old boy. They have been charged as adults with attempted murder. ++++++++++ Survival in the CYA This Los Angeles Time article reports on conditions in the youth penal system in California . The article reports on violence inside facilities (considered necessary for survival, according to the kids), gang activities in the system, and profiles the traumatic history of many of the kids in the facilities. ++++++++++ Prison Law Office Articles in the news about the California Youth Authority over the past couple of weeks all refer to a group of five reports commissioned by the California Attorney General to examine the CYA. I’ve located those reports on the Prison Law Office web site. The reports cover these subject areas: - Mental health care and substance abuse treatment (22 pages)
- Health care services (78 pages)
- Education programs (52 pages)
- Sex offender treatment programs (66 pages)
- And a final report on General Conditions (83 pages).
Click on this link to the Prison Law Office or on the link above to look at the reports. ++++++++++ Death of Teen in Miami Facility A Florida grand jury indicted two women on manslaughter and third-degree murder charges, finding the two nurses ignored calls from a dying teen medical aid at a residential detention facility. The boy died from a ruptured appendix over three days. ++++++++++ California Youth Authority in a Mess A series of reports have hammered the California Youth Authority on all fronts over the past ten days. The reports cover conditions of the juvenile facilities, a “stunning” level of violence, and substandard medical and psychiatric care. Here are two articles from the LATimes: ++++++++++ CJCA – Council of Juvenile Correctional Administrators CJCA seeks to improve juvenile justice and juvenile correctional services and practices through: - Leadership development
- Adoption of performance-based standards
- Exchange of knowledge and information
- Development of best practices
- Generating public support
- Fostering legislative actions
- Collaboration with other organizations
Learn more about this organization at the link above. ++++++++++ Kids Held in Tiny Cells in the Men’s Central Jail in LA This article from the LA Times comments about the practice in Los Angeles County of holding juveniles who have been charged or tried as adults in a facility inappropriate and unfit for them. About 30 youths are generally locked in windowless single cells for 23 ½ hours each day. The cells are 4 by 8 feet. ++++++++++ Alternatives to Restraint and Seclusion This online article from the CWLA’s Children’s Voice examines the negative effects of restraint, its potential lethality, a change in philosophy about the use of restraint, and the development of alternatives. ++++++++++ Colorado’s Youthful Offender System under Review Colorado ’s Youthful Offender System (YOS) was created ten years ago in response to Denver ’s “Summer of Violence.” In a special session the Colorado state legislature overhauled the juvenile system and created YOS, a program that tries to strike a balance between adult prison and the juvenile system, between consequences and rehabilitation. YOS has one of the lowest recidivism rates in the country. Only 16% of offenders who complete the YOS program return to prison within three years of their release. YOS will continue only if it passes a legislative review that begins in January. ++++++++++ True Notebooks Thanks to Brevity reader Nancy Corsone for bringing this book to my attention. Mark Salzman wanted to add life to a cardboard juvenile delinquent character in a novel he was writing. He visited a juvenile lockup for high-risk offenders where his friend was teaching a writing class and ended up teaching a class himself. True Notebooks is Salzman’s account of his first years teaching at Central Juvenile Hall, a lockup for Los Angeles ’ most violent teenage offenders. One reviewer says that Salzman “examines a broken system with grace, wit, and storytelling.” True Notebooks is a convincing argument for eliminating juvenile transfer and is for sale in a variety of venues on the internet. ++++++++++ The State of Juvenile Detention in Pennsylvania , 2003 This issue of Pennsylvania Progress, a publication of the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency, examines juvenile detention and reports on the Pennsylvania Juvenile Detention Assessment project, an analysis of detention admissions, population, utilization, and other data. It includes a survey of chief juvenile probation officers across the state and on-site interviews with detention professionals in selected jurisdictions. Concludes with a set of recommendations. This is a 12 page pdf file. It was written by Patrick Griffin at the National Center for Juvenile Justice, which hosts and produces Pennsylvania Progress. ++++++++++ More than 5.6 million Americans are in prison or have served time in prison A new report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics in the Department of Justice for the first time estimates the extent of imprisonment: - If current trends continue, 6.6% of all persons born in the United States in 2001 will go to State or Federal prison during their lifetimes.
- Black males would have a 1 in 3 chance of going to prison during their lifetimes. Hispanic males, 1 in 6. White males, 1 in 17.
- The prison population has quadrupled since 1980. Nearly 1 in 4 inmates are in federal and state prisons because of drug-related offenses, most of them nonviolent.
Read the BJS press release and link to Prevalence of Imprisonment in the U.S. Population, 1974-2001 Read Christian Science Monitor article ++++++++++ Correctional Boot Camps: Lessons from a Decade of Research This new study about the effectiveness of boot camps, both adult and juvenile, from the NIJ (National Institute of Justice) presents these conclusions: - Boot camps generally had positive effects on the attitudes, perceptions, behavior and skills of inmates during their confinement.
- With limited exceptions, these positive changes did not translate into reduced recidivism.
- Boot camps can achieve small reductions in prison populations and modest reductions in corrections costs under a narrow set of conditions – admitting offenders with a high likelihood of otherwise serving a conventional prison term and offering discounts in time serve to those who complete boot camps
The study identified three factors largely responsible for the failure of boot camps to reach their goals to reduce prison populations and recidivism: - Mandates to reduce prison populations through early release made volunteering for boot camps unnecessary.
- Lack of a standard boot camp model.
- Insufficient focus on offenders’ reentry into the community.
By 2000, nearly one-third of state prison boot camps had closed; only 51 camps remained. The summary of this report is about 15 pages in length and downloadable as a pdf file at the link above. ++++++++++ Anticipating Space Needs in Juvenile Detention and Correctional Facilities This Juvenile Justice Bulletin provides information on a little known and fairly arcane aspect of juvenile justice. It will help you determine the appropriate space needed to accommodate the number of juvenile offenders expected to be placed in residential facilities. Includes an overview of juvenile justice system policies and an analysis of the project models in the Bulletin. For more information on this subject go to the Corrections/Detention page of the Brevity Subject Library and look at these two entries: Practical Forecasting – This free handy tool from the Urban Institute helps juvenile justice agencies anticipate future demands for detention and correctional capacity. Construction, Operations, and Staff Training for Juvenile Confinement Facilities – another helpful Juvenile Justice Bulletin. ++++++++++ Juvenile Offenders at High Risk of HIV - Nearly all juvenile detainees in Chicago had, at some point, put themselves as possible risk of contracting HIV, mostly through unprotected sex or getting tattoos with potentially dirty needles. The researchers interviewed 800 young offenders from 10 to 18 years of age, asking about their sex life and use of recreational drugs. |
Subject Library 
