At Lunch With Nashville Mayor Dean

Karl Dean, the new Nashville mayor who made curbing juvenile crime a central plank of his campaign (see my earlier post here), seems to be following through on his pledge to make that issue a top priority. He held an informal lunch on Monday with police chief Ronal Serpas, district attorney Torry Johnson, public defender Ross Alderman and juvenile court Judge Betty Adams Green to discuss crime and public safety issues and begin to lay out an agenda.

According to this local news report, Serpas shares Dean’s “strong belief that education and ensuring that children are in school during school hours are essential components in the reduction of juvenile crime.” The mayor’s office issued no statement following the meeting, but Serpas’s sentiment is the kind you’d expect to hear from Dean, as well. As a candidate he stressed the need to pair police work with “bridge-building” neighborhood watch initiatives and after-school programming; his campaign’s motto was “It’s all connected.”

Unfortunately, the priority in the short term may be arrests, not education or after-school programming. Nashville is likely to see a sharp crackdown on juvenile offenders before any of these longer-term initiatives get off the ground. This is understandable though nevertheless lamentable: the city has seen a 100 percent rise in juvenile crime in the past year, and 30 percent of city residents charged with murder and armed robbery this year have been underage. Not surprisingly, the number of juveniles who have been tried as adults has also spiked.

What Would Wilson Do?

I just watched the Republican presidential candidates duke it out on the CNN YouTube debate, and man, I gotta tell ya, I’ve seen less nuts in a bag of cashews.

I’ll set aside my partisan snipes for the moment, though, and toss out one quick thought that’s at least vaguely related to juvenile justice: Rudy Giuliani may have demurred when a viewer asked if he believes every single word of the Bible, but when it came to his thoughts on crime, he was proud to speak out as a “broken windows” fundamentalist.

Wednesday Morning Grab Bag

From the Cincinnati Enquirer, an offbeat story about a juvenile court magistrate who convicted a teenage girl on a disorderly conduct charge for a school fight that was videotaped and posted on YouTube. The magistrate ordered no punishment but delivered a stern lecture to all three girls involved: the two involved in the brawl and the one-girl camera crew. (Apparently, YouTube receives tons of similar submissions from teens.)

From the AP wire, a chilling, Fargo-like story out of Baltimore about a 17-year-old who has been sentenced to juvenile prison for attempting to hire a hit man to kill his mother and stepfather.

Courtesy of Chris Uggen’s quirky blog–Uggen, a sociology professor at the University of Minnesota, is the co-author of Locked Out, a compelling study on the disenfranchisement of felons; he also seems to be captivated by wrestling retirees, obscure indie rock and White Castle slyders–a new study from the JFA Institute called “Unlocking America,” which documents the shocking rise in the US prison population and offers recommendations for putting the system on a serious diet.

Juv Offenders in Adult Prisons Face High Suicide Risk

In a smart post on his blog Simple Justice, Scott Greenfield explores a new finding from the recent Campaign for Youth Justice report–that juveniles confined in adult jails and prisons are thirty-six times more likely to kill themselves than offenders held in juvenile facilities–and considers the issue in light of the increased tendency in recent decades to treat juveniles as adults in the correctional system. Along the way he punctures the myth of the “superpredator”–the early ’90s fantasy of unredeemable young killers in our midst–and takes the New York Times to task for its “overly facile” way of explaining the new suicide statistic as a simple mental health issue rather than as the result of systemic blind spots and gross misjudgments.

Senate Judiciary Committee to Review JJDPA

Another press release, this one from Act4JJ, which is advocating reauthorization of the federal Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act. (For background, see my earlier posts here and here):

U.S. Senate Judiciary to Hold First JJDPA Hearing in 8 Years

We are pleased to announce that the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary will hold a hearing on Reauthorization of the JJDPA on Wednesday, December 5, 2007 at 10:00 am EST. The hearing is titled “Reauthorization of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act: Protecting Our Children and Our Communities” and will be held in Room 226 of the Senate Dirksen Office Building.

This will be the first Senate hearing held on the JJDPA in eight years.

The witness list is yet to be completed, but current invitees include Deirdre Garton, a former prosecutor and current Chair of the Wisconsin Governor’s Juvenile Justice Commission (the Wisconsin SAG); Anne Marie Ambrose, Director of Child Welfare and Juvenile Justice Services at the Office of Children, Youth and Families in the Department of Public Welfare for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; and Shay Bilchik, former Administrator for the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, former President and CEO of the Child Welfare League of America and Founder and Director of the Center for Juvenile Justice Reform at Georgetown University’s Public Policy Institute.

We will be reaching out to you to help you reach out to your U.S. Senators to encourage them to attend the hearing. In the meantime, please mark your calendars and prepare to join us on-line—the hearing will likely be Webcast live.

More information can be found at http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearing.cfm?id=3043.
This is likely to be the Web link for the Webcast as well.

Blueprints Conference to Be Held in Denver

Press release from the OJJDP:

On March 17−19, 2008, in Denver, CO, the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence will hold its biennial Blueprints Conference. The conference will provide information on youth violence, delinquency, and evidence-based prevention and intervention programs.

Funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the Center’s Blueprints for Violence Prevention Initiative has identified 11 model programs or “blueprints,” shown to be effective in reducing adolescent violent crime, aggression, delinquency and substance abuse.

To obtain additional information about the 2008 Blueprints conference and register online, visit http://www.blueprintsconference.com.

Further information about the Blueprints for Violence Prevention Initiative is available at http://www.colorado.edu/cspv/blueprints.

Illinois Considers Bill to Abandon Juv LWOP

In Illinois, where at least 103 inmates are serving life without parole for crimes committed before they turned 18,  state lawmakers are considering a bill that would allow parole hearings after twenty years. State Representative Robert Molaro, a Democrat representing a district in Chicago, had to table a bill he introduced after victims’ rights groups piped up; according to this article in the Chicago Tribune, Molaro says he “hopes to revive the effort early next year and vows to work with law enforcement officials and other critics.” If it passes, Illinois will join six other states–Alaska, Colorado, Kansas, Kentucky (with an asterisk, since three cases are being challenged in court), New Mexico and Oregon–that prohibit LWOP sentences for juveniles. A few other states, notably California and Michigan, are similarly positioned to consider legislative bans on the sentencing policy.

It’s becoming more and more clear to me that this is the key issue right now when it comes to juvenile justice reform in the United States. This is where the energy is; this is where the momentum is; this is where reformers have the greatest chance at success. As a follow-up to Roper v. Simmons, of course, it’s a natural. If you agree, as the Supreme Court did, that juveniles are different from adults in that they are still developing, and are therefore less culpable for their behavior and more capable of rehabilitation, then it follows that the death penalty for juveniles constitutes cruel and unusual punishment and must be abolished. And in the wake of Roper, of course, it follows that a sentence to death in prison is likewise unacceptable. There are currently at least 2,381 children serving such sentences in the United States; that is more than 99 percent of the juvenile offenders serving life without parole in the world.

The United States is by far the most egregious violator of what can fairly be described as a worldwide condemnation of life sentences for children, and it must be brought into compliance with evolving human rights standards. Whether a ban on this outmoded practice will come about by way of the courts or as the result of a wave of state legislation remains to be seen. That it is coming, I think, is beyond doubt.

The “Incorrigible” John Doe

Skelly, a public defender who blogs at Arbitrary and Capricious (the newest addition to the Juvienation blogroll), alerts me to an interesting Idaho appellate court ruling from early November, which, he writes, “found that raising one’s voice a little is not sufficient to bring a youth within the purview of the Juvenile Corrections Act.” According to the ruling, an unidentified teenager assigned the name John Doe

had been residing with his older sister in California for about a year when, on July 5, 2005, he went to his parents’ residence in Idaho. On July 7, Doe, who was fifteen years old, had a disagreement with his parents about whether he would be permitted to continue living with his sister in California. Doe wanted to return to California, but his parents wanted him to remain with them. During the disagreement, Doe left the residence to “cool off.” Doe’s sister, who was also present at the Idaho residence, became alarmed when Doe left and called the police. An officer located Doe across the street from his parents’ residence. Another officer went to the residence, where the parents told the officer that they did not want Doe to be charged with anything for his conduct. The officer with Doe warned him that, if the police were called back to the residence again that night, Doe would be arrested for being incorrigible. Later that night, the police responded to a call that there was a suicidal fifteen-year-old male at the same residence. Doe told the police that he had threatened to harm himself with a lamp cord. The officer who had spoken with Doe during the initial encounter then arrested Doe.

Doe was brought in on two charges: “arguing with his parents” and “leaving the house without permission.” (Can you imagine what would happen if every teenager who committed such vile acts were locked up, as Doe was? Where would they sleep? And, more important, who would watch Gossip Girl?) As it turns out, in the end, such misbehavior does not warrant adjudication. According to the Court of Appeals, which reversed a magistrate’s decision and a district court’s affirmation of Doe’s sentence,

The testimony establishes that on the night of his arrest Doe raised his voice a little while he argued with his parents in a respectful manner and was arrested primarily because the police were called to the residence twice. We conclude that this does not constitute substantial evidence from which a reasonable trier of fact could have found Doe was beyond the control of his parents on July 7, 2005. Other courts that have discussed the phrase ‘beyond the control of the parents’ have likewise held that the legislative body–in this case the Twin Falls City Council–could not have intended that phrase to include an isolated act by a minor which poses no hazard to the minor or anyone else….

There was insufficient evidence for the magistrate to find Doe fell within the purview of the JCA under Twin Falls City Ordinance 6-6-3 for being incorrigible by arguing with his parents on July 7, 2005. Accordingly, we reverse the district court’s order and vacate the magistrate’s decree.

Let that be a lesson to you, Idaho courts. Now go to your rooms and don’t come out until you have a better understanding of what constitutes juvenile delinquency.

Denver Schools Consider Restorative Justice

The Denver public school system is considering whether to adopt a districtwide restorative justice model. The $2 million program would put a staff restorative justice coordinator in every school and provide teachers and administrators training for the approach, which offers an alternative to suspensions and police involvement by focusing on face-to-face interaction–between, say, two boys who get into a fight on school grounds–and a conflict resolution developed by the parties involved.

According to this AP report, the Denver Public Schools district “hands out more out-of-school suspensions than other large Colorado districts and suspends more middle school students than any other grade level.” At the Montbello High School, “where restorative justice has been in effect two years, Principal Antwan Wilson estimates it has cut out-of-school suspensions by as much as 40 percent.” Districtwide implementation of restorative justice could bring the numbers down ever further. Here’s hoping school board members give it a shot.

State of Florida Overbilling Counties for JJ Costs

Has the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice been overbilling counties for detention costs? An internal report says yes.