Brevity is the soul of wit.
-- ShakespeareBrevity on the NetDecember 4, 2006 A monthly 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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NEWS
Unaccompanied Immigrant Youth
The thousands of children who arrive in the U.S. each year alone without a parent or guardian, are very young, have little or no English, and little education. Given the appropriate legal assistance, many of them could remain in the country legally. Judges who often find themselves explaining the law to 12-year-olds, through a translator, are frustrated and the government has no real handle on the problem.
The ABA has published standards for Unaccompanied Alien Children.
The Vera Institute is working to help a select group of non-profit organizations across the country to develop and implement local pro bono programs to help these children.
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Therapeutic Justice in Dependency Court
Judge Sharon McCully, past president of NCJFCJ, gave two reporters from the Salt Lake City Tribune permission to follow two child welfare cases over a two year period in her court, in which therapeutic justice is part of the treatment for families with addictions. There are three stories to read here.
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Too Soon to Tell: Deciphering Recent Trends in Youth Violence
Jeffrey Butts and Howard Snyder have written a report for Chapin Hall on the recent rise in violence in the U.S. after 10 years of declining crime. Their conclusions are that while the country’s decade-long crime decline may be coming to an end, it is too soon to predict a new surge in serious violence. They say that it is inappropriate to describe the turnaround in violence crime as a problem of “juvenile” violence. Crime rates among young adults 18 to 24 show the same patterns as do those of juveniles, or youth under age 18.
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Florida Foster Children with Disabilities Will Finally Get Needed Care
Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman has been fighting with state officials for several years to get help for Miami foster children. She held hearings last month for 35 Miami foster children who have been on a waiting list, some for years, for speech, occupational and physical therapy and other services covered by the State. In recent weeks the state has moved to qualify over 300 kids for services.
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Build More Prisons or Invest in Programs?
The Washington State Institute for Public Policy (WSIPP) was asked by the State Legislature to project whether there are options that can reduce the need for prison beds, save money, and lower crime rates. WSIPP concluded that “if Washington successfully implements a moderate-to-aggressive portfolio of evidence-based options, a significant level of future prison construction can be avoided, taxpayers can save about two billion dollars, and crime rates can be reduced. While this research is adult-oriented, it does include juvenile data and programs.
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Atlanta Cracks Down on Child Prostitution A report published in 2005 on commercial exploitation of children in Atlanta is the base for a new approach to child prostitution in Atlanta. In coming months a “John’s School” will open in Atlanta Municipal Court. The idea is to go after johns and force them to change their behavior. They will also face possible prosecution as child molesters.
Hidden in Plain View: The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Girls in Atlanta found strong correlation between areas of adult prostitution and juvenile prostitution through analysis of police data and mapping.
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4 in 10 U.S. Children Born in 2005 Were Out of Wedlock, But The Teen Birthrate Dropped
Births among single mothers rose most dramatically among women in their 20s. The Teen birth rate actually dropped in 2005 to its lowest level on record. The overall rise reflects the growing number of people who are putting off marriage or living together without getting married.
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NEW FROM NCJFCJ
New Members Only Page is Open
From this site, NCJFCJ members can access recent issues of member publications, including the Juvenile and Family Court Journal, Law Digest, and Juvenile and Family Justice TODAY Magazine. Among other services members can also renew membership and buy Council paraphernalia.
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New Youth Court Program Announcement
NCJFCJ will be responsible for the web site, publications, and other activities of the National Youth Court Center. More detail at the link above.
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34th National Conference on Juvenile Justice – March 4-7-2007 – San Diego, California
Click on the link above for a conference brochure and details on this premier conference conducted annually by NCJFCJ and NDAA.
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PROGRAMS
Preschool for Dads
Fathers and fathers-to-be in Chicago will be able to attend evening preschool with their kids and get instruction on parenting and child development through a $2.5 million federal grant. The program will reach about 200 men.
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Lessons Learned From Safe Kids/Safe Streets Program
This Juvenile Justice Bulletin reports results from an Evaluation of OJJDP’s Safe Kids/State Streets Program, which applies a comprehensive, collaborative approach to child maltreatment. Experiences of the participating sites often provide considerable insight into collaboration building, system reform, service options, and other strategies. 12 page dpf file.
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Deadly Games Children Play
This web site is intended to increase the awareness of parents, teachers, police, community groups and children to the risks young people take when they play the Choking Game. The Choking Game achieves a brief high or euphoric state by stopping the flow of oxygen containing blood to the brain. The Stop the Chocking Game Association has more information and can be contacted through this web site.
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Man-to-Man Sexual Assault Prevention Education Program
An all-male program that teaches young men how to control their behavior around women and to make good choices concerning the opposite sex. The goal of the program is to help participants understand the trauma of rape and to be less vulnerable to dating misunderstandings. Program description, curriculum, and evaluation results are available in a 24 page pdf file.
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DELINQUENCY
New Study Says Pretrial Lockup May Make Juvenile More Likely to Commit Crimes
The Dangers of Detention: The Impact of Incarcerating Youth in Detention and Other Secure Facilities shows that, rather than promoting public safety, detention may contribute to future offenses. Studies from around the country show that incarcerated youth have higher recidivism rates than youth supervised in other kinds of settings.
Read or download the report here. (24 page pdf file).
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Compendium of Tools to Support Wraparound Practice
The National Wraparound Initiative presents more than a hundred accessible tools contributed to the compendium by its members. Each tool is associated with one or more of the activities that make up the wraparound process. Click here for “Tools and Techniques.”
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New Youth Court Publications
Youth Cases for Youth Courts: A Guide to the Typical Offenses Handled by Youth Courts
Published by the ABA with funding from OJJDP and others, this desktop guide provides community leaders with helpful information that equips them to address questions critical to the effective implementation of youth courts. 80 page pdf file. ++++++++++
An Update on Teen Court Legislation
Published with support from OJJDP, the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools, and NHTSA, this 12 page bulletin offers an overview of youth court legislation in the United States.
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CAN, FOSTER CARE, PERMANENCY PLANNING, ADOPTION
Safeguarding the Rights and Well-being of Birthparents in the Adoption Process
This new publication, released in November for National Adoption Awareness Month, represents the most thorough, intensive and sophisticated effort to date to understand contemporary infant adoption, particularly as it relates to the least-understood and most-stigmatized participants in the process: the women and men usually termed birthparents.”
The report is downloadable at the Donaldson Adoption Institute. The complete report is 84 pages long. The executive summary is 9 pages.
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Child Welfare Law Office Guidebook: Best Practice Guidelines for Organizational Legal Representation of Children in Abuse, Neglect, and Dependency Cases
This publication from the National Association of Counsel for Children discusses best practices for legal representation of children. It includes guidelines for administration, development and outreach and information on standards of practice, community resources, and developing outcome measures. 114 page pdf file.
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Advocating for the Educational Needs of Children in Out-of-Home Care
This is a training curriculum and caseworker manual for the State of Colorado Department of HHS. Designed to provide child welfare caseworkers with an understanding of relevant educational policies, processes, services, and tools to enable them to advocate for the educational needs of children in their caseloads. Appendix includes checklists.
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Assessing Parent Education Programs for Families Involved with Child Welfare Services: Evidence and Implications
Little is known about the effectiveness of parent education programs offered at various stages of the child welfare continuum. This review includes outcome data generated from 70 of the most rigorously evaluated parenting education programs with families determined to be at-risk of child maltreatment and/or abusive or neglectful. Downloadable 56 page pdf file.
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Glossary of Child Welfare Terms, English to Spanish
The Child Welfare Information Gateway has developed this glossary to ensure consistency and cultural relevance in its publications and makes it available to anyone who can use it.
Same document: Spanish to English, can be accessed here.
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Parental Drug Use as Child Abuse
Here’s a handy document. Approximately 45 states, D.C., and Guam have laws within their child protection statutes that address the issue of substance abuse by parents. This 4 page document is downloadable. At this location you can also look up statute information for a particular state. ++++++++++ TRIBAL NEWS
Training and Technical Assistance on Tribal Priorities
OJP will host training and technical assistance sessions on issues related to public safety for families and communities. It will address drugs, tribal court systems, multi-jurisdictional coordination and communication, sexual offender registry, and other law enforcement areas. For more information, dates and times for the four sessions, click on the link above. Click here for information on the National Indian Nationals Conference: Justice for Victims of Crime.
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Grants Available to Tribes for Indian Alcohol and Substance Abuse
The BJA is seeking applicants for this program which provides funding and technical assistance to federally recognized tribes to plan, implement, or enhance tribal justice strategies to address crime issues related to alcohol and substance abuse. Application deadline is January 4, 2007. Click on the link above for more information. ++++++++++ OJP Launches New Tribal Justice and Safety Web Site The site will be a resource for American Indian and Alaska Native tribal governments and communities and will help the general public and other federal agencies to better understand the resources available for improving safety in Native American communities. +++++++++++
ALCOHOL AND OTHER DRUGS
Evaluation of the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign Shows It Ineffective
An evaluation of the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign provides credible evidence that t he campaign was not effective in reducing youth drug use, according to the GAO.
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Report on Underage Drinking by College Students
SAMHSA has released the NSDUH Report: Underage Alcohol Use Among full-time College Students. According to the report, rates of past month, binge, and heavy alcohol use remained steady from 2002 to 2005. 58% of full-time college students who were underage for legal drinking used alcohol in the past month, 40% engaged in binge drinking, and 17% in heavy drinking.
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The Effects of Jimson Weed: “Hot as a hare, blind as a bat, dry as a bone, red as a beet, mad as a hatter.” Teenagers seeking a hallucinogenic high from the seeds of the jimson weed are landing in hospitals around the country. Fall is prime time for the legal plant that can grow nearly anywhere. It can cause severe hallucinations, dry mouth, overheating agitation, urinary retention. Overdoses can lead to seizures, comas, or death. The use of jimson weed rarely becomes a drug trend because few people use it twice.
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U.S. Crackdown Sends Meth Labs South
Methamphetamine production has surged in Mexico. Authorities now estimate that 80% of the meth on U.S. streets is controlled by Mexican drug traffickers, with most of the supply smuggled in from Mexico. Meth seizures at the U.S.-Mexico border jumped 50% from 2003 through 2005.
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Meth Lab Threat to the Environment
Individual states are enacting tough regulations that require former lab sites to undergo a formal safety assessment. Colorado is at the forefront, forcing property owners not only to have the mess cleaned up but to adhere to a very specific set of procedures and testing requirements.
Meth is potent enough to transform homes into hazmat zones. Cooking meth just once contaminates a building with traces of acids and iodine in the air, as well as large amounts of meth on surfaces ranging from sofas to ventilation ducts.
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New Strategy to Deal with Drunk Driving - Ignition Interlocks
The threat of arrest and punishment for drunk drivers is no longer working and MADD, backed by a national association of state highway officials and car manufacturers has launched a campaign to require even first offenders to install a device that tests drivers and shuts down the car if it detects alcohol.
Last year New Mexico made ignition interlocks mandatory after a first offense. The state was an 11.2% drop in alcohol-related fatalities last year. (Article abstract available to read. The complete article is available for purchase.)
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FAMILY LAW
Does a Sperm Donor Have Parental Rights?
The Kansas Supreme Court will hear a case challenging the constitutionality of a 1994 Kansas law which says a sperm donor has no parental rights unless he has a written agreement with the mother. The court will hear arguments December 4, 2006 and should rule in February, 2007.
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DOJ NEWS AND EVENTS
Preventing Child and Adolescent Deaths: Resources and Partnerships
This one-hour webcast is designed to:
identify strategies for including injury prevention in the child death review process
discuss barriers and solutions related to the prevention of child and adolescent deaths.
demonstrate a new website that serves as a resource for best practices.
familiarize participants with the web-based Child Death Review Case Reporting System.
The webcast will air December 14 at 2:00 pm EST. For more information and to register, click on the link above.
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 your name and USPO mailing address and we'll send you an information packet . ++++++++++ To Subscribe, follow the instructions below: - click on this email address,
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If you want to get in touch with me,
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Joey Binard, for the Juvenile & Family Law Department, NCJFCJ
Brevity is supported by Grant No.2005-JL-FX-0065 from the
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Department of Justice
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