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-- ShakespeareBrevity on the NetWednesday, March 15, 2006 A weekly newsletter about juvenile justice
from the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges,
Brevity brings you news and information from around the country and on the Internet.
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The Rest of Their Lives: Life without Parole for Child Offenders in the United States
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International spent a year in detailed research to determine the number of young offenders sentenced to life without possibility of parole in the United States. While there appear to be about a dozen youth serving the sentence in the rest of the world, the data they gathered show that there are at least 2,225 youth offenders serving life without parole in the United States. They are predominantly male (2.6% are female). The majority are African-American (60%). Sixteen percent committed their crimes when they were fifteen or younger. There is a great variation in the rate at which youth receive the sentence in each state.
A brief version of the report (5 pages) is available to read this week only on Corrections.com.
The full text report, an executive summary, photos and other information are available at the Human Rights Watch web site (click on link above). The full report pdf file is 167 pages long.
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Reno Eighth Grader Shoots Two Classmates
An eighth-grade student at Pine Middle School in Reno, Nevada was booked on suspicion of attempted murder after wounding two fellow students with a 38 caliber weapon in a school hallway yesterday. A teacher at the school is credited with convincing the student to put down the pistol. While under a “Code Red” at the school, an alert in which students are locked into classrooms, into corners and under desks, many of the students were text messaging their parents.
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New Publications about Out-of-School Youth
Whatever It Takes: How Twelve Communities Are Reconnecting Out-of-School Youth
The American Youth Policy Forum has just published a lengthy study (181 page pdf file) that describes dropout recovery in twelve communities in the country. The document includes some interesting statistics: An estimated 3.8 million youth age 18-24 are neither employed or in school – 15% of all young adults. Of those who fail to graduate with their peers, one-quarter eventually earn a diploma, one-quarter earn the GED, and about one-half do not earn a high school credential. Three-quarters of state prison inmates are dropouts, as are 59% of federal inmates. Dropouts are 3.5 times more likely than high school graduates to be incarcerated in their lifetime. Of all African American male dropouts in their early 30s, 52% have been imprisoned. 90% of the 11,000 youth in adult detention facilities have no more than a 9th grade education. The US would save $41.8 billion in health care costs if the 600,000 young people who dropped out in 2004 were to complete one additional year of education. Increasing the high school completion rate by 1% for all men ages 20-60 would save the United States $1.4 billion annually in reduced costs associated with crime. Dropouts cost our nation more than $260 billion dollars in lost wages, lost taxes, and lost productivity over their lifetimes.
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Helping Youth Succeed Through Out-of-School Time Programs
Companion publication to the report above, this document provides examples of practices and partnerships to provide quality out-of-school time programs for older youth. It includes recommendations for policymakers and practitioners. 56 page pdf file. .-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- Briefing Paper #2 - Redirecting Youth from the School-to-Prison Pipeline: Addressing Cross-Cutting Issues in Youth Services
From the Briefing Paper Series of the Youth Transition Funders Group, this paper addresses the pipeline in which youth are pushed straight from school to juvenile detention as a result of the country’s educational reform efforts to secure its children better education. The use of exclusionary and “zero tolerance” policies and unspoken racial and ethnic biases that siphon young people of color into the pipeline erodes access to educational pathways and opportunities for many of our youth. Defines the issues and provides examples of successful programs. 22 page pdf file.
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Child Neglect Demonstration Project Evaluations
The Children’s Bureau funded 10 demonstration projects to address the prevention, intervention and treatment needs of neglected children and their families that used a variety of service strategies. This document synthesizes the lessons learned from those projects. Several of the programs conducted very thorough evaluations and all of them reported positive outcomes. 18 page pdf file
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State Statutes 2005 – Determining the Best Interests of the Child
NCCAN provides information about best interests criteria and standards in all the states and territories in this online document.
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New Ways to Collect Child Support
This article from USA TODAY reviews innovative ways in which states are collecting child support, including acquiring cell phone records and withholding moose-hunting licenses.
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Introducing Child Permanency Mediation in New York State: Planning and Implementing a Multi-Site Pilot Project
NCJFCJ’s Permanency Planning for Children Department announces this new online Technical Assistance Brief. The New York State Unified Court System and the Office of Children and Family Services developed a process to implement a child permanency mediation pilot project in New York State. The primary purpose of this report is to aid future implementation efforts of child permanency mediation programs within New York State and elsewhere. Available only on the NCJFCJ web site.
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Childhood Obesity
Childhood Obesity is the theme of the latest issue of the online journal The Future of Children. In addition to the journal articles, an executive summary and a policy brief, Fighting Obesity in the Public Schools, are also available for download.
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National and Global Youth Service Day – April 21-23, 2006
Click on the link above to see what kind of N&GSD events are taking place in your area. Click on your state for details on local projects. For ideas about projects you can do for this event, click here.
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Reclaiming Futures Shows Promise
Research from the Urban Institute and the University of Chicago says that communities piloting the Reclaiming Futures anti-drug approach have made good improvements in coordinating juvenile-justice and addiction-treatment programs. Researcher Jeffrey Butts says that 12 of 13 indices being measured through the project have improved since 2003, including drug assessment, treatment outcomes and service delivery.
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Be Careful When You Shred Documents – Kids and Pets Are at Risk
Since 2000, the U.S. Consumer Project Safety Commission has received 50 reports of injuries from home-shredder machines, including lacerations and amputated fingers. Almost two-thirds of the incidents involved children younger than five and some occurred even when there was adult supervision. The agency is aware of at least five incidents in which dogs had their tongues caught in shredders. Some of them had to be euthanized.
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The Role of Parent Coordinators in Vermont
The link above will take you to a web page that describes the role of the parent coordinator in Vermont’s family courts. Parent Coordinators are specially trained experienced professionals under contract to provide a specific type of dispute resolution service to high-conflict, income eligible parents on a sliding fee basis. The Coordinator gives both parents and children a chance to be heard in a child-focused, non-confidential and non-neutral process.
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2005 Issue of the Journal of the Center for Families, Children & the Courts
This California online publication is published annually. All of its contents are fully downloadable. This issue’s primary subjects are the courts and domestic violence and parentage issues.
Join Us! ! Membership in NCJFCJ offers judges and juvenile court professionals the opportunity to get information about innovations and ideas, issues and news in juvenile justice and family law. Members receive the Juvenile & Family Court Journal and TODAY Magazine quarterly, and the Juvenile & Family Law Digest every month. For a sample package of all three publications and information on how to become a member, send me your name and mailing address and I'll send you an information packet ++++++++++ How to SubscribeTo subscribe, click here and follow the instructions below: - click on my email address,
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Joey Binard, Senior Program Manager
Technical Assistance Resource Center
Juvenile & Family Law Department
NCJFCJ
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