Pennsylvania - PA Council of Chief Juvenile Probation Officers
Models for Change Mentioned
The Los Angeles Times (CA)
‘Juvenile justice diverges in court’ – June 14, 2010
… "If we're going to have any effective system of juvenile justice, those kids need an effective advocate sitting next to them," said Shay Bilchik, a former L.A. County prosecutor who founded the Center for Juvenile Justice Reform at Georgetown University… Questions about equity for juvenile offenders come as a group of California legal experts is nearing the end of a three-year, $100,000 study — paid for by the MacArthur Foundation grant — on improving juvenile representation statewide…
The Monroe News-Star (LA)
‘Legislation would set standard for juvenile detention’ – June 17, 2010
The Louisiana Legislature has passed a bill that would set standards for juvenile detention facilities, one of the long-deferred promises from the state's landmark juvenile justice reform legislation… The legislation creates a task force that would guide the creation of the standards…
WFMZ-TV (Allentown, PA)
‘Officials Hope To Duplicate Center's Success’ – June 21, 2010
A Reading lawyer not only fights cases in court he's fighting to help rehabilitate the lives of the city's youth. He's already done it once and he's ready to spread the success… The attorney's name is Joe Guillama, and he represents about 10 kids a week in Berks County juvenile court…
Mt. Vernon Register-News (IL)
‘Hassakis named bar association president’ – June 23, 2010
A local attorney, Mark D. Hassakis, will be installed Friday as the 134th president of the Illinois State Bar Association… Hassakis said he plans to work with leaders of Illinois Models for Change…
Pennsylvania Summary
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
‘12-year-old could become Pennsylvania prison's youngest inmate ever’ – June 12, 2010
The walls are thick at SCI Pine Grove, and the cell is tiny…
Reading Eagle
‘Exeter Township to advertise zoning changes to allow group homes’ – June 15, 2010
After hearing several hours of public comment Monday night, the Exeter Township supervisors voted to advertise changes to a proposed zoning ordinance amendment to allow group homes…
Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on "best practices" in the juvenile justice system
June 15, 2010
To access videos, please visit Senator Greenleaf’s homepage at:
Citizens’ Voice (Wilkes-Barre)
‘Senators pursue detention alternatives’ – June 16, 2010
Senators are citing the breakdown of Luzerne County's juvenile justice system as reason to put greater emphasis on programs that stress treatment and rehabilitation as the key to keeping juvenile offenders out of state prison…
Times Leader (Wilkes-Barre)
‘For parents, justice not served’ – June 16, 2010
Mary Tullis was devastated last August when a Luzerne County judge terminated her rights to her son and daughter…
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
‘Ruling may give young inmate 2nd chance’ – June 20, 2010
A month ago, Terrance Jamar Graham of Jacksonville, Fla., and Jovon Knox of Pittsburgh's Perry South neighborhood, sat in prison facing the same fate…
The Associated Press – Harrisburg Bureau
‘Wyoming County reaches legal fee deal in sexting case’ – June 23, 2010
Posted on:
A northeastern Pennsylvania county will pay $140,000 to the American Civil Liberties Union for legal fees over a challenge to a prosecutor's threat to charge teens in a sexting case…
Times Leader (Wilkes-Barre)
‘Opinion: Reform efforts thwarted by ambivalence’ – June 24, 2010
Frankly, it’s getting to the point where the toughest part to take in the ongoing corruption probe is hearing people say “There’s nothing we can do about it,” or “Good luck trying to fix that!”…
Citizens’ Voice (Wilkes-Barre)
‘Split vote on juvenile justice bills’ – June 24, 2010
Two bills addressing the legal fallout from the Luzerne County courthouse scandal were approved Wednesday by a House panel on a mainly party-line vote…
Reading Eagle
‘4 Philadelphia boys in Abraxas melee found delinquent’ – June 25, 2010
Four Philadelphia boys in a June 12 melee that injured eight staff members at a New Morgan facility for juvenile offenders were found delinquent Thursday in Berks County Juvenile Court. Judge Scott E. Lash ordered that the boys be returned to Philadelphia Juvenile Court, which will decide where they will be placed in detention…
Times Leader (Wilkes-Barre)
‘Report on office sparks a quarrel’ – June 25, 2010
A request for additional staffing for the Luzerne County Public Defender’s Office in a report containing supporting statistical data has put Chief Public Defender Al Flora and Commissioner Stephen A. Urban at odds… The office revamped its policies last September to require all juveniles be provided publicly funded counsel if they do not have a private attorney…
National Summary
Anchorage Daily News (AK)
‘Appeal of teen's 7-year prison sentence could alter juvenile justice in Alaska’ – June 12, 2010
When Keen Smith of Anchorage was 16, in 2007, he was charged with felony assault and automatically tried and eventually imprisoned as an adult…
The Washington Post (DC)
‘Can D.C. end its juvenile justice farce?’ – June 12, 2010
I wish I could say that the slaughter of black youth by other black youth is ending. It's not…
WGIL-AM (IL)
‘Group Wants Governor to Sign Juvenile Justice Bills’ – June 12, 2010
The Juvenile Justice Initiative is happy with its accomplishments during the spring legislative session, and hopes the governor will sign a group of measures that it supports…
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin (CA)
‘Mentally ill minors put in juvenile hall’ – June 12, 2010
Juvenile halls have become catch-all basins for severely mentally ill youth…
The Capital Times (WI)
‘County team begins to tackle racial disparities in criminal justice’ – June 14, 2010
We've heard a lot of talk about the staggering racial disparities in the state's criminal justice system in recent years…
The Washington Examiner
‘Harry Jaffe: Time to plug a huge hole in D.C.'s criminal justice system’ – June 15, 2010
Last Friday, D.C.'s beleaguered youth rehab agency took a moment to celebrate…
Winston Salem-Journal (NC)
‘Opinion: Juvenile justice’ – June 16, 2010
A sad truism of our court system is that juvenile offenders often become adult offenders…
The News Tribune (WA)
‘Editorial: Keep juvenile records where public can see them’ – June 17, 2010
A work group for the Washington state court system meets Friday to discuss whether juvenile delinquents should be spared one of the consequences of their lawbreaking…
The Times-Picayune (LA)
'Sexting' ban gets Senate's approval – June 17, 2010
The Senate rewrote, then passed, Wednesday a bill that would ban "sexting," or the transmission of lewd or indecent images by cell phone or other electronic means…
The Reporter (CA)
‘Editorial: Too young for adult court’ – June 18, 2010
A decision to prosecute two young teens as adults in an armed robbery that injured a Vallejo woman raises questions about juvenile justice in Solano County…
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
‘Path to court for shackled Broward juveniles is shameful spectacle, public defender says’ –
June 18, 2010
Whether accused of petty theft or strong-arm robbery, marijuana possession or grand theft auto, youths in Broward County are led to juvenile court in chains…
San Antonio Express-News (TX)
‘Behind the scenes, juvenile courtroom chaos has purpose’ – June 19, 2010
Since the mid-1990s, municipal courts and justice of the peace courts have served as a sort-of front line for addressing juvenile delinquency…
The Washington Post
‘Editorial: D.C. confidentiality rules in juvenile cases threaten public safety’ – June 22, 2010
POLICE WHO responded to Sunday's disturbance at the District's juvenile detention center in Laurel made what should have been a routine request. They wanted to view the facility's surveillance videos to determine responsibility for the assault of a staff member and other possible crimes…
The Charleston Gazette (WV)
‘Report criticizes handling of juvenile cases’ – June 22, 2010
Juveniles in West Virginia who require legal representation face "pervasive problems" in the way their cases are handled, according to a new report…
The Providence Journal (RI)
‘Drive on to reduce rate of minority juvenile offenders in R.I.’ – June 23, 2010
Minority youths make up less than a quarter of the state’s juvenile population, but are overrepresented, according to a state report, at various points in the juvenile justice system…
WHAM-TV – Online (NY)
‘Sexting Bill Passes NY Senate; Assembly Next’ – June 23, 2010
The New York Senate has passed new rules on sexting which are aimed at protecting teens from harsh penalties…
The Baltimore Sun (MD)
‘Opinion: Lamont Davis case is a failure of the juvenile justice system’ – June 23, 2010
If 18-year-old Lamont Davis' trial and sentencing on attempted-murder charges are not flashing signs for juvenile justice reform, it is difficult to see what would be…
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (WI)
‘Opinion: Raise to 18 the age for juvenile justice system’ – June 23, 2010
Closing Ethan Allen School in the Town of Delafield or Lincoln Hills School in Merrill does not solve the problems of dealing with juvenile offenders in Wisconsin. What is needed is to raise the age of jurisdiction for the juvenile justice system to 18…
Prevention Action
‘The man who makes the prevention motor run’ – June 24, 2010
...Clay Yeager has arguably done more than any other American to help good prevention ideas make it into day-to-day practice… “A juvenile offender can cost $175,00 or more per year. A probation officer with a dozen difficult kids can be sanctioned millions of dollars of expenditure. It is important to know that something like Functional Family Therapy will cost maybe just $5,000 per case while producing better outcomes…”
The Associated Press (SC)
‘Teen Who Shot, Killed 11-Year-Old Boy Gets 2 Years’ – June 25, 2010
A teen who admitted shooting and killing an 11-year-old South Carolina boy last year has been sentenced to two years of alternative housing… a judge Thursday sentenced the now-13-year-old Calhoun County boy to a Juvenile Justice Department program, ignoring a recommendation of probation for the involuntary manslaughter plea earlier this year…
Wausau Daily Herald (WI)
‘Our View: Committee bungles juvenile justice decision’ – June 25, 2010
The state committee whose task was to make a recommendation about whether Wisconsin should close one of its two juvenile prisons failed spectacularly this week…
The Journal (Martinsburg, WV)
‘Juvenile detention real problem’ – June 25, 2010
Gov. Joe Manchin recently announced a series of grant awards to fund youth programs, which is commendable. However, it will take more than money to reform the tattered juvenile justice system, not only in West Virginia, but also throughout the entire United States…
ABA Journal
‘What’s the Matter with Kids Today’ – July 2010 Issue
A group of test subjects ages 10 to 30 is asked to solve a puzzle. It involves re arranging a stack of colored balls on placeholders using as few moves as possible. Each wrong move requires extra moves to undo it… This is the kind of research in developmental psychology and neuroscience that is helping to shed new light on differences between adolescent and adult brains. It’s also part of the science that lies at the heart of a series of decisions, including a May ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in Graham v. Florida, that have changed the direction of juvenile justice…
Top Stories – Models for Change Mentioned
Juvenile justice diverges in court
In Los Angeles County, minors might be represented by public defenders or panel lawyers, who are paid on a flat rate and, critics say, don't have the same resources.
The Los Angeles Times (CA)
By Molly Hennessy-Fiske
June 14, 2010
Travell Lincome was a 15-year-old special education student when he was charged two years ago with assault with a deadly weapon. He and a 16-year-old friend had allegedly thrown bleach at a woman and her baby at a South Los Angeles car wash.
His friend, who faced similar charges, got a public defender. To avoid a conflict of interest, Travell was assigned to one of the private lawyers Los Angeles County contracts with for such cases.
In the county's juvenile justice system, defendants who cannot afford to hire a private attorney face two distinct — and critics argue unequal — paths.
Most minors facing criminal charges in juvenile court are represented by public defenders paid a salary — $62,000 to start — with access to specially trained staff and experts in an office with an annual budget of $15.5 million.
Others, like Travell, are assigned to one of 64 private lawyers paid a flat fee, no more than $345 a case, no matter how complex. If these attorneys, known as panel lawyers, want to hire experts to evaluate their clients or interpret their records, they have to petition the court to cover the cost.
Eight months after the arrests, Travell's friend admitted to some of the allegations in a plea deal, and he was sentenced to about eight years in juvenile detention.
More than two years after he was first incarcerated, Travell is still waiting for resolution. While his older friend was sentenced as a juvenile, Travell's case was transferred to adult court. There, he got an alternate public defender, who said it was immediately clear that Travell "was unable to have the most basic of conversations." Along the way a probation official described him as "one of the least mentally fit minors in our custody."
Last month, a juvenile court judge found that Travell's panel lawyer had "failed to provide Travell with even a minimal level of representation," and Travell's case was transferred back to juvenile court.
"If we're going to have any effective system of juvenile justice, those kids need an effective advocate sitting next to them," said Shay Bilchik, a former L.A. County prosecutor who founded the Center for Juvenile Justice Reform at Georgetown University. "It's what these kids deserve, and it's what we would want for our own children."
Questions about equity for juvenile offenders come as a group of California legal experts is nearing the end of a three-year, $100,000 study — paid for by the MacArthur Foundation grant — on improving juvenile representation statewide.
"There are concerns that the outcomes for children represented by panel attorneys are not as good as they are for other children," said Susan Burrell, a staff attorney with the Youth Law Center in San Francisco working on the project.
A separate study underway at the Center for Juvenile Law and Policy at Loyola Law School is examining what factors affect the outcome of juvenile case in Los Angeles County, including the type of attorney, said Cyn Yamashiro, the center's executive director. Researchers have reviewed more than 3,500 randomly selected cases, and their findings are expected this month, Yamashiro said.
In Los Angeles County juvenile court, panel attorneys have not always worked for flat-rate pay. Before 1993, they were paid by the hour — earning in some cases as much as $2,500, according to former panel attorney Sherry Gold, who left to join the adult alternate public defender division in 1995 amid changes in how juvenile court panel attorneys were paid.
"Costs were uncontrollable, which was the catalyst for the shift," said Ryan Alsop, a spokesman for the county's chief executive's office.
Some longtime panel attorneys who stayed say they are still able to serve clients well.
"You make up for the cases that require a lot of time with those that don't require much time, and there are a lot of them," said Gary Farwell, who supervises the panel at Kenyon Juvenile Justice Center in South Los Angeles.
At least one supervisor's office defended panel lawyers as skilled, affordable alternatives to public defenders.
"You have experienced defense attorneys who represent juveniles for a living, not as a stepping stone, not as a beginning of their career. Paying them more isn't going to enhance their ability to represent these juveniles, or paying them hourly versus a flat fee," said Anna Pembedjian, justice deputy to L.A. County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, adding that, "We have to make prudent decisions especially in this fiscal climate."
Pembedjian said the county's chief executive surveyed judges, public defenders and prosecutors on the performance of panel lawyers each year. However, the county has never released the results of these surveys to the public.
Among urban California counties that use panel lawyers to resolve conflicts, L.A. appears to stand apart in its use of a one-payment-fits-all-cases strategy.
In San Francisco County, panel lawyers are paid $66 an hour for misdemeanor cases, $83 an hour for felonies and $100 an hour for serious felonies, records show. Alameda County pays panel lawyers $390 to $1,000 a case, depending on the severity of charges, and pays additional fees for other appearances.
San Diego County's juvenile court system handles most conflicts through salaried alternate public defenders and pays at least twice as much for cases referred to private attorneys.
Maggie Brandow, a staff attorney with L.A.-based Mental Health Advocacy Services Inc. who works with panel attorneys and probation youth, called L.A. County's system "patently unequal."
"Most panel attorneys feel they don't have any support or expertise in representing kids with mental disabilities. There's so much more involved in these cases than just the criminal issues," Brandow said.
Michael Cavalluzzi, a former public defender in juvenile court now in private practice in West Hollywood, said he often represented youths burned by panel lawyers.
"They're paid very poorly, so it doesn't benefit them to spend time on a case," he said. "The system has moved into such a punitive place that having lawyers who just move these kids along has become really damaging."
One of his clients, 15-year-old Duke Deegan of Los Angeles, was assigned a panel lawyer after he was caught stealing from a liquor store last Christmas. Duke's parents believed he should be placed at a secure mental-health facility and treated for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and depression. But the Deegans said they never got a chance to tell that to Duke's panel attorney, Antonio "Tony" Govea, before a hearing Dec. 30. They said Govea also was unwilling to review their son's medical and school records.
Govea negotiated a plea that placed Duke at a low-security group home for nine months, according to court records. In March, after Duke ran away from the home and his parents hired Cavalluzzi, a juvenile court referee agreed to transfer Duke to a secure mental-health treatment facility.
"We should have hired a lawyer from the get-go," said Duke's father, Reynard Deegan, 42, a Los Angeles photographer. "We trusted the lawyer would fight for him and do what's right."
Govea, who heads the panel at Eastlake Juvenile Court in Los Angeles, did not return phone calls.
The trajectory of Travell Lincome's case — the now-17-year-old arrested more than two years ago on charges of assault — raises questions about how a severely impaired juvenile ended up in adult court, even as the older defendant he was arrested with remained in the juvenile system.
Travell's mother, Ethel Turner, 39, said she told her son's panel attorney, Robert Lee Allen, that he had a learning disability and asked him to review Travell's records. She said Allen refused.
In an interview with The Times, Allen — who continues to practice as a juvenile panel lawyer — said he never reviewed Travell's medical and school records or hired a psychiatrist to examine him. In court, Allen said his experience with other clients qualified him to determine Travell's competency.
At an October 2008 hearing, Allen appeared unfamiliar with Travell's history and charges, noting at one point, "I missed some of those."
Allen assured Juvenile Court Referee Robert Ambrose that his client had never been held at a juvenile probation camp. Ambrose cited a report that Travell had.
"Where did that come from?" Allen said, according to the transcript. "That must have jumped in the record."
Ambrose postponed the hearing.
When they returned, Ambrose said records showed Travell had repeatedly run away from group homes, led police on a car chase, vandalized probation halls and attacked probation officers. Allen did not ask to see those records. The referee transferred Travell's case to adult court.
As his case dragged on, Travell remained in juvenile detention in Sylmar. In a phone interview with The Times last year, Travell said he missed his family and had contemplated suicide.
On Nov. 4, 2009, a judge found Travell incompetent due to mental retardation and stayed his trial.
Six months later, after finding Allen had failed Travell legally, a judge transferred his case back to juvenile court. Travell is currently being held in a mental-health facility. He is due in court Monday for a hearing to review his application to transfer to a secure facility that treats disabled youth.
Legislation would set standard for juvenile detention
The Monroe News-Star (LA)
By Matthew Hamilton
June 17, 2010
The Louisiana Legislature has passed a bill that would set standards for juvenile detention facilities, one of the long-deferred promises from the state's landmark juvenile justice reform legislation.
House Bill 1477, introduced by Rep. Damon Baldone, D-Houma, and passed by the state Senate last week, would establish statewide standards for the safety and secure custody of juveniles while they await a court's decision on their case. The bill directs the Louisiana Juvenile Detention Association to conform with nationally recognized standards and best practices. Detention facilities around the state would uniformly run their day-to-day operations, hire and train staff, according to certain qualifications, and maintain a staff-to-child ratio.
The legislation creates a task force that would guide the creation of the standards. The task force is composed of the Louisiana Public Defender Board, Louisiana District Attorney's Association, Louisiana Department of Social Services, Louisiana Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, Louisiana Commission on Law Enforcement, Louisiana Sheriff's Association, Office of Juvenile Justice, Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana and the MacArthur Foundation's Louisiana Models for Change.
The bill also sets a firm time line to determine the standards. By July 1, 2011, the state's Detention Association is ordered to develop and recommend uniform standards for local juvenile detention centers, with guidance from the task force. By July 1, 2012, the Department of Social Services will develop rules to govern the licensing of facilities, and by Jan. 1, 2013, all juvenile detention facilities must be licensed.
Mike Rhodes, juvenile services director at Green Oaks Detention Center in Monroe, said Baldone's bill would affect the area's major juvenile detention center.
"We would fall under those standards and would have to have an operations manual to match those standards," Rhodes said. "For the last several years we haven't been under widespread standards or any agency to inspect us."
Rhodes said he is looking forward to putting the standards in place.
"It just makes us run the facility better," Rhodes said. "It makes sure we can do our job."
The establishment of juvenile detention standards was a key component in Act 1225, a broad overhaul of the state's juvenile system in 2003. Following controversial reports of abuse among juvenile delinquents and squalid conditions in youth prisons, legislators passed a law that successfully removed juvenile incarceration from the adult-focused Department of Corrections, closed the infamous youth prison in Tallulah and eventually established an objective measure of a juvenile's needs and risks before they were sentenced. Other key provisions of Act 1225 never materialized as intended, and for seven years a standard for detention facilities was one provision that never came together.
Dana Kaplan, executive director of the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana, said she expects the bill to be signed into law and called the legislation a success.
"I think it is a great step for juvenile justice efforts, and I think it will be an even bigger step once standards are in place," Kaplan said.
Officials Hope To Duplicate Center's Success
WFMZ-TV (Allentown)
By Dwayne Parker
June 21, 2010
READING, Pa. -- A Reading lawyer not only fights cases in court he's fighting to help rehabilitate the lives of the city's youth. He's already done it once and he's ready to spread the success.
The attorney's name is Joe Guillama, and he represents about 10 kids a week in Berks County juvenile court. He says his mentoring program will steer kids with a rough track record in the right direction.
Guillama says that these are all kids who are on juvenile probation, they're placed on electronic monitoring, they have to go to school every day. They're picked up by staff at the Children's Home of Reading and they're brought to the Nicolls Street Location.
These are kids that Joe Guillama says, through mentoring, are become productive citizens again. It's happening at the Children's Home of Reading on Nicolls Street. The program is called the Evening Reporting Center. Just over 100 juveniles are currently enrolled.
Guillama says that out of all of last year, they've only had three kids not show up for the program.
Guillama spoke with city council about opening a second Evening Reporting Center, using grant money he obtained from the MacArthur Foundation. The long-term goal is to open a center in one of the city's recreation centers.
Marcia Goodman Hinnershitz of Reading City Council says that they also need to look at what are their already existing recreation centers and programs are and how everything fits together, but these are exciting possibilities they have.
Other possible locations for a second ERC in Reading include Schlegel Park and Keffer Park in Reading. And Guillama says the program has long-lasting effects.
Guillama says that after their court-mandated time is up, there are kids that come back and ring the doorbell and knock on the door, asking to be allowed to come back in. It's bittersweet and shows the rehabilitation aspect of the juvenile justice system is working.
Now this proposal is still in the very early stages... But Guillama says he hopes to have a second ERC program up and running in Reading within 9 to months one year.
Hassakis named bar association president
Mt. Vernon Register-News (IL)
By KANDACE MCCOY
June 23, 2010
MT. VERNON — A local attorney will be installed Friday as the 134th president of the Illinois State Bar Association.
Mark D. Hassakis, who has been practicing law for 34 years, will be installed at ISBA’s annual meeting Friday at the Hyatt Regency St. Louis at the Arch.
“It’s just so exciting,” Hassakis said of his upcoming term. “And it’s a great opportunity for me and my wife Janet, as well as to be able to do something on a state-wide basis.”
Hassakis will be the first Greek American to serve as ISBA president, and has been a member of the organization since 1996. In 2002, he was elected to ISBA’s Board of Governors, and as third vice president n May 2007.
Hassakis credited his father, Demetri “Dee” Hassakis, who founded Hassakis & Hassakis, P.C., in 1950, with his success.
“My father always instilled in us to join trade organizations,” he said of his membership. “He’d be excited for me. The Bar recognized him as a 50-year practicing lawyer in 2000.”
He added he will be focusing on several goals during his one-year term as president, with “Lawyers Care,” which honors “the extraordinary efforts that ISBA lawyers and judges make every day to serve their communities,” as one of his main themes.
“People don’t know what we do — what lawyers and judges do,” he explained. “There is always bad news about lawyers. ... We’re going to try and point out some of the good deeds we do.”
And though he’s heard all of the lawyer jokes, he brushes them aside.
“The fun thing about that is, who are you going to call when things get bad?” he asked. “You’re going to call those who do exceptional things.”
Also on Hassakis’ agenda is an emphasis on juvenile justice reform and the role lawyers and judges play in order to improve the system, he said.
“We really believe every kid deserves a second chance,” he added. “We must do something about the epidemic of juvenile crime and the seeming lack of an approach to successfully re-directing many youth who are convicted. By putting an emphasis on community-based alternatives, we can stop wasting the state’s limited financial resources on approaches that do not work, like incarceration, for these low and moderate offenses.”
Hassakis said he plans to work with leaders of Illinois Models for Change, an initiative funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation as well as other officials and organizations to help reform the juvenile justice system in Illinois.
In addition to being a member of the ISBA, Hassakis is a past president of the Illinois Bar Foundation and the Jefferson County Bar Association.
Top Stories - Pennsylvania
12-year-old could become Pennsylvania prison's youngest inmate ever
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
By Chris Togneri
June 12, 2010
INDIANA, Pa. -- The walls are thick at SCI Pine Grove, and the cell is tiny.
A small, metal bed with a 4-inch-thick mattress sits in one corner. Six feet away, a stainless steel toilet is mounted to the wall.
The cell contains a chair, a small foot locker and a sliver of a window looking out on a patch of grass and a fence topped with barbed wire. A heavy door deadbolts every night at 9 when a guard presses a button on a control panel.
This Indiana County prison cell has housed many young criminals, but no one as young as Jordan Brown, 12, of New Galilee in Lawrence County.
That might change soon.
Brown, housed now in an Erie detention center, is charged as an adult in the fatal shooting Feb. 20, 2009, of his father's fiancee, Kenzie Marie Houk, 26, and her unborn son, Christopher.
Prosecutors contend Brown, then 11, placed a shotgun to the back of Houk's head as she lay in bed, pulled the trigger, put the gun away and then walked outside to catch the school bus.
A murder conviction would send Brown to SCI Pine Grove, the state prison that houses young offenders, at least until he turns 18. A first- or second-degree murder conviction would put Brown behind bars for life.
Prison officials are preparing.
"It would be a whole new experience," said Bob Behr, acting unit manager at SCI Pine Grove, who said prison officials talk informally about the possibility that Brown might become an inmate.
"We've had a few 14-year-olds enter the system, but they're usually 15 or older by the time they get here.
"If he comes here, that would provide many interesting challenges."
Education a priority
Brown's backers -- who insist he is innocent -- hope it does not come to that.
In March, Lawrence County Judge Dominick Motto denied a request by defense attorneys Dennis Elisco and David Acker to transfer the prosecution to juvenile court. Under state law, juveniles must be released at age 21. The defense on Friday appealed to state Superior Court.
A conviction would send Brown to SCI Camp Hill in Cumberland County, where officials determine programs and services new inmates need, said Department of Corrections spokeswoman Susan McNaughton.
"Education is a priority," McNaughton said. "They need to finish their high school education. Or, in his case, grammar school."
From Camp Hill, Brown would transfer to SCI Pine Grove, which houses 420 young adult offenders under the age of 21.
Pine Grove, which opened in 2001, would be different from the Edmund L. Thomas Adolescent Detention Center in Erie. Officials there allow Brown's father extra visiting time and permitted a group of Brown's friends to throw him a birthday party in August, counselors have testified.
At Pine Grove, Brown would arrive on a bus, shackled, with other inmates. He would meet prison officials, fill out paperwork and be escorted to his cell, where a unit manager would explain rules such as how to dress properly and when meals are served, said unit manager Don Bachota.
Unlike other inmates, Brown would get his own cell. "Not because of what he might do, but to protect him," Bachota said. "He'll have to be treated differently. It's pretty easy to manipulate a 12- to 13-year-old."
Teaching discipline
Pine Grove spokeswoman Judy Smith said guards cite young adult inmates for misconduct an average of 40 times a month. Typical violations: entering a restricted area, refusing to follow an order, or failing to stand during a prison head count. Rarely are inmates cited for violent or drug-related misconduct, she said.
For the first three months at SCI Pine Grove, inmates go through a leadership development program that aims to teach discipline and accountability. Guards awaken them at 6 a.m. every day, put them through a military-modeled workout of push-ups, jumping jacks, crunches and stretching, and then send them to classes or counseling sessions, officials said.
Bachota said it is impossible to say exactly what kind of daily schedule officials would create for Brown because no one that young has been in the prison. Inmates get little free time, Bachota said. "They want structure," he said. "It makes them feel safe. If they don't feel safe, they'll do things to get in trouble so they don't have to come out of their cells."
Bachota has worked in the prison system more than 13 years. The youngest inmate he can remember was 14.
Young inmates do not comprehend the length of their sentences when they arrive, Bachota said.
"But after a while, some of them realize: 'I'm not going home.' It might be three years after they get here. No matter when it is, when they realize they're going to serve life in prison, they don't handle it well."
That moment would be especially difficult for someone as young as Brown because he would be dealing with other issues, such as puberty and separation anxiety, said Dr. Paul Friday, chief of clinical psychology at UPMC Shadyside.
Fostering hope
Bachota and Behr encourage "lifers" not to give up. After all, they said, forever is a long time, and things change.
"We tell them that there are no guarantees," Bachota said. "You never know what can happen. There are appeals, communications. ... You just never know."
A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision illustrates his point. On May 17, the high court ruled it is cruel and unusual punishment to sentence young criminals to life without parole for crimes other than murder. The ruling was the second in recent years to expand constitutional protections for juveniles. Pennsylvania has no juveniles incarcerated for life on non-murder charges. Legal observers said the ruling could clear the way for an eventual ban on life-without-parole sentences for any crime a juvenile commits.
"It's important because it reaffirmed that young people are different than adults," said Jeffrey Shook, a professor of social work at the University of Pittsburgh and expert on the juvenile justice system. "The ruling recognized that the way we punish young people has changed and gotten more severe over the years."
Exeter Township to advertise zoning changes to allow group homes
Residents oppose proposed facility for delinquents
Reading Eagle
By David A. Kostival
June 15, 2010
After hearing several hours of public comment Monday night, the Exeter Township supervisors voted to advertise changes to a proposed zoning ordinance amendment to allow group homes.
The amendment is the result of a company seeking to establish a group home for male juvenile delinquents.
Adelphoi Village of Latrobe, Westmoreland County, has a contract to buy 485 Walnut Road, the former Bernet's Golden Age Guest Home, a facility for senior citizens.
The current zoning ordinance does not address group homes, so the supervisors must identify zoning districts where it will permit group homes.
During a public hearing prior to the regular meeting Monday, numerous residents criticized the amendment that would allow such homes in the rural zone.
Lisa Vanderlaan of the 5500 block of Boyertown Pike said selecting the rural zone would limit group homes to the area around Walnut Road and a housing development at Glenn Oley, located off of Oley Turnpike Road.
"Everyone should be aware that this board is considering allowing these homes in one of the nicest communities in the township," Vanderlaan said. "We are asking you to advocate for the community. These kids kill people, they rape people and they stab people and this is what you want to put in our neighborhood?"
Mike McCalpin, Adelphoi's chief operating officer, attempted to make a response.
"I'm at a loss as to what can be said," McCalpin said. "If we come in, we will be good citizens; we've proved that in other communities. This would not be a home for kids that committed the crimes mentioned. We do not accept every kid the courts want us to take. We look at their behavior before accepting them into the program."
Township solicitor Michael Crotty attempted to explain the need for the amendment to the crowd, which often became unruly during the discussions.
He said: "The supervisors have a choice - they can either adopt an ordinance that regulates where group homes are placed or they can ignore the possible legal challenge from Adelphoi. But if the township did not prevail in such a challenge, then any sort of group home would come in."
Brian Minner, 11 Spring Meadow Lane, said allowing the group home would compromise the safety of the residents.
"Once this is here I would not feel that my family is safe," he said.
The amendments agreed upon by the supervisors included removing language that would have permitted young people charged with aggravated assault, robbery or burglary to reside in a group home.
The supervisors said they will take additional comment and vote on the overall amendment June 28.
Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on "best practices" in the juvenile justice system
June 15, 2010
To access videos, visit Senator Greenleaf’s homepage at:
Senators pursue detention alternatives
Citizens’ Voice (Wilkes-Barre)
By Robert Swift
June 16, 2010
HARRISBURG - Senators are citing the breakdown of Luzerne County's juvenile justice system as reason to put greater emphasis on programs that stress treatment and rehabilitation as the key to keeping juvenile offenders out of state prison.
The Senate Judiciary Committee heard testimony Tuesday from witnesses advocating the use of community programs to address youth behavioral issues such as bullying and substance abuse and student-driven youth courts as alternatives to juvenile detention facilities for young offenders.
This was the committee's second hearing delving into the report issued last month by the Interbranch Commission on Juvenile Justice about the impact of federal corruption charges against former Judges Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. and Michael T. Conahan and their sentencing of thousands of juvenile defendants to a privately owned detention facility.
Testimony offered was critical of the former judges' practice of zero-tolerance policies towards juvenile offenders and their heavy use of the detention center for punishment.
In one exchange, panel chairman Sen. Stewart Greenleaf, R-Willow Grove, said evidence shows that states see a reduction in crime when they rely less on detention centers.
"There are more effective ways that don't harm youth development," replied Lisa Macaluso, of the New Jersey Juvenile Justice Commission, who has implemented policies to steer juvenile offenders away from detention facilities in New Jersey after overcrowding became a problem in the 1990s. New Jersey only places youth who are considered a risk to public safety or a flight risk in detention centers, she added.
A former state juvenile justice official called on senators to restore state aid to anti-youth violence programs overseen by the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency to 2002 levels.
These programs include Big Brothers/Big Sisters which provide mentors for troubled youth and Life Skills Training and have a proven track record in tackling behavioral problems that can lead to crime later on, said Clay Yeager, now a private consultant. The state is providing $1.2 million for these endeavors compared to $16 million in 2002.
"We don't have to leave kids and families and communities with a sense of doom and hopelessness," Yeager added.
For parents, justice not served
Paperwork goes unfiled, appeals are dismissed.
Times Leader (Wilkes-Barre)
By Terrie Morgan-Besecker
June 16, 2010
WILKES-BARRE – Mary Tullis was devastated last August when a Luzerne County judge terminated her rights to her son and daughter.
She and the children’s father, Jeff Harris, had been working to resolve the problems that led Luzerne County Children and Youth to place the children in foster care. She was confident the state Superior Court would overturn the decision on appeal.
She never got the chance to argue the merits of her case, however, because the assistant public defender assigned to represent her failed to file the required court papers, resulting in her appeal being dismissed outright.
A Times Leader investigation revealed she is not alone.
Since 2005, 15 of the 53 parents who challenged the termination of their parental rights or the involuntary adoption of their children have seen their appeals dismissed because the Public Defender’s Office or other court-appointed attorneys failed to follow proper court procedure, according to a review of cases filed with the state Superior Court.
The revelation prompted newly appointed county Chief Public Defender Al Flora Jr. to launch an investigation. He is reviewing records, including those identified by The Times Leader, to determine if anything can or should be done to seek to restore the appeals.
The newspaper’s review showed that in nine of the 15 cases at issue, the appeals were filed, but later dismissed because the attorneys failed to file the required legal briefs that detail the errors the trial judge allegedly committed.
In another six cases, the appeals were “quashed” – a legal term that refers to the dismissal of an appeal for failure to comply with some other aspect of appellate court procedure, such as filing the appeal late.
The lack of action by the attorneys means the parents were deprived of their right to have the Superior Court review the lower court ruling to determine if it was properly entered – a result an advocate for parental rights described as “appalling.”
“This is a trampling of the rights of families,” said attorney Martin Guggenheim, president of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, a nonprofit group that advocates for changes in child-welfare laws. “If there is one thing America stands for, it is for the opportunity for every person to be heard in a meaningful manner. … When these lawyers do not pay even minimal attention ... it is as close to lawlessness as you can contemplate.”
Tullis, of Freeland, believed her case was still being reviewed by the Superior Court. She learned it had been dismissed only after being contacted by a reporter on Monday.
“I believed in the appeal process, that we would get a fair hearing as long as it wasn’t heard by a Luzerne County judge,” Tullis said, breaking down in tears. “Now you’re telling me my appeal was dismissed? I was certain we were going to see that justice was served.”
The failure to advance the appeals in termination cases is the latest allegation to tarnish the reputation of the Public Defender’s Office, which has been harshly criticized for its role in the juvenile justice scandal that resulted in the convictions of thousands of juveniles being overturned last year.
A commission formed to investigate shortcomings within the county’s juvenile delinquency court faulted the office and other attorneys for failing to halt violations of juveniles’ constitutional rights that they witnessed in then-Judge Mark Ciavarella’s courtroom.
Former chief public defender Basil Russin has defended the handling of those cases, saying attorneys in his office never brought any concerns about Ciavarella to his attention. On Tuesday, Russin said he was also unaware of any problems involving the appeals of the termination of parental rights.
“This is the first it was brought to my attention,” Russin said.
Russin resigned in March after coming under fire for accepting on-call pay he was not entitled to receive. He said he does not know why so many appeals were dismissed for failure to file the proper court papers. But he readily acknowledged it should not have happened.
“I would expect none would be dismissed for failure to file a brief. To have that happen with one or more is very surprising and upsetting,” Russin said.
Flora, who took over the office in May, said he is also concerned, but he has reserved making a judgment regarding actions by attorneys until he fully reviews each case.
The majority of the cases that were dismissed were handled by two attorneys within the office, Jonathan Ursiak and Mark Clinton, who each represented four parents.
Clinton, who represented Tullis, did not return a phone message left at the Public Defender’s Office on Tuesday. Attempts to reach Ursiak were unsuccessful. His phone message system at the Public Defender’s Office was full and would not accept further messages.
Russin said he did his best to monitor his staff, but he could not review every case that it handled. He relied on the attorneys to advise him if they were having any problems meeting filing deadlines.
“There was a procedure set up in the office that if they had an issue, they were supposed to come to the chief and say ‘I need help with this,’ ” he said. “Obviously, that didn’t happen.”
Tullis and Harris said they can’t understand how Tullis’ attorney could allow her appeal to falter without any review.
The couple, who continue to reside together, filed separate appeals of an Aug. 11, 2009, ruling by Senior Judge Clinton Smith that granted a petition filed by Children and Youth to terminate their rights to their son, Brandon, now 7, and daughter, Hailee, now 5. The children have been continuously in foster care since September 2005 and are up for adoption.
Tullis, 44, and Harris, 48, acknowledged Children and Youth initially had legitimate reasons to remove the children. Tullis has been arrested several times for drug- and alcohol-related crimes, including one case in which she was found to be driving intoxicated with the children in the car.
Harris has had issues with anger management. He was convicted in 1999 of disorderly conduct related to a bar fight. Tullis also obtained a protection-from-abuse order against him in 2005.
The couple contend those issues are behind them, however. Tullis says she has been clean and sober for 18 months, while Harris has been clean for nearly five years. Both have completed numerous counseling programs ordered by Children and Youth. They believed they were well on their way to being unified with their children.
When the judge terminated their rights in August, “it was like my heart was torn out through my backbone,” Harris said.
Because they are not married, each was appointed an attorney to file separate appeals.
In Tullis’ case, the docket sheet for the Superior Court shows Clinton filed a notice of appeal on Sept. 10, 2009. The case was dismissed on Feb. 26, however, after Clinton failed to file a legal brief detailing the appellate court issues.
Clinton filed a notice for reconsideration on March 9, which was granted. Children and Youth then filed a motion seeking to dismiss that appeal. The court granted the motion on April 30. The docket sheet does not indicate the reason.
While Tullis has lost her appeal, the case filed on behalf of Harris remains active.
Harris was represented by a separate attorney, Robert Buttner of Scranton, who did file a legal brief on Harris’ behalf. The case is now under review by the Superior Court.
It’s not clear what, if any, recourse Tullis or the other parents may have in getting their appeals reinstated.
Flora said it’s possible the parents could seek to file a new appeal, but they would need permission of the court to do so.
Vic Walczek, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, said it’s also possible a King’s Bench petition could be filed asking the state Supreme Court to take jurisdiction of the cases. But that’s an extraordinary appeal granted only in the most egregious cases in which a plaintiff can show a systematic deprivation of their constitutional rights.
Tullis has spoken to Flora personally. He has assured her he will thoroughly review her case and do whatever he can to restore her appeal rights, she said.
She knows that, even if she is granted that chance, she still faces an uphill battle to regain custody of her children.
She and Harris continue to send them gifts and seek photos of them, but Children and Youth has not let them visit the children since October 2006, after it was alleged Brandon witnessed Harris beat up Harris’ brother – an allegation Harris and Tullis deny.
The couple said that has precluded them from developing any type of bond with their children – a key issue the courts look at in deciding a child’s placement.
Despite the odds, Tullis said she’s determined to fight.
“I’m a good person who has made some bad mistakes,” she said. “It’s been very hard, but I have to hold on to hope. It’s all I have.”
Ruling may give young inmate 2nd chance
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
By Moriah Balingit
June 20, 2010
A month ago, Terrance Jamar Graham of Jacksonville, Fla., and Jovon Knox of Pittsburgh's Perry South neighborhood, sat in prison facing the same fate.
Both had been convicted of serious crimes as teenagers and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Their crimes were grave -- Mr. Graham was convicted of committing armed robbery while on parole and Mr. Knox was convicted of second-degree murder, robbery, conspiracy and a firearms violation following a botched carjacking.
Though both were 17 at the time of their crimes, they were tried as adults.
But a U.S. Supreme Court decision that overturned Mr. Graham's sentence as "cruel and unusual" for a crime other than homicide may mean a reprieve as well for Mr. Knox, who is appealing his conviction and sentence.
Within a day of the Supreme Court's decision May 17, Mr. Knox's attorney, Thomas N. Farrell, wrote a letter asking state Superior Court to consider the ruling in Mr. Knox's appeal.
The high court's ruling may apply to others among the state's 464 inmates who are serving life sentences for crimes they committed before their 18th birthday. All were convicted of first- or second-degree murder.
Pennsylvania in recent years has had far more inmates serving life sentences for crimes they committed before their 18th birthday than other states. If any of them can successfully argue that the Graham decision applies to them, they will have the opportunity for parole at some point.
Bradley Bridge, an attorney with the Defender's Association of Philadelphia and an advocate for young defendants serving life sentences, said he's received at least one letter a day from inmates who wish to file appeals based on the decision. Inmates have until July 16 -- 60 days after the high court's ruling -- to file an appeal, and Mr. Bridge anticipates many will.
"I think it holds out profound promise for them and the possibility of ultimate vindication in the courts," he said.
Attorney General Tom Corbett, however, said the Graham ruling applies only to offenders who were not convicted of murder.
'Intent to kill'
Justice Anthony Kennedy's majority opinion explicitly said it applies to "nonhomicide cases." Chief Justice John Roberts voted with the majority, but disagreed with Justice Kennedy's reasoning and wrote a concurring opinion.
Mr. Corbett and the Philadelphia district attorney's office maintain the decision does not apply to those convicted of murder, whether first- or second-degree.
But one sentence may have left open the possibility that the decision could be broadened to include offenders like Mr. Knox.
Justice Kennedy wrote that juvenile "defendants who do not kill, intend to kill, or foresee that life will be taken are categorically less deserving of the most serious form of punishments than are murderers."
Mr. Farrell said he believes Justice Kennedy intended to ban life sentences for offenders like Mr. Knox, who was convicted of second-degree murder after prosecutors could not prove that he fired the fatal shot.
In Pennsylvania, second-degree murder is a killing that occurs during the commission of another felony. Offenders can be found guilty without participating in the actual killing. Convictions carry a mandatory life sentence without parole.
Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala, Jr., whose office prosecuted Mr. Knox, said he has not read the Graham decision, but he said some may find it unfair that juveniles convicted of first- and second-degree murder receive the same penalty.
If the law is amended to permit those convicted of second-degree murder to one day be paroled, "I don't think that's unfair," he said.
The Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center estimates that about a third of the 464 juvenile offenders serving life sentences in Pennsylvania were convicted of second-degree murder.
In Mr. Knox's case, he and his identical twin, Devon, were convicted of killing 18-year-old Jehru Donaldson while attempting to steal his car on the North Side. At their trial in 2008, a child witness could not say definitively which twin fired the gun after their attorneys dressed them alike and had them switch seats. But both were convicted of second-degree murder.
"In some homicide cases, where the person is the nonshooter, the nonkiller, you can actually make a good argument [that the Graham ruling applies]," Mr. Farrell said.
He said the Supreme Court "seems to say there's a difference" between those convicted of first-degree murder and nonkillers who are, nonetheless, convicted of second-degree murder.
"That [sentence] raises questions. What does that mean?" said Marsha Levick of the Juvenile Law Center, which is gearing up to represent juvenile offenders in Pennsylvania who file appeals based on the high court's decision. She said she, too, anticipates numerous appeals will be filed.
"There's going to be litigation that arises in Pennsylvania that tests the limits of that language," she said.
Nils Frederiksen, a spokesman for Mr. Corbett, called the argument that the Graham case could apply to offenders like Mr. Knox an "effort to shoehorn Graham into something that it's not."
He said if the Supreme Court had wanted to address juvenile murder defendants, it would have taken up a case involving someone who had been sentenced to life in prison for homicide.
And, Mr. Frederiksen noted, the court in the past has declined to hear cases involving juveniles sentenced to life for murder.
Room for rehabilitation?
Ms. Levick argues that the Supreme Court's logic in deciding the Graham case could be applied to any juvenile offender.
The court relied extensively on research that shows that teenagers are more impulsive, less able to calculate consequences and more vulnerable to peer pressure than adults.
"They're often a lookout. They're sitting in the car," she said. "If you think about these felony murder cases, very often there is an older accomplice who is pushing, dragging, pulling the juvenile along in what turns out to be a terrible crime."
And, she said, the high court's reliance on research about the impulsiveness and lack of foresight of adolescents could pave the way for juveniles to argue that they fit the category of offenders the Supreme Court meant to include in its prohibition of life sentences.
"They didn't have the intent to kill. They didn't kill. And maybe they didn't foresee that that was a likely consequence," she said.
Further, Justice Kennedy wrote, it's difficult to know how an adolescent offender who might be more amenable to rehabilitation is going to develop.
Cynthia Carey, the mother of the Knox twins, maintains they're not guilty of the slaying. She also believes it's unfair to sentence juveniles to life without parole.
"I think that a 17-year-old should have a chance to be rehabilitated," she said. "If you can't correct a 17-year-old ... what does that say about our system?"
But Jay Donaldson, father of 18-year-old Jehru, wonders what, if anything, juvenile offenders convicted of heinous crimes can do to prove that they've reformed.
"Just because you do certain things in the [prison] system, doesn't mean you'll do good things outside the system," he said.
Mr. Donaldson said the Knox twins showed no remorse, though they have continued to maintain their innocence. That, he said, makes him doubt that they will change.
At the twins' sentencing hearing, Mr. Donaldson shared his view on what their punishment should be.
"I said [to the judge], 'Give them the max,'" he said.
Wyoming County reaches legal fee deal in sexting case
Associated Press (AP) – Harrisburg Bureau
June 23, 2010
Posted on:
TUNKHANNOCK, Pa. (AP) — A northeastern Pennsylvania county will pay $140,000 to the American Civil Liberties Union for legal fees over a challenge to a prosecutor's threat to charge teens in a sexting case.
Wyoming County Solicitor James Davis says the county reached a payment agreement with the ACLU on Tuesday.
The ACLU blocked prosecutors from filing charges against the girls over what former District Attorney George Skumanick said were sexually explicit photographs. The county decided not to appeal March's decision by a federal judge that blocked prosecutors from filing charges.
In 2008, officials at Tunkhannock Area High School confiscated phones containing racy photos of teenage girls. Skumanick told about 20 students they would have to attend a class on sexual harassment or risk facing charges.
Opinion: Reform efforts thwarted by ambivalence
Times Leader (Wilkes-Barre)
By Mark Guydish
June 24, 2010
Frankly, it’s getting to the point where the toughest part to take in the ongoing corruption probe is hearing people say “There’s nothing we can do about it,” or “Good luck trying to fix that!”
Granted, it’s evident the problem is widespread and long standing. The local “Who’s Who” of bribe givers, takers and abettors runs the gamut from school district to county to courts to municipal authorities and beyond.
Granted, it looks as though businesses and politicians in this area have been in bed together so long they really did forget the meaning of ethical behavior. One crook after another stands before a judge with letters from community supporters in hand and says “I’m sorry for a momentary lapse,” and you wonder how a region built by hard-working, religiously devout immigrants could spawn so many people missing their moral compass.
And granted the corruption looks so diffuse and ingrained, so chronic for so long, that you start to believe it would take years, decades – even a lifetime – to really weed it out.
So what? We throw up our hands and let the bums run the place? We dismiss everybody as crooks? Sit home on Election Day snickering at the futility of those who vote? Spend our days scowling at how the fix is in everywhere and pass our nights grousing at the bar while downing another beer?
We play the partisan and say, “See, if you just elect (insert your preferred party here), all this would go away”?
Maybe we merely avert our eyes and content ourselves with the knowledge that, hey, at least I’m not a crook, I’m earning my pay, I won’t sell out for a tailored suit or playoff tickets or a few grand in an envelope.
Self-fulfilling prophecy
Saying the corruption can’t be stopped is, of course, a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s like a drunk saying he can’t quit or an athlete saying he can’t win. If enough of us agree, it’s true, end of story; let the stealing, wheeling and dealing continue.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office and the army of federal investigators digging through our dirt for so long have done this area a great service by exposing the depth and breadth of the corruption.
The Interbranch Commission on Juvenile Justice report showed us how much the silence of those who see wrongs but say nothing contributes to the problem.
The moves to revamp government structures via “home rule” study commissions in Luzerne County, Plymouth Township and Nanticoke city give residents a superb chance to make sweeping changes in how things are done in politics.
The Ethics Awareness Initiative provides a launching platform for discussion, education and consensus building on what we need to do and how to do it.
Efforts afoot in Harrisburg to tighten judicial rules and oversight, as well as Gov. Ed Rendell’s campaign to shift from electing judges to appointing on merit deserves close public review and, if proven to be positive reforms, strong public support.
The remarkable expansion of space, capabilities and ease of use on the Web give governments no excuse for limited public access to records and data, from meeting minutes to bid documents. Demand it of your local officials.
Will it take a generation to change our “culture of corruption”? The answer is irrelevant. Whatever it takes, that’s what we need to do.
If your main contribution is to keep saying, “Things will never change around here,” then, frankly, you are now part of the problem.
Split vote on juvenile justice bills
Citizens’ Voice (Wilkes-Barre)
By Robert Swift
June 24, 2010
HARRISBURG - Two bills addressing the legal fallout from the Luzerne County courthouse scandal were approved Wednesday by a House panel on a mainly party-line vote.
Democratic members on the Children and Youth Committee voted for the bills, while all but two Republican members voted against them.
The main bill by House Majority Leader Todd Eachus, D-Butler Township, would create a $500,000 state fund to provide restitution to Luzerne County residents who were victims of juvenile crime, but didn't receive any court-ordered restitution because of state Supreme Court orders vacating convictions of juvenile offenders sentenced wrongly by former judges Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. and Michael T. Conahan to a privately run detention facility. When the convictions were vacated, the awards were vacated too.
The split vote reflects concerns by GOP lawmakers over how a special fund to provide restitution will be set up.
"This vote does not reflect the attitude that we don't want to help them," said Stephen Miskin, spokesman for House Minority Leader Sam Smith, R-Punxsutawney.
GOP lawmakers were unable to get answers to their questions at the committee level and would likely offer amendments when the bill reaches the House floor, Miskin added.
Their questions were answered fully, said Eachus spokesman Brett Marcy.
"We had hoped this would be such a common-sense bill it would get unanimous support in the committee," he added.
The second bill would expand the jurisdiction of the state Office of Victim Advocates to include victims of juvenile crime.
Eachus introduced the bills earlier this month in the wake of a report by a special state commission investigating the courthouse scandal and its impact on thousands of juvenile offenders. The two former judges face corruption charges for accepting kickbacks for placing offenders in the detention facility. The Interbranch Commission on Juvenile Justice recommended creating a restitution fund for the victims of juvenile crime in those vacated cases, but didn't say where the money should come from.
Eachus proposes transferring money from the state Crime Victims Compensation Fund to set up the special Luzerne County restitution fund. He also proposes a $1 million transfer from the crime victims compensation fund to the state Victim Witness Services Fund so it can continue providing county grants to help victims of juvenile offenders. Under a 2002 law, $1 million was transferred from that fund to help out a then-depleted crime victims compensation fund and the money wasn't repaid, said Eachus spokesman Bill Thomas.
GOP lawmakers are concerned about the potential loss of federal matching dollars to the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency, which runs the fund, Miskin said.
Furthermore, PCCD officials told those lawmakers that other mechanisms exist to provide the restitution and they want to explore that option. The federal dollars are a reimbursement to the state for money spent on victims aid programs so no aid from Washington is jeopardized, Marcy said.
4 Philadelphia boys in Abraxas melee found delinquent
Reading Eagle
By Mary E. Young
June 25, 2010
Four Philadelphia boys in a June 12 melee that injured eight staff members at a New Morgan facility for juvenile offenders were found delinquent Thursday in Berks County Juvenile Court.
Judge Scott E. Lash ordered that the boys be returned to Philadelphia Juvenile Court, which will decide where they will be placed in detention.
Admitting that they committed aggravated assault and conspiracy were Stephen Smith, 16; Kenneth Henderson, 17; Tyreek Torrance, 15; and Marcos Ortiz, 17.
Torrance also admitted that he hit two Abraxas Academy staff members trying to restrain him April 18.
All eight injured staff members were in court, but did not comment. None of the juveniles spoke.
Lash agreed to a request by Assistant District Attorney Catherine J. Nadirov that the Philadelphia court be asked to place the juveniles in secure facilities.
All had been held in the Berks County Youth Center since the brawl that broke bones and caused other injuries to Abraxas staff.
Jaleel Tibby, 18, also of Philadelphia, was charged as an adult with aggravated assault and related offenses. He is being held in the county jail in lieu of $100,000 bail.
The state-licensed academy houses up to 82 male residents, ages 12 through 18, who have committed violent or sexual offenses.
According to court records:
Tibby started the fight by punching counselor Richard Hefner, breaking his nose.
The four juveniles jumped in and continued assaulting Hefner and other staff members who came to his aid.
None of the injuries was life-threatening, but one of the victims suffered a broken facial bone. Another had a torn leg ligament.
Others had injuries to their knees, neck, ribs and wrists.
A video of the melee showed that staff had Tibby and the juveniles under control within three minutes.
Report on office sparks a quarrel
Commissioner Urban, Al Flora at odds over data in study on public defender’s office.
The Times Leader (Wilkes-Barre)
By Steve Mocarsky, Staff Writer
June 25, 2010
A request for additional staffing for the Luzerne County Public Defender’s Office in a report containing supporting statistical data has put Chief Public Defender Al Flora and Commissioner Stephen A. Urban at odds.
The chief public defender says his office uses criteria for determining indigent clients based on standards set by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services poverty income guidelines.
The chief public defender said his report “contains nationally accepted standards” that apply to lawyers in public defender offices.
Urban says Flora “hasn’t been doing his homework,” while Flora finds some of Urban’s comments “bizarre” and called him a “disgrace to his office.”
Neither Urban nor Flora would discuss specifics in the report or release a copy to the newspaper because they didn’t know if all county officials who received a copy had a chance to read it.
Urban did say the fact that the public defender handles 83 percent of the criminal cases in the county “needs to be investigated. Are we simply giving a public defender to anyone who asks for one?”
Regarding those accused of drug dealing, Urban said they don’t show income “on their W-2 forms, but they had money coming in. … And (drunken-driving suspects) have enough money to go get drunk, but they don’t have enough money to hire a lawyer?” Urban said, suggesting the office wasn’t asking “the right questions” on applications.
Urban also said that rather than compare salaries of public defenders in Luzerne County to those in Lackawanna County or rural areas, Flora used comparisons to offices in Harrisburg, Philadelphia and New Jersey, places where the cost of living is higher. He also said Flora failed to factor in retirement and health-care benefits.
“He’s not looking at the cost to the county, so, again, he’s not doing his homework,” Urban said.
He suggested Flora “should look into forfeiture laws” related to drug money seizure as a source of potential funding “instead of digging deeper into the taxpayers’ pockets and making them pay more.”
Urban said Pennsylvania is one of the only states that provides no state funding for the public Defender’s Office and “there needs to be some legislative changes made.” He also noted the office is handling a significant number of mental-health patients.
“Maybe some mental-health monies could be used to defend those people. Simply adding more people and not changing the culture is not going to solve the problem,” Urban said.
Flora: Troubling remarks
Flora said he was “troubled” by Urban’s remarks, saying they were “representative of someone who is incompetent and incapable of understanding” the contents.
He said the report “contains nationally accepted standards and ethical standards that apply to lawyers in public defender offices. I provided the commissioners with a host of information I’m prepared to address with them at an appropriate time and place.”
Flora said his office uses criteria for determining indigent clients based on standards published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services poverty income guidelines, which sets the level for a one-person household at $10,830 per year.
“I can’t imagine what it’s like to live on $10,000 per year. I don’t understand how he (Urban) can suggest that these people don’t deserve representation. It appears he has no respect for anyone who is impoverished. And based on his remarks, it appears he believes anyone charged with a crime is guilty,” Flora said.
He said his office doesn’t have the authority to use forfeiture funds. He said he believes much of that money is used for victims’ restitution.
Flora said it’s not his job to try to have laws changed for additional funding. “I’m not the legislator. … I’m not the elected official; (Urban) is,” he said.
Flora also noted he put together the report within two months of his appointment, something he said has never been done in the history of the county for any office.
He said he prepared it in light of the recommendations of the Interbranch Commission on Juvenile Justice after the juvenile justice scandal in the county. Flora said he thought the commissioners should be aware of what the office was doing to address those recommendations and the resulting staffing needs.
The office revamped its policies last September to require all juveniles be provided publicly funded counsel if they do not have a private attorney. The office previously handled 100 to 200 cases per year prior to the revision. As of January this year, it has already taken on more than 140 cases, all of which are being handled by a single full-time public defender.
Flora’s office operates on an annual $2 million budget. He said the first assistant position he held before his appointment has been vacant since March 17, a part-time public defender position has been vacant since January 2009 and a clerical post has been vacant for some time. His office employs six full-time and 15 part-time defenders, one office administrator, one chief investigator, two investigators and some clerical staff.
Fueling the feud
Another part of the feud stems from the way the media became aware of the report.
Urban criticized Flora for alerting the media to the report before commissioners had a chance to read it, while Flora blasted Urban for publicly criticizing the report without discussing it with him.
Urban said Flora dropped it off for the commissioners on Monday afternoon, “and Tuesday, the press is calling (about it).”
Flora said he didn’t approach the media.
In an unrelated conversation with a Times Leader reporter on Tuesday, Flora mentioned that compiling a report on his office’s caseload was one of the things he has been doing since he was appointed chief public defender on May 12 after Basil Russin’s resignation.
When the reporter asked for a copy of the report, Flora referred the reporter to commissioners and declined to discuss its contents because he didn’t know if commissioners had a chance to read it yet.
Commissioner Chairwoman Maryanne Petrilla said in an e-mail that she “briefly went through” the report and “pass some questions on to Human Resources department that they are working on.” She plans to read the entire report this weekend.
Commissioner Tom Cooney said he read the report and found it “comprehensive.”
Cooney said Flora “spelled out the responsibilities of the office and pointed out shortfalls caused by an increased workload precipitated by picking up coverage of indigent clients for contempt proceedings and mental health hearings as well as all juveniles facing criminal charges.
He said it appears Flora’s office has attorney salaries “misaligned with salaries of other attorneys working for us in the county.” He hopes to “sit down and somehow address some of the issues he’s raising.”
County solicitor Vito DeLuca said he is reviewing whether the report is considered a public record and can be released to the media.
Top Stories - National
Appeal of teen's 7-year prison sentence could alter juvenile justice in Alaska
Anchorage Daily News (AK)
June 12, 2010
When Keen Smith of Anchorage was 16, in 2007, he was charged with felony assault and automatically tried and eventually imprisoned as an adult. (Read the ADN article on his 2009 sentencing here.) Smith's mandatory seven-year sentence is being appealed, and his lawyers hope to use Supreme Court rulings to argue that children shouldn't be automatically treated as adults in the Alaska court system, reports the Anchorage Press.
[Chris Provost of the state Office of Public Advocacy] has crafted an argument for Smith that could make it easier for children in adult court to seek lighter sentences, based on evidence that children don't have the same decision-making abilities as adults. "Their brains aren't fully developed, and the Supreme Court has adopted the science," Provost says. So Smith's appeal has a chance to reform the way Alaska treats young offenders who've been waived into the adult court and prison systems.
In arguments for Smith, Provosts cites Roper v. Simmons, a 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision that found death sentences unconstitutional when imposed on people under the age of 18. That ruling changed age limits on death-penalty laws in 25 states, and did so by recognizing a scientific explanation for the bad decisions teenagers make.
Provost cites a handful of other Supreme Court decisions to bolster the argument. They add up to this: Youth don't process cause-and-effect as well as adults. They can't think about the consequences of their own actions the way adults can. In youth crimes, the adage "cooler heads prevail" is often overridden by something called "hot cognition," a state of mind during which a person's actions are controlled by feelings and emotions, rather than an analysis of what might happen if they take action.
Provost hopes this case will establish precedent for treatment of all juvenile defendants in Alaska.
Smith spent 17 months at the Anchorage Correctional Complex East, most of it in segration -- essentially, solitary confinement -- to protect him from adult inmates, the Press writes. The state at the time didn't have facilities to house juveniles apart from adults. He now has a GED and is attending the so-called "Spring Creek School" youth offender program inside the prison in Seward.
Can D.C. end its juvenile justice farce?
The Washington Post (DC)
By Colbert I. King
June 12, 2010
I wish I could say that the slaughter of black youth by other black youth is ending. It's not.
The killings go on, largely unnoticed, because death doesn't come in clusters (the possible exception being the March 30 drive-by shooting on South Capitol Street that left three dead).
Thus you are forgiven for not knowing about Eugene Jeffrey Dixon, 17, of Brandywine Street SE, who was killed a couple of weeks ago in Oxon Hill; or that 17-year-old Durand Lucas was shot and killed over the weekend, as reported by Bill Myers of the Examiner.
You have no way of knowing that at the time of their deaths, Dixon and Lucas were under the supervision of the city's Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, also reported by the Examiner. Or that at least four juvenile offenders under D.C. supervision have been killed this year and that at least nine others have been charged with murder.
You are in the dark about those things because they make the city look bad, especially DYRS and its champion, Mayor Adrian Fenty.
In our nation's capital, juvenile justice is a revolving door, with young criminals returning to the streets almost before the arresting cops can catch their breath. It's called community placement.
Asked by the Examiner if the DYRS anti-detention, community-based approach is still working, Peter Nickles -- more the mayor's consigliore than the city's attorney general -- said, "I don't think it has failed."
Thank goodness Nickles, Fenty and DYRS don't have the last word on public safety and the rehabilitation of young offenders.
D.C. Council member David Catania (I-At Large), a tenacious and effective legislator, doesn't share the laissez faire attitude toward juvenile crime that is so prevalent in city hall. This week Catania announced the appointment of the noted law firm Nixon Peabody LLP to serve as special counsel to his health committee to look for solutions to the city's chronic problem of youth violence.
"This much is clear," Catania said in a news release, "the District's current approach to addressing these problems is not working, and it is time for us to consider fresh ideas.
"The March 30 shootings on South Capitol Street," the statement said, "highlighted a problem that has existed for far too long in our city." And he put his finger on the situation: "Many of our kids are being raised without the parenting and support they need to develop socially."
"Frequently," said Catania, "this leads to behavioral problems and violence." Would that the mayor could, at least, acknowledge that truth. Instead, Fenty relies on a DYRS strategy that places juvenile offenders in the community under the supervision of contractors, some of whom can hardly take care of themselves.
Catania knows what Fenty seems not to have learned: What's needed is targeted mental health intervention and professional therapeutic treatment -- the kind that troubled middle-class youths get -- and increased accountability for parents and guardians.
Nardyne Jeffries, a mother who experienced mayhem when her daughter was one of three people killed in the South Capitol Street drive-by, joined Catania at the law firm where the announcement was made. Expressing support for his initiative, Mrs. Jeffries said in a statement: "We cannot afford more platitudes and empty rhetoric from our public officials. It is time to get serious and develop new approaches to preventing future gun violence."
Catania is clearly steering into the bailiwick of Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6), who chairs the D.C. Council committee that oversees DYRS. Asked about Catania's intervention, Wells said in an interview Friday, "It's great. I definitely welcome other colleagues who are willing to look into this."
Wells can probably use some help with his council duties anyway, since he now has a full-on challenge to his reelection. This week, Kelvin J. Robinson, chairman and former public safety chairman of an Advisory Neighborhood Commission in Ward 6, withdrew from the race for an at-large council seat to run against Wells in the September Democratic primary.
Public safety is one of Robinson's chief issues.
"I understand [Wells's] desire for a more 'walkable and livable city,' " Robinson told me in an interview this week. "But," he added, "I'm more concerned about Ward 6 residents who are afraid of walking down the street."
Robinson promises a "robust debate" with Wells over juvenile justice strategies as well as programs that address a broader range of Ward 6 residents.
Asked about getting a primary opponent, Wells said that "Robinson is a credible guy" and that "Ward 6 will benefit from having a debate over different ideas."
Even as the bodies keep falling.
Group Wants Governor to Sign Juvenile Justice Bills
WGIL-AM (IL)
June 12, 2010
The Juvenile Justice Initiative is happy with its accomplishments during the spring legislative session, and hopes the governor will sign a group of measures that it supports.
The group's policy advocate, Mary Reynolds, says one measure will let an existing group -- the Juvenile Justice Coalition -- rather than a new task force study whether 17-year olds who are charged with felonies can be tried as juveniles in Illinois. A change last year put 17-year olds back in the juvenile court system if they are charged with misdemeanors.
Another bill would allow counseling or community service or both in sexting cases. Reynold says many of the kids charged with this new crime are 12 or 13 years old, and says they don't understand the impact of passing nude photos along to others. This measure would not affect the person who took the photos and first distributed them without permission. A third bill would protect the information obtained during mental health screening services. Reynolds says it's critical that these kids are fully open in that part of the process, without the fear of incriminating themselves.
Mentally ill minors put in juvenile hall
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin (CA)
By Mediha Fejzagic DiMartino
June 12, 2010
Juvenile halls have become catch-all basins for severely mentally ill youth.
Designed as secure holding facilities for minors who are going through the court system, juvenile detention centers now double as a default placement option for youth diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or major depression.
"There is no place for them in the county," said Marsha Slough, a San Bernardino County juvenile court judge. "They need a locked treatment facility and we don't have one. I think that's tragic. We've got to show these kids that they do matter. We can't just arrest our way out of the problem. Juvenile hall is not a place to house mentally ill."
In recent years, the burden of caring for youth offenders has shifted from the state to the counties.
Senate Bill 81, which was signed into law in 2007, has changed the circumstances under which minors can be committed to state facilities such as the now closed Herman G. Stark Youth Correctional Facility in Chino.
The law put a stop to a common practice by juvenile probation departments of farming out to the state their seriously, mentally ill minors - unless they've committed "707" violent offenses, such as homicide or robbery.
"Before, a judge had an option to commit them to the California Youth Authority," said Barry Krisberg, a senior fellow and lecturer in residence at the Berkeley Center for Criminal Justice. "Now the county has to bear the cost of it."
Experts estimate that from 40 percent to 70 percent of youth in the juvenile justice system suffer from some form of mental health disorder or an illness - anything from ADHD to full blown psychosis. About 15 percent to 25 percent have mental illnesses "severe enough to significantly impair their ability to function."
"Most of the time, minor's mental illness hasn't been identified yet, and they receive no services until something happens, when they break the law." said Dr. Teresa Frausto, Department of Behavioral Health' clinic medical director. "They've experienced trauma in early childhood and usually no one dealt with it until (the minor) ends up in juvenile hall. Most of these kids are tragic cases."
When minors are booked at one of San Bernardino County's three juvenile halls, their mental health needs are assessed within the first 24 hours by the Forensic Adolescent Services Team.
Since most minors experience some emotional distress while being arrested and detained, FAST also takes care of their mental health needs throughout the incarceration.
Treatment-compliant, non-violent youth move through the juvenile hall fairly quickly thanks to a collaboration between county's Probation Department and DBH.
Minors participating in Court for the Individualized Treatment of Adolescents remain at home while on probation and participate in an outpatient psychiatric therapy. They are held accountable through frequent meetings with the CITA court judge and actions are taken according to minors' compliance with the treatment plan.
Successful treatment of minors is often tied to their family situation. Unlike adults, they depend on their parents for basic needs such as food and shelter.
To better serve mentally ill youth, DBH has implemented the Integrated New Family Opportunities program, which provides "assertive family and community involvement" in the treatment of minors. It also provides round-the-clock case management and support once minors are released from detention.
"We try to place the minors in a least restrictive setting," said Tina Mason, a supervising probation officer. "On first offense, they are usually put on probation and sent home - assuming they have a home to go to."
Then there are youths whom no one can successfully deal with - they exhibit psychotic thinking, have violent behavioral problems, are frequent ruanways, refuse to take their medication and present dangers to themselves and others.
"Our goal is to rehabilitate them," Mason said. "Usually, their crimes are motivated by their illness."
Although they present a small percentage of the overall juvenile hall population, they "require extraordinary resources to maintain them in an environment that was not originally intended to provide an appropriate treatment response," according to a report prepared for the Chief Probation Officers of California and California Mental Health Directors Association.
When S.B. 81 passed, counties were given financial incentives to house juvenile offenders closer to their homes, in the belief that most youths benefit more from rehabilitation when they are closer to their families and to the social services in their community once they are released on parole, said Bill Sessa, spokesman for the Department of Juvenile Justice.
But minors' behavioral or symptom profiles often raise red flags with private, community-based placement, Mason said.
"Certain offenders like arsonists, no one is going to take them," said Michelle Scray, a San Bernardino County's chief probation officer. "They end up in juvenile hall."
Delays in placement can average as much as 18 days longer than for youths without mental disorders, the report stated. Some youths with severe risk of suicide or symptoms of psychoses remain detained up to two years.
"At the average daily facility rate of $206, youth with these problems can cost up to $7,210 more in facility rates alone," the report stated.
After adding up the cost of therapy and other specialized treatment, the additional cost jumps to $18,800.
According to a report released by the U.S. House of Representatives in 2004, nearly 15,000 juveniles were in detention nationwide because there was no bed available in an adequate community mental health facility. The cost for such detentions was estimated at $100 million each year.
San Bernardino County's Juvenile Probation Department in 2009 spent $429,303 in overtime cost on roughly 40 mentally ill minors for services such as suicide watch, intensive treatment watch and transportation to Loma Linda University Medical Center because they refused to take their medication.
And that is in addition to $335,619 paid out in regular work hours.
Los Angeles County averages 50 difficult-to-place youth per day in each of its three youth detention facilities. The county's annual cost of psychiatric medications for detained youth was reported to be almost $2 million.
"It gets very costly, but I can't not do it," said Kirk Dayton, San Bernardino County's deputy chief probation officer.
Juvenile halls don't have a choice - they have to take back youth who are brought in due to placement failures, Scray said.
They often "divert staff resources, interfere with daily programs and activities, and create safety concerns," the Chief Probation Officers of California's report stated.
"It's not fair to other wards," Slough said.
Probation staff checks on minors every 15 minutes. Those on suicide watch, classified as Level 1, are visited every 10 minutes; Level 2 are visited every five minutes, while Level 3 requires a constant watch with the room door open.
"We deal with these kids repeatedly," Dayton said. "It's wear and tear on staff. Suicide watch requires one- on-one attention. That is not what this profession is supposed to be."
Detaining mentally ill youth in juvenile halls also affects their own stability and health, according to a brief published last month by the Berkeley Center for Criminal Justice.
While DBH has FAST treatment units in each juvenile hall, their purpose is mainly to "intervene in crisis and stabilize" the youth, Mason said.
During counseling sessions, minors sometimes touch on issues that may be difficult to deal with in a detention facility.
"These kids need ongoing treatment," she said. "A detention facility is not the right setting."
Youth who are brought to the juvenile hall are often distrusting of anyone, said Gloria Morrow, a clinical psychologist from Upland who once provided individual psychotherapy to juveniles housed at county's juvenile halls.
"Hard-to-place youth have often been abused or abandoned in the past," Morrow said. "They are unable to let their guard down. It takes time for that to happen. Providing therapy in a cell is not the most nurturing way to help someone."
She remembers counseling a "15-year-old Latino boy" who was initially diagnosed with ADHD, but also exhibited symptoms of depression. He ended up staying two years at the juvenile hall.
"He went through three or four placements," Morrow said. "He would just run away or commit a crime and end up back in the system. He thought counseling is brainwashing. He made poor choices because of his mental illness."
In some instances, especially when running away is an issue, an adequate placement in the same county or even state is not an option.
"Needs of certain kids cannot be met in our facilities," Scray said. "We are forced to send these kids out of state. If you can't keep them, you can't treat them."
Unlike juvenile halls, residential placements are not locked facilities - state law forbids locking away minors unless they are being detained. Although youth are warned of consequences if they leave, there are no bolts on any of the doors.
"California has very specific rules," Scray said. "Placement facilities are not allowed to restrain unless the minor is an immediate danger to self or others."
Other states offer higher levels of care, and Scray's team has relied on them to take in difficult or special cases.
One such facility in Iowa focuses on rehabilitating sexually exploited girls.
"It's in the middle of cornfields," Scray said. "It's remote, away from people and difficult to run away from."
The county's Probation Department is dealing with a much larger number of significantly mentally ill kids who are identified at an even earlier age than generations before, Scray said.
"We are seeing a new onset of psychotic kids who are very challenging, in the beginning of their psychiatric illness," Frausto said. "Usually schizophrenia is seen in 20 to 30 years old."
But placement opportunities have not followed the growth in numbers of youth in need of services.
DBH was once able to count on San Bernardino's Shandin Hills Adolescent Center, a residential facility with capabilities to serve such youth, until it shut down in 2005.
Building a regional, locked psychiatric hospital for youth with extreme mental health needs would be a good alternative to detention stretching out several months or years, Krisberg said.
"We need a licenced facility that speaks to those kind of issues, lack of that level of support," Scray said.
Probation officials from Los Angeles County have already proposed "building a 70-bed mental health facility next to one of the county's juvenile halls to house the most seriously mentally ill youth who must be held in custody due to the lack of a secure facility," the Berkeley Center for Criminal Justice's brief stated.
And experts say the investment will pay off.
A 2006 report titled "Are Violent Delinquents Worth Treating? A Cost-Benefit Analysis" published by Journal of Research and Crime Delinquency found that the initial costs of an intensive mental health treatment program were offset by improved treatment progress and lowered recidivism, especially violent recidivism.
"The treatment group yielded a benefit-cost ratio of more than 7-to-1," the report stated.
Defense attorney Robert Friedman has been contracting with San Bernardino County's Public Defender's Office for the past 25 years.
"San Bernardino has made big steps forward but it's still a very needy community," Friedman said.
"We need access to more intense facility for severely ill wards, but that comes down to the almighty dollar."
To mitigate cost, the Berkeley Center for Criminal Justice's brief suggests "inter-county collaboration" - counties can pool their resources to build a shared facility or those with relatively low numbers of high-need youth can contract with neighboring counties for bed space at their facilities.
"It's a huge expense, but it's something that has to be dealt with," Friedman said.
County team begins to tackle racial disparities in criminal justice
The Capital Times (WI)
By STEVEN ELBOW
June 14, 2010
We've heard a lot of talk about the staggering racial disparities in the state's criminal justice system in recent years. Wisconsin has routinely ranked at or near the top of states for the rate at which it locks up blacks compared with whites. And Dane County's progressive reputation has been tarnished by the rate at which it sends black offenders to prison - nearly half of black men between the ages of 25 and 29 residing in the county are either incarcerated or under court-ordered supervision. According to a study by Pam Oliver, a UW sociology professor, black men in Dane County are 21 times more likely to be incarcerated than white men. And according to a Justice Policy Institute report in 2007, black men in Dane County were 97 times more likely to be incarcerated for drug crimes, the second-highest rate in the nation.
A team from Dane County will take on the daunting task of tackling that problem, meeting for the first time on Monday. It will be their job to take recommendations released last fall by the Dane County Task Force on Racial Disparities in the Criminal Justice System and make them work.
Celia Jackson, the chair of the implementation team who also chaired the task force, says part of the mission will be to build popular support for addressing a situation that for decades has been brushed under the rug.
"There are a lot of things about Madison and Dane County that are very progressive," says Jackson, secretary of the state Department of Regulation and Licensing and a former Milwaukee County prosecutor. "But when we talk about race ... I think we still have a long way to go. Nobody really likes to talk about it."
The task force has made more than 80 recommendations to reduce racial disparities, but has offered 10 priority recommendations including: finding additional funding for jail diversion programs; establishing a restorative justice program that would take some minor offenders out of the justice system and place them before a community-based panel; boosting mental health resources for offenders returning to the community; and making it easier for people getting out of jail to get a driver's license, which can help individuals secure employment and housing.
Acknowledging tough budget times, the task force also made 10 recommendations that require no funding, including requiring racial impact statements before implementing policies or ordinances, taking steps to reduce job discrimination based on race and ex-offender status, increasing the number of minorities working in the criminal justice system, and supporting legislative proposals to reduce driver's license suspensions for failure to pay child support, drug violations and unpaid traffic citations.
Jackson says it will take some time for the members of the implementation team - the directors of the Urban League of Greater Madison, the Prison Ministry Project, Vision Beyond Bars, as well as an adult educator, a psychologist and officials from the city of Madison and Dane County - to get up to speed. None of them but Jackson were on the task force that made the recommendations.
"There's going to need to be some time where people get acclimated to the work that's been done, and also we've got to create relationships and some synergy among the cast of characters that are coming together to do the implementation," says Jackson. "It's something we'll be engaged in for the long haul. It's not going to happen overnight."
The implementation group is one of several initiatives on the local and state levels to set things right.
Similar efforts are taking place in the county juvenile system, where black youths are far more likely than whites to be referred to juvenile court, placed in secure detention, charged and found delinquent.
Bob Lee, children, youth and families administrator for the Dane County Department of Human Services, co-chaired a juvenile justice work group that offered more than 50 recommendations that focused on family and community support efforts, court processes, law enforcement strategies, community alternatives to the court system, skills development and other factors that could help kids stay out of the system.
He says six work groups have been formed and they have until September to come up with ways to implement recommendations made by the group.
Dane County District Attorney Brian Blanchard, who served on the governor's commission and the county task force, says his office has been working to reduce racial disparities for years.
The office has started programs to identify defendants with drug treatment needs and has expanded eligibility for the county's drug court program. It has started a deferred prosecution program that gives special counseling to young black male offenders to keep them out of trouble.
And four of the office's 25 permanent assistant district attorneys are black.
"I believe we have the highest percentage of African American prosecutors in the history of this office," Blanchard says.
Grew from state initiative
The county efforts grew out of a state initiative that began shortly after the January 2007 release of a National Council on Crime and Delinquency report showing that Wisconsin led the nation in the rate of minority youths that were placed in juvenile detention and also led the nation in the number of blacks under the age of 18 sent to adult prison.
Gov. Jim Doyle swiftly named a task force to address the problem, and the group made 57 recommendations, one of them to urge local governments to work on solutions.
The commission's recommendations also led to a governor's mandate to the Department of Corrections to review policies and enact changes to help released inmates stay out of prison. The department has been working on policies to make it easier for inmates to get driver's licenses or identification cards while incarcerated, increase post-release job and treatment resources, and find alternatives to probation and parole revocations.
But so far the extent of disparity is unchanged. Blacks, who comprise about 6 percent of the state's population, make up about 45 percent of the state's prison population and about 44 percent of Dane County Jail population.
And despite efforts to address disparities, roughly half of adults and 53 percent of juveniles arrested by the Madison Police Department are black though they only make up 6.4 percent of the population.
Madison Police Chief Noble Wray has a vested interest in rolling back those disparities. As co-chairman of the state racial disparities task force and chairman of an on-going oversight commission that tracks local efforts and advocates for changes on the state level, he has been a central player in addressing the disparities issue.
"It is a long and constant endeavor, and it will take people focusing on this issue for some time before we see a substantial change," he says.
Wray has been working on the problem in Madison for years. But it's difficult to make a dent in the numbers. For instance, in 2003 the city began collecting fines for municipal warrants, which totaled over 2,300 in 2002, from tax returns rather than making arrests. The policy has nearly eliminated arrests for municipal warrants and wiped nearly 1,200 of the warrants issued to blacks off the arrest logs. But it also eliminated nearly 1,000 warrants issued to whites.
So while it has had some impact, the gains are offset by other imbalances. For instance, arrest records show that blacks were arrested in Madison 4,061 times for probation violations last year, compared with 1,801 times for whites. And arrests of blacks for warrants from other agencies outnumbered whites 2,207 to 1,556.
While officials work to reduce disparities within the system, Wray stresses that there also needs to be a sea change in the attitudes of the offenders.
"This will not change unless there is personal responsibility on the part of the people who are being arrested," he says.
How did we get in this mess?
Wray points to a number of factors.
First, of all, conscious or not, there is a racial bias on all levels of the criminal justice system. And a decades-long focus on drug crimes has hit the minority community hard.
"Historically in this community I think we saw the change in the 80s and 90s when we started focusing on certain neighborhoods and certain types of crimes," he says.
Then there's the achievement gap, one of the highest in the nation.
Madison is rife with good jobs - if you're working for the university, hospitals or government.
Minorities, who make up a disproportionate number of poor families, have less access to education, and they are finding it hard to find unskilled jobs that provide a living wage.
"There are two worlds in Madison," Wray says.
Minority populations, typically at the bottom of the income scale, are more likely to engage in low-level criminal activity, particularly drug activity, in the open, and are less likely to be able to afford competent legal representation once they're in the system.
And studies have found that areas that have small minority populations, like Dane County, tend to have higher disparities.
"All of those things have created a perfect storm in Dane County, and the state of Wisconsin," Wray says.
[Editor's note: This story has been changed to reflect a correction. Originally the story indicated that the arrests of nearly 1,200 blacks and about 1,000 whites in 2002 were eliminated when the Madison Police Department started garnishing tax returns for fines relating to municipal warrants. That information was changed to reflect that possibility that any one individual could have been issued more than one warrant.]
Harry Jaffe: Time to plug a huge hole in D.C.'s criminal justice system
The Washington Examiner
By Harry Jaffe
June 15, 2010
Last Friday, D.C.'s beleaguered youth rehab agency took a moment to celebrate.
Eleven youngsters who had been in trouble -- for anything from stealing a car to shooting up a street corner -- were graduating from Maya Angelou Academy, the branch of the charter high school that teaches troubled kids at the city's reform school, New Beginnings -- a truly Orwellian moniker.
New Beginnings has made the news for its porous security system that allows young criminals to abscond. And the Department of Youth and Rehabilitative Services has gotten attention because its wards have been trigger men in many of the high-profile crimes committed of late.
It's easy to throw brickbats at the city's juvenile justice system; it's grueling work to try to teach kids who have come up rough and broken bad. DYRS and the Maya Angelou Academy deserve major kudos for getting nearly a dozen kids through high school. Ten have either applied to college or been accepted. Approximately 600 of the 950 kids with the agency are in high school.
Back to the bad news. Bill Myers, my colleague on the crime beat, reported this week that Durand Lucas, 17, was the fourth juvenile to be killed this year while under DYRS supervision. There could be more. Privacy laws shield the youth agency's files. Myers has also reported that nine kids who have been charged with murder this year were under DYRS supervision.
So with all due kudos for Friday's graduates, I must ask: What the heck are we going to do to keep ourselves safe from the bad actors that DYRS cannot seem to keep off the streets? My chat with D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles offered a glimmer of hope.
"I think the police have done an amazing job holding down crime in the city," Nickles said, "but violent crime by juveniles has increased."
Nickles has been digging into records of crimes committed by kids for the past few years.
"The victims and the perpetrators know one another," he says, "and they all have long arrest records -- as in seven to 10 arrests each. Everyone knows who these kids are, and everyone is scared to death of them."
The attorney general has realized what every cop and prosecutor and resident of D.C.'s tough streets knows: Most of the crimes are committed by a few bad apples, and most of the bad actors are kids. Now what?
Nickles is about to propose major reforms. One would force DYRS to tighten its security and keep better tabs of its wards. The second would open juvenile records for public review.
The question then becomes whether the city council has the good sense and guts to pass laws that would protect us from violent kids. Any reforms will come before Tommy Wells, whose committee oversees DYRS. Wells has praised the agency's sweet side, which was on display for the graduation, but it's time to give cops and prosecutors tools to keep us safe from those who would rather shoot guns than read books.
Friday night's graduates would agree.
Harry Jaffe's column appears on Tuesday and Friday. He can be contacted at hjaffe@
Opinion: Juvenile justice
Winston Salem-Journal (NC)
June 16, 2010
A sad truism of our court system is that juvenile offenders often become adult offenders. Leaders in Forsyth County are incorporating a national program, Reclaiming Futures, that aims to break that cycle by getting the offenders off alcohol and drugs. With public support, this program could work -- and improve our community in the process.
As many as 67 percent of young people involved in the juvenile-justice system also have a substance-abuse problem. Some were drunk or high when they committed crimes. Others were arrested for drug or alcohol offenses. Reclaiming Futures, started with money from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, aims to ensure that the young offenders get the treatment they need.
"We want to get at the cause," said Karen McNeil-Miller of the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust, which is financially supporting the local initiative and five more across North Carolina with $1.8 million.
Chief District Judge William Reingold, who is overseeing the project, said that "if we have any hope that they (juvenile offenders) will learn from their mistakes, punishment can't be the only answer."
The program wants each of the hundreds of juveniles who come through the local system each year to be assessed for substance abuse and mental-health problems, and, if needed, to be referred to treatment. Juvenile-court officials are using an assessment specifically designed for young people, the Journal's Michael Hewlett reported.
"We know that what works for adults doesn't necessarily work for teens," said Mina Cook, the director of the local project.
The problems that juvenile offenders experience didn't happen overnight, and they won't be solved overnight, Reingold said. Community support, including mentors, is crucial in keeping these young people from reverting to bad habits, he said. So is engaging the families of the youths, and keeping the youths in school. Most important, Reingold said, is making sure that the support for the young people continues long after they leave the juvenile-justice system.
Many of us could offer that assistance, whether in the form of mentoring or something else. There is a feeling of accomplishment that comes from making a difference in a young person's life -- and in working to better the community we share.
Editorial: Keep juvenile records where public can see them
The News Tribune (WA)
June 17, 2010
A work group for the Washington state court system meets Friday to discuss whether juvenile delinquents should be spared one of the consequences of their lawbreaking.
The answer should be obvious: Courts do young offenders and society no favors by minimizing wrongdoing.
The discussion stems from a request by the Washington State Bar Association’s Juvenile Law Section to remove juvenile records from the public search function on the state courts website.
The state Administrative Office of the Courts’ website permits anyone to search Washington criminal and civil cases associated with a person’s name. At most, the system provides access to basic docket information about the cases; in many instances, even that level of detail is not available.
This is a big deal. If the state courts website were scrubbed of juvenile records, the suspected shooter in an Edgewood home-invasion robbery earlier this year would look like a young man whose life had only recently taken a wrong turn.
The reality is Kiyoshi Higashi’s history shows a long, escalating trajectory that begins at age 10. The bulk of his criminal record happened before he became an adult.
But lawyers who want minors’ records stripped from the public website argue that easy access to that information violates the premise of a juvenile justice system that promotes rehabilitation over punishment.
Mind you, the lawyers don’t want those records sealed. Their proposal would merely would frustrate public inspection of the records.
Without the state court website, finding out if that kid down the block just acts like a thug or actually is one would require a personal visit to the court clerk’s office, possibly several court clerk’s offices if he’s moved around.
Say the kid is a thief. Public knowledge of his misdeeds might invite stigma; it also probably will keep the neighborhood on alert and help keep him on his toes. Shame itself is a powerful deterrent. So too is a watchful community.
Proponents of removing juvenile records from the online database say they are concerned about an inherent flaw in electronic court records, which often do not provide enough detail to correctly gauge the severity of a crime or disposition of the case.
But that is a separate issue that affects adults, too. They are just as susceptible as juveniles to being unfairly tarred by court records. There is no safeguard against carelessness or malice; the light of day is our best defense.
Thwarting public access only invites distrust. It also robs the criminal justice system of a key tool: public accountability. Anonymity seldom helps keep a scofflaw on the straight and narrow.
'Sexting' ban gets Senate's approval
It blunts penalties in House bill
The Times-Picayune (LA)
By Ed Anderson
June 17, 2010
BATON ROUGE -- The Senate rewrote, then passed, Wednesday a bill that would ban "sexting," or the transmission of lewd or indecent images by cell phone or other electronic means.
The Senate softened the penalties for the mainly juvenile crime to keep teenagers from going to jail or being fined for a first conviction as House Bill 1357 by Rep. Damon Baldone, D-Houma, originally called for.
The House must now approve or reject the Senate changes.
Sen. Conrad Appel, R-Metairie, said Baldone's original bill set penalties of 10 to 30 days in jail or ordered a violator under 17 to perform 10 eight-hour days of community service.
Appel said that while he is not defending sending suggestive images, the state should not subject a teen to jail for something that is relatively minor.
At Appel's request, the Senate approved an amendment that calls for parents who suspect a minor child is receiving the suggestive texts from another minor to file a complaint for investigation by the state Office of Juvenile Justice. If an administrative law judge finds that there has been an improper transmission, the youth can receive a civil fine of up to $100 for the first three violations.
If the situation continues, the district attorney can file criminal charges. Youths under 17 convicted on the first offense could be sentenced to up to six months in jail, fined up to $500 or both. On a second conviction, the violator could be fined up to $2,000, jailed for up to a year or both.
Subsequent convictions could result in fines up to $5,000, a jail sentence of one to three years or both.
If the image is sent to a minor by someone who is 18 or older, the offender could be sentenced to a maximum one year in jail, assessed a fine of up to $3,000 or both.
Also Wednesday, legislation to prohibit the use of tracking devices to keep tabs on another person without consent breezed through the House after undergoing slight modifications.
Lawmakers voted 84-0 for Senate Bill 801 by Sen. Neil Riser, R-Columbia, sending it back to the Senate for approval of the changes.
Riser's bill would ban anyone from using the devices to "determine the location or movement of another ... without the consent of that person."
Violators could face fines of $100 to $500, up to six months in jail or both.
Rep. Noble Ellington, D-Winnsboro, who handled Riser's bill in the House, said that exceptions have been added so law enforcement officers -- with court orders -- can keep tabs on criminals or suspects; parents can track the whereabouts of their children; police can watch the movements of offenders on probation or under supervision; and companies can track the movement of commercial drivers.
Editorial: Too young for adult court
The Reporter (CA)
June 18, 2010
A decision to prosecute two young teens as adults in an armed robbery that injured a Vallejo woman raises questions about juvenile justice in Solano County.
In the highly publicized case, Amarjit Kaur, a mother of three and a popular ice cream vendor, was shot when she refused to turn over money during a robbery in February. She survived, although she is still recovering.
Within a week, Vallejo police had identified suspects in the case and made an arrest. Last week, Peter Montenegro, who was 15 at the time but who has since turned 16, was ordered to stand trial in Solano County Superior Court on charges of attempted murder and robbery. A second youth, 14-year-old Joseph Beverly, is also being charged as an adult. Prosecutors claim that Peter pulled the trigger, but that it was Joseph who brought the gun to school.
Armed robbery is a serious accusation, and Mrs. Kaur is certainly lucky not to have been killed. Still, one wonders why this case isn't being heard in Juvenile Court.
Yes, prosecutors have the right to file certain cases directly in an adult court, thanks to the "Gang Violence and Juvenile Crime Prevention Act" (Proposition 21) adopted by California voters a decade ago. But just because one can do something doesn't mean one should.
The juvenile justice system is set up to focus on rehabilitation because of a longstanding belief that young people should be given every opportunity to take their place in civilized society. That belief has been given scientific credibility in recent years, as the U.S. Supreme Court noted in recent decisions when it ruled that juveniles cannot be sentenced to death or, in cases where no one was killed, to life in prison without the possibility of parole because it violates the Constitution's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
In both cases, the court took note of developments in "psychology and brain science" that "continue to show fundamental differences between juvenile and adult minds. For example, parts of the brain involved in behavior control continue to mature through late adolescence."
The district attorney says his office does not file many juvenile cases in adult court, reserving that option for "only the most dangerous offenders who have committed the most heinous crimes."
Indeed, records indicate that only four to eight cases a year have been filed since 2005.
It's hard to know just how many of those youths were older teens, on the cusp of adulthood. This case, however, involves young teens who, if found guilty of the accusations, deserve to be given every chance to be rehabilitated. They aren't likely to get that in adult court.
Path to court for shackled Broward juveniles is shameful spectacle, public defender says
Chief judge: No alternatives due to courthouse's limited entries and pathways
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
By Tonya Alanez
June 18, 2010
Whether accused of petty theft or strong-arm robbery, marijuana possession or grand theft auto, youths in Broward County are led to juvenile court in chains.
Restrained by ankle shackles, belly chains and handcuffs, they're escorted by deputies through crowded hallways and onto elevators while the public looks on.
Before entering the courtroom, however, their restraints are removed. That's because the Florida Supreme Court has deemed the indiscriminate shackling of minors during court appearances "repugnant, degrading and humiliating," and contrary to the rehabilitative goals of the juvenile justice system.
But by the time the juveniles come before a judge, they've already been humiliated, says Broward Public Defender Howard Finkelstein. He says Broward officials in charge of juvenile offenders are following the letter of the Supreme Court decision, but not its spirit.
"The greatest insult of them all is that we take our children and we parade them through the public corridors where anybody and everybody can see our children handcuffed and shackled," Finkelstein said. "The only thing missing is the scarlet letter S for 'shame' emblazoned on their foreheads."
Broward Chief Judge Victor Tobin doesn't disagree. In fact, he came on strong after the state Supreme Court issued its directive in December, announcing at a courthouse meeting that he wanted to see an end to the shackling practice, which is supposed to ensure public safety.
But now, after Tobin and county officials have explored alternative routes of getting juveniles safely to and from court, the chief judge says his hands, too, are metaphorically tied.
"As it turns out, it's next to impossible to accomplish," Tobin said. "I do want to see an end to it. There should be an end to it, but there is nothing I can do. I don't have a magic wand to change the layout of the building."
When Broward County builds a new courthouse, the problem will be solved, the judge said, because separate, private pathways for juveniles will be designed and built into it. But construction on the new courthouse won't begin until 2011 at the earliest, with best estimates for completion not until 2014.
Since Florida's highest court laid down the law on the shackling of juveniles, the practice has been discontinued in Palm Beach County courts.
In West Palm Beach, defendants in juvenile trials ride a private elevator, then enter a holding cell adjacent to the courtroom where their restraints are removed, said Barbara White, chief of the juvenile division for the Palm Beach County Public Defender's Office.
"The children are not walking through hallways or anything like that," she said. "They are unshackled before being taken into the courtroom and being seen by the public. It's been working well, and it's really nice having them in the courtroom with no restraints on them."
By forbidding the restraint of youths during appearances in juvenile court, Florida's Supreme Court adopted the recommendations of the National Juvenile Defender Center, an advocacy group that says the custom runs counter to the purpose of rehabilitating minors and the principles of therapeutic justice.
The justices in Tallahassee said juveniles in Florida should be shackled only if a judge finds that they are likely to be violent or dangerous. The ruling does not apply to minors who are charged as adults.
Gordon Weekes, the chief assistant public defender who oversees juvenile cases in Broward County, said the decision, as well as a ruling last month by the U.S. Supreme Court banning life sentences for juveniles convicted of anything short of homicide, shows the high courts believe that "juveniles should be treated differently."
Weekes emphasized that a majority of the juveniles are not in court for violent crimes, but for minor offenses like petty theft, criminal mischief and missing court dates.
In Broward, the state Department of Juvenile Justice transports youths to the courthouse from juvenile detention. At the courthouse, the department and the Broward Sheriff's Office assume joint responsibility for getting the juveniles from transport vans to the courtrooms. The young defendants ride elevators up to the third floor, where they transfer to crowded public elevators that take them to the floors where their hearings are being held. Before entering the courtroom, they're taken into adjacent rooms where their clanking restraints are removed.
Along the way, they are stared at, snickered at and scowled at, Weekes said.
"I think the harm associated with being shackled and paraded through the courthouse is much more punitive than any portion of sitting in court and dealing with the court proceedings," he said.
The Sheriff's Office redirected comments on the practice to the state Department of Juvenile Justice.
The department is open to alternatives, but its policy is to transport juveniles to and from court in restraints, said Rick Bedson, regional director of detention services. Transporting them without restraints is not an option, he said.
"The ultimate issue is that we keep kids safe and that we keep the public safe," Bedson said. "The department is willing to work with the county and their resources in any way that accommodates the concerns of keeping the kids and the community safe."
Where there's a will, there's a way, counters Finkelstein. He says it would be inhumane to sit back and wait years for a new courthouse to solve the problem.
"Our children should not be made into spectacles," he said. "If we can get a man on the moon, we can figure out how to get kids upstairs on an elevator in private."
He has proposed using elevators now reserved for judges to get the juveniles to court.
Tobin calls that impractical and unsafe.
"I appreciate Mr. Finkelstein putting some thought into it, but I can't unsecure a secure area of the courthouse," Tobin said. "I would be taking the one secure area that we have in the whole courthouse. That's just not a workable thing."
Behind the scenes, juvenile courtroom chaos has purpose
San Antonio Express-News (TX)
By Veronica Flores-Paniagua
June 19, 2010
Since the mid-1990s, municipal courts and justice of the peace courts have served as a sort-of front line for addressing juvenile delinquency.
The Legislature made it so because juvenile courts in the state district court system couldn't keep up with overwhelming caseloads. The municipal and JP courts now handle most Class C misdemeanors involving juveniles, including truancy. A typical case might involve a student who gets into a fight at school or uses profanity against a teacher.
I looked up this aspect of juvenile justice history to get a better understanding of proceedings that unfolded before me in Municipal Court over the course of several months. The system has its critics, those who assert that the zero-tolerance approach of some school districts occasionally results in the injudicious use of the courts for something that might be addressed more appropriately on campus.
But that's not what I saw when visiting Municipal Court on juvenile docket days and again last week, when Presiding Judge John Bull arranged with the Northside Independent School District to clear a backlog of 600 truancy cases.
From the city prosecutor assigned to the juvenile docket to juvenile case managers, bailiffs and countless other court staffers, everyone appears to be pointed in the same direction: to address the root of the problem that's causing the delinquent behavior.
Getting there isn't always a graceful march. On Municipal Court's twice-a-week juvenile docket days, the courtroom is a scene of barely controlled chaos. A prosecutor might be settling a case with a parent and child at one table while a few feet away the judge is talking to a child and parent or parents (usually just one parent, and almost always a mother). On either side of the judge's bench, a clerk is explaining the terms they've agreed on to dispose of the charge. Clerks in another part of the courtroom are dealing with the paperwork.
The busy setting might make it difficult for a child to grasp the severity of the predicament. But judges and prosecutors know how to get rid of the annoying teenage smirk. They lower the boom with unconventional measures, as Bull did on a recent day with a group of girls who were hauled in for fighting in school. The girls couldn't resist giving each other dirty looks in the courtroom.
Bull ordered that they all perform 80 hours of community service — together. The girls' body language showed defeat. One of the moms, earlier protesting that her job schedule would make it difficult to transport her daughter for community service duties, nodded firmly, indicating her approval.
Even amid such chaos, judges can hear cries for help. Bull last week presided over a truancy case involving a 13-year-old Stevenson Middle School student. Some of the unexcused absences were related to the death of the boy's father, and the youth continued to struggle with his grief, contributing to more missed school days. Bull enlisted the help of Gabe Quintanilla, administrator of Municipal Court's juvenile case managers, to serve as the boy's mentor.
Quintanilla agreed. The boy's response? A hug for his new mentor.
Editorial: D.C. confidentiality rules in juvenile cases threaten public safety
The Washington Post
June 22, 2010
POLICE WHO responded to Sunday's disturbance at the District's juvenile detention center in Laurel made what should have been a routine request. They wanted to view the facility's surveillance videos to determine responsibility for the assault of a staff member and other possible crimes. Instead, they ended up in court because the city's confidentiality laws for juvenile offenders precluded release -- even to the police -- of this material. How much more absurd does the situation have to get before the D.C. Council does something about rules that show more regard for those who break the law than those who need its protection?
A worker at the New Beginnings Youth Development Center had his jaw broken and three other staff members received minor injuries in the hour-long melee. It appears the incident started when a group of youths objected to the end of a basketball game and refused to return to their housing units; some climbed on the facility's roof. A worker was punched in the jaw, reportedly by a 20-year-old, and police from Maryland and the District restored order. Their investigation was momentarily stymied when the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, which runs New Beginnings, cited the District's confidentiality statute in refusing to make information available. The office of the attorney general went to D.C. Superior Court Monday to obtain an order for its release.
There are good reasons for protecting the privacy of youths who commit crimes; mainly, so they can have the chance of rebuilding their lives without the lifelong stigma of their youthful offenses.
But the District's laws are overly broad and unusually strict, making it a crime for anyone to release any information about a juvenile case. This contrast was vividly illustrated when Maryland authorities released arrest records of the three suspects charged in the murder of D.C. principal Brian Betts while D.C. officials were constrained in even acknowledging the youths were under the supervision of youth rehabilitation services.
Attorney General Peter Nickles, who is conducting a review of the juvenile justice system, told us that he's increasingly convinced that strict confidentiality laws harm public safety by shrouding the system in such secrecy that public confidence is undermined. And, as council member Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6) argues, confidentiality has the perverse effect of hampering efforts to help youths by keeping information from people who could use it. Wouldn't teachers, pastors and coaches, he asks, be better able to help at-risk youths if they knew what was going on in their lives? Instead, the law prevents youth rehabilitation officials or police from alerting anyone to a potential problem.
Mr. Wells is sponsoring legislation that would relax these rules. The only question the council should be asking is whether the changes go far enough.
Report criticizes handling of juvenile cases
The Charleston Gazette (WV)
By Andrew Clevenger
June 22, 2010
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Juveniles in West Virginia who require legal representation face "pervasive problems" in the way their cases are handled, according to a new report.
The assessment, issued by the National Juvenile Defender Center, praises West Virginia's laws dealing with juveniles as among "the most progressive in the country." But what actually happens in courtrooms, characterized by a "general malaise," falls short, according to the study.
"Pervasive problems, like a profound lack of resources, customary discouragement of diligent advocacy, excessive reliance on improvement periods and guilty pleas, and long periods of detention for relatively minor offenses, keep West Virginia's juvenile indigent defense system from being as effective as it could be in protecting the rights of children facing delinquency charges," the report concludes.
In a prepared statement, state Supreme Court Chief Justice Robin Davis said the court would review the report.
"Providing counsel to children accused of crimes or delinquency is an important due process right that the West Virginia judiciary strives to protect," Davis said. "As the report indicates, our statutes protecting those rights are among the best in the nation. Other issues noted in the report may need to be addressed."
The study lists 10 core recommendations, some of which point to issues that have already drawn scrutiny and criticism from other quarters, including lack of sufficient funding for the West Virginia Public Defender Service and no requirement for magistrates to have law degrees.
"[I]f magistrates are going to be tasked with presiding over legal hearings, including juvenile detention hearings, they should be required to be licensed attorneys," the report states.
The juvenile defense system needs ongoing, statewide oversight and monitoring, including regular data collection and promotion of best practices and innovations, the report concludes.
There are several significant shortcomings in the way these cases are handled now, according to the report, including the courthouse culture surrounding juvenile cases.
"The informality of delinquency proceedings encourages lax observance of juveniles' due process rights," the report states.
Some appointed defense attorneys described an unwritten rule that they should not be "too adversarial or too aggressive" when they handle juvenile cases, according to the report.
"[O]ften, providing even minimal or basic legal assistance, such as filing motions or taking cases to trial, was considered adversarial or aggressive," the study states.
In addition, some defense lawyers lobbied in favor of what they felt was best for the child, instead of advocating in favor of their legal interests.
"[M]any lawyers emphasize serving the child's best interests over serving the child's stated legal interests, demonstrating a fundamental lack of understanding as to the role of defense counsel in delinquency court," the report states.
Kanawha County Public Defender George Castelle, whose office includes two lawyers who are staffed fulltime to juvenile cases, praised the report for highlighting a difficult aspect of defending children.
For example, he said, if a lawyer didn't argue in a juvenile case that his or her client should be released from custody, believing the client was better off away from a problematic home environment, no one would complain.
But that would never happen in an adult case, he said.
"There's a belief that the same principals don't apply in a juvenile case, and they do," he said.
Overall, Castelle said the report's findings rang true with him, but it's hard to generalize about circumstances.
"This is a diverse state. It's difficult to compare practices in a densely populated county like Kanawha with practices in more rural counties," he said.
In the summer of 2008, an investigative team of 19 experts visited 12 counties picked to get a representative sample of demographics, crime trends and counties with and without Public Defenders offices.
Too often, few matters in juvenile cases were contested, resulting in overuse of guilty pleas and improvement periods, which can be a double-edged sword for a young defendant. If he or she stays out of trouble for the entire period, the charges can be dropped, but if the defendant violates what is essentially pre-trial probation, then he or she might be less likely to receive it as a sentence once the case is resolved.
"Many children are initially caught up in the system through pre-petition diversion programs or improvement periods and end up deep in the system because of technical violations while under supervision, either as part of an improvement period agreement, or probation," the report states.
"[The] overreliance on these programs seemed to merely widen the net at the front end."
The report includes implementation strategies for the state Legislature, the judiciary, defense attorneys and prosecutors and other courthouse personnel involved in juvenile cases, and even urges West Virginia University's law school to offer more opportunities to specialize and focus on juvenile justice.
Drive on to reduce rate of minority juvenile offenders in R.I.
The Providence Journal (RI)
By Talia Buford
June 23, 2010
PROVIDENCE — Minority youths make up less than a quarter of the state’s juvenile population, but are overrepresented, according to a state report, at various points in the juvenile justice system.
Local advocates say the disparity is not simply because minority juveniles commit crimes more often, or are charged with more serious offenses, and it’s not always a case of racism. Instead, they say the criminal justice system is just not set up to account for the societal and cultural factors affecting minority youths, and the shortfalls end up forcing more minorities into the courts unnecessarily. Since 2008, Rhode Island for Community and Justice has led a statewide advisory committee that is creating programs that it hopes will eliminate disproportionate minority contact in the state. The group held a news conference on Tuesday to announce the gains it had made in tackling the issue, including formulating standard guidelines for school resource officers, creating cultural competency training for police officers and others, and helping to restart the juvenile hearing board in Providence.
“We’re doing this work,” said Toby Ayers, director of RICJ, “because the state can’t afford to throw a single child away.”
The committee bases its work on a 2007 state-commissioned study that analyzed 2004 data from police departments, Family Court and the Department of Children Youth and Families. The report found that white juveniles were less likely to be referred to Family Court than black juveniles for violent or potentially violent misdemeanors, at a rate of 65 percent to 79 percent, respectively.
The report also showed that black and Hispanic youths charged with misdemeanors were placed in holding cells 55 percent and 64 percent of the time, compared with just 20 percent for white youths. Black and Hispanic youths remained at the Training School until their cases were disposed, 74 percent and 61 percent of the time, respectively, compared with 34 percent of the time for white youths. For violent felonies, black juveniles, on average, spent 211 days at the Training School, Hispanic youths spent 186 days, and white youths spent 139 days.
On the national level, according to the report, only 34 percent of the nation’s juveniles were minorities, yet 67 percent of the juveniles in detention facilities were minorities.
“When all things are equal, you expect the same penalties and same arrest statistics for each race, but it’s not,” said Kenneth Amoriggi, project coordinator for the advisory group. “It varies dramatically from race to race and our mission is to find out why.”
The group’s five committees — education, courts, police, juvenile hearing board and mental health — all represent various points where children may interact with the justice system. And what they found is that there are multiple reasons for the disparities, from a lack of disciplinary alternatives available to minorities, cultural misunderstandings and in some cases, legal red tape for securing services.
Juvenile hearing boards — groups of community members that hear misdemeanors from first-time juvenile offenders — across the state are either inactive, or meet infrequently, said Rene Remillard, a member of the advisory group and chair of the Lincoln juvenile hearing board. So instead of receiving community service or restitution from the hearing board, juveniles are often required to enter the formal court system.
The advisory group will unveil an updated manual for new advisory boards in August and is working with communities, such as Central Falls, to help them restart their boards.
Providence recently selected a group of members to restart its board, which has been inactive since 2007. The group held its first meeting this month and could begin hearing cases as early as July, Remillard said.
“In that lull, there were a number of youths who were not able to use these services,” said Jennifer Etue, one of the board members. “That’s a diversionary piece that’s useful in [addressing] crime, mental health and violence in the City of Providence.”
The advisory group is also hoping to help start more after-school programs for young people to keep them occupied, said Amoriggi, and they are also working to develop uniform standards for school resource officers. The group is also creating a cultural-competency curriculum it hopes to offer to the state Municipal Police Training Academy, schools, mental health agencies and court officials. The group found that in some instances, a lack of cultural competency — understanding the customs and behavioral norms of a cultural group — also led to increased minority arrests.
“That’s why we think these issues are so critical to address,” said Shanna Wells, director of the Rhode Island Commission on Women and a member of the advisory committee. “And, not for nothing, the patent unfairness of disproportionate minority contact is that the justice system isn’t just, if it’s disproportionately incarcerating people of color.”
Family Court Intake Services is implementing changes in the way youths receive services as a direct result of the work of the advisory committee, said Kevin Richard, director of juvenile services for the judiciary and a member of the committee.
“The last thing we want is a fragmented system,” he said. “We’re looking to link referrals from the intake department to community programs. That’s a tangible goal. We’re trying to move beyond the ideal and get to practical issues.”
Now, intake is able to refer juveniles directly to a handful of services from the DCYF and other community programs to circumvent the prolonged process of getting the youths before a judge to order services. The juveniles get the services they need sooner, and they stay out of the court pipeline, said Lidia Oster, intake supervisor for Family Court and member of the advisory committee.
“We’ve come a long way since 2004,” Oster said. “There are more programs in place. There are more services we refer juveniles to, instead of getting them to go in front of a judge.”
Sexting Bill Passes NY Senate; Assembly Next
WHAM-TV – Online (NY)
June 23, 2010
Albany, NY - The New York Senate has passed new rules on sexting which are aimed at protecting teens from harsh penalties.
Under the current law, minors can be labeled sex offenders for sending sexually explicit images or messages to another.
The new bill would apply:
-To those under the age of 18, when the sender and recipient are less than four years apart in age
-When there is express or implied consent from both parties, or
-When the defendant had no intent to profit from the conduct
The bill would also create an educational outreach program about the potential long-term dangers of sexting. It now goes to the Assembly.
Opinion: Lamont Davis case is a failure of the juvenile justice system
The Baltimore Sun (MD)
June 23, 2010
If 18-year-old Lamont Davis' trial and sentencing on attempted-murder charges are not flashing signs for juvenile justice reform, it is difficult to see what would be.
Mr. Davis was convicted of a terrible shooting that badly injured 5-year-old Raven Wyatt. But the two life sentences plus 30 years he received, foreclosing any possible second chance, would shock those who founded the first juvenile courts a century ago. The original juvenile courts, initially established in Chicago in 1899 and later throughout the United States, placed rehabilitation ahead of punishment. Not surprisingly, that approach almost completely eliminated recidivism.
Mr. Davis, on the other hand, is getting far more punishment and far less education and therapy than the framers of the pioneering juvenile courts could have imagined. Judge Gale Rasin stipulated that Mr. Davis could complete his high school credits in custody. That sounds future-focused, right? It's a positive step, except for one thing: The rehabilitation appears to stop there.
What should Mr. Davis do with that education if he never gets out of prison? How will he use that knowledge to contribute to a world that he will never again see? To redeem himself, Mr. Davis will need far more than a high school diploma and a life sentence.
Unfortunately, Mr. Davis' case is not unique, and neither is Judge Rasin's response. The once-therapeutic quality of the juvenile court has crumbled. Today's more punitive system devotes exorbitant sums of money to incarceration, which is far less effective than treatment and education in producing long-term benefits to the young offenders and to society.
The future of Mr. Davis and all juvenile offenders hinges on a critical choice — to punish them as adult criminals or to rehabilitate them to honor the caretaking function that once defined the juvenile court. However, the trend toward detention continues in Baltimore. The proposed $100 million jail for juveniles repudiates a century of juvenile court history and practice.
Deciding whether to spend a nine-figure sum on a jail is a referendum on the bedrock principles underpinning juvenile courts. All of society, whether motivated by compassion, concern for public safety, or fiscal responsibility, will find those priorities achieved by treating young offenders as the 1899 model intended.
The Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative, a public-private partnership, advocates detention only as a last resort. In jurisdictions adopting its protocol, detention center populations declined 52 percent, and juvenile arrests dropped 45 percent.
The juvenile system's financial advantages should impress even those requiring more proof than the vastly reduced recidivism. Every dollar spent on rehabilitative alternatives reduces taxpayers' costs by $8, compared with only $2 saved per dollar for incarceration.
As a family and divorce mediator and teen advocate, I have mentored and taught many troubled teens, some jailed for serious offenses. Keeping delinquents in the community while being rehabilitated prepares them to respect the society they had once harmed. Building a secure society is incompatible with getting even because being safer is better than feeling safer. The public is not served by a photo-op of handcuffed teens being hauled off for a lengthy prison term with no effort to ready them for release.
Those who support juvenile jails might change their opinion if they understood that rehabilitation and treatment cost four to 10 times less than incarceration and are six times more effective at keeping offenders from committing another crime.
Treating Mr. Davis according to the original juvenile court model would have honored history, conserved the public purse and protected the community. Vengeance has no place in juvenile justice
The officials who would construct a new jail and the judges who would send juvenile offenders there must recognize their error, which the framers of the original juvenile court would never have condoned.
Matthew M. House is a divorce and family law mediator in private practice in Portland, Oregon. His e-mail is matthew@.
Opinion: Raise to 18 the age for juvenile justice system
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (WI)
By Frederick P. Kessler
June 23, 2010
Closing Ethan Allen School in the Town of Delafield or Lincoln Hills School in Merrill does not solve the problems of dealing with juvenile offenders in Wisconsin. What is needed is to raise the age of jurisdiction for the juvenile justice system to 18. In the last session, a bipartisan coalition introduced legislation to achieve that goal. This is a proposal that I hope will be supported by the Legislature in the future.
Currently, regardless of the degree of the crime, if 17-year-olds are accused, they are tried in the adult system. Not all 17-year-olds are old enough to make smart decisions, so we treat them in many ways as children: They are not allowed to vote, drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes, join the Army or do many other things. However, when it comes to crime, the level of responsibility is increased. Mistakes that kids make because of their lack of maturity follow them and disadvantage them throughout their lives.
Raising the age of juvenile court benefits the community at large. The juvenile justice system does more to help rehabilitate children who commit crimes than the adult system. The recidivism rate is almost doubled when 17-year-olds are put through the adult system rather than the juvenile system. Society should not deny forgiveness for early life mistakes. Raising the age of the juvenile justice system to 18 would allow us to work with our youth through their formative years to ensure that a childhood mistake doesn't turn into a lifelong mark against them.
This is a very important issue not only for the 17 year old youth that may face the adult justice system but also for our community as a whole. Ensuring that our children have the educational options to learn from their mistakes helps them repay their debt to society. It increases the likelihood of them becoming responsible members of our communities.
Raising the age to 18 does not absolve responsibility for serious crimes. Older juveniles who commit armed robbery or murder still could be waived to adult court.
There are differences in brain development that also support the need for raising the age of juvenile court to 18. Impulsive behavior control and rational thought do not fully develop in young people until their 20s. As a result, minors are less likely to exercise self-control and may not think through the consequences of their actions as an adult might. The U.S. Supreme Court has noted the difference in brain development between minors and adults when abolishing capital punishment for minors. The Legislature should follow this precedent and raise the age of juvenile jurisdiction to 18.
Seventy percent of juveniles committed to Ethan Allen or Lincoln Hills come from southeastern Wisconsin. Keeping them close to their families helps with rehabilitation.
This is the time to look for long-term solutions regarding crime. Investing in juvenile justice by raising the age will pay off substantially over time.
Rep. Frederick P. Kessler (D-Milwaukee) represents the 12th Assembly District.
The man who makes the prevention motor run
Prevention Action
June 24, 2010
There are scientists, there are policy makers and then there are the oilers—the people who bring the cogs together and make them run smoothly. Clay Yeager is a Pennsylvania-based oilman. He has arguably done more than any other American to help good prevention ideas make it into day-to-day practice.
So many developments owe much to Yeager’s entrepeneurial effort—the proliferation of Communities that Care as well as the widespread application of evidence-based programs in Pennsylvania, the international prominence of Nurse Family Partnership, and the integration of proven models into child welfare and youth justice systems in Florida and other states.
Yeager’s working life started a long way from high quality evidence. “I was a fresh-out-of-college probation officer in 1973,” Yeager told Prevention Action earlier this month. “In hindsight, we didn’t know anything. We worked on gut instinct. Our primary function was maintenance and supervision. The only thing we measured was the number of days until a youngster turned 18.”
“Shortly before committing suicide, Robert Martinson reviewed over 200 studies on offender rehabilitation and concluded ‘nothing works’. There was not a lot of optimism around”.
Things began to turn around in the early nineties. Yeager attended the National Juvenile Justice Conference in Boston Massachusetts where he heard David Hawkins talk about Communities that Care. Yeager was in Boston with senior officials from Pennsylvania. They all quickly reached the same conclusion. Hawkins’ work could help turn around the state’s losing battle with youth crime.
They got to work. At its high point, Communities that Care was being used in over 120 Pennsylvanian communities, leading to the implementation of many of the evidence-based programs recommended by Blueprints for Violence Prevention. Funds were found to support the work.
“There was an exponential increase in resources” observed Yeager. “We started with $2 million per year in 1998. We doubled it in 1999, Doubled it again the year after and by 2001 there was a $16 million annual investment”.
Hawkins’ admiration for Yeager’s work in Pennsylvania and nationwide is well recorded.
“He is a remarkable man,” says Hawkins. ”The most effective communicator I have known. He is a vigorous entrepreneur, and a charismatic, effective and tireless leader. He moves people to take confident action through his inspirational words, personal and professional example, and excellent management skills.”
Yeager learned much from this work. Political leadership is, for him, a vital component to make good ideas routine. He worked closely with Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge, a man he admires greatly.
“Tom Ridge knew instinctively that it was not sufficient to get tough on offenders, that putting more and more kids into the juvenile justice system was not the answer. He knew there had to be a focus on prevention also. For him this was a political matter. He used to say ‘good policy IS good politics.’”
Governor Ridge backed the Communities that Care effort. First Lady Michele Ridge also took a prominent role in a range of activities designed to promote prevention is the state. She served as Chair of the statewide prevention initiative, called The Children’s Partnership while Yeager as Executive Director.
Yeager also learned that early gains are too easily eroded. Funds had steadily increased until the politics changed and they started to go down. Priorities changed and, in no time, Pennsylvania’s 11 million citizens were spending $2 billion per year to lock up 52,000 offenders and disinvesting in evidence-based prevention.
“I learned the value of embedding ideas in local culture and practice. Politicians can get a good idea off the ground quickly. They can also destroy a good idea. What can stop them? People. Local people who care about good outcomes for our kids and wise spending of their taxpayer dollars. It simple makes too much sense to ignore.”
By 2004, Yeager was on the national stage. He took on the tough role of translating proven university based model Nurse Family Partnership to a successful business venture.
“Universities are not set up for business,” observed Yeager. “That’s not a criticism. We want universities to do what they are good at. But when somebody who has funds to help kids wants to get hold of a Nurse Family Partnership or a Multi-systemic Treatment and they phone the office of the person who invented the product, they don’t always get a quick response. My job was to create an organization that could build demand for the product and respond to that demand.”
The success of Yeager’s efforts are there for all to see. By many estimates, Nurse Family Partnership is the largest and most embedded of all evidence-based programs.
Its originator, David Olds, is full of praise: “As Chief Executive Officer of Nurse Family Partnership National Service Office, Clay inspired other Board members, NFP leadership and staff by connecting with the best in them and giving them direction by example and with outstanding administrative skills. In communicating with the public, Clay displays these same talents, by inspiring them to take intelligent action based on our highest human aspirations.”
Yeager’s recent work for Evidence Based Associates, previously reported in Prevention Action [link], has been about finding ways to install a suite of proven models in mainstream systems in Florida and elsewhere. What is impressive about this effort is EBA’s readiness to share the financial risk with the state, and the ability to get third party providers to successfully deliver complex programs like Functional Family Therapy.
There is much talk in the prevention world about what is called ‘Type 2 Translation’ and getting ideas to scale. For Yeager, this is his day job.
And what of the world of probation he left behind? “Probation as a system is staffed by highly educated people who are research focused. They are discerning. They work at a local level so they know what it means to make a decision that must protect public safety and promote the rehabilitation of the offender. They are surrounded by people who promote all kinds of fads and fashions but they have to work out what will be effective, now, and in the long term.”
Finding out more about what works in clinical practice and getting this evidence into routine use will become increasingly important according to Yeager. So too will be the effort to better connect practitioners with the economic consequences of their decisions.
“A juvenile offender can cost $175,00 or more per year. A probation officer with a dozen difficult kids can be sanctioned millions of dollars of expenditure. It is important to know that something like Functional Family Therapy will cost maybe just $5,000 per case while producing better outcomes.
It will not always be the answer. But the economics demands that the clinician asks the question.”
Prevention Action talked to Yeager against the backdrop of the disastrous BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Yeager is a very different kind of oilman. Over three decades now he was gracefully lubricated the connections between the worlds of science, policy and business on behalf of troubled children and their families.
References
Douglas Lipton, Robert Martinson and Judith Wilks, The Effectiveness of Correctional Treatment: A Survey of Treatment Evaluation Studies, Praeger Press, New York, 1975
Martinson, R. (Spring 1974). ‘What Works? - Questions and Answers About Prison Reform, The Public Interest, 22-25, Spring 1974
Teen Who Shot, Killed 11-Year-Old Boy Gets 2 Years
The Associated Press (SC)
June 25, 2010
St. Matthews, SC (AP) -- A teen who admitted shooting and killing an 11-year-old South Carolina boy last year has been sentenced to two years of alternative housing.
The Times and Democrat of Orangeburg reported a judge Thursday sentenced the now-13-year-old Calhoun County boy to a Juvenile Justice Department program, ignoring a recommendation of probation for the involuntary manslaughter plea earlier this year.
Jason Rudisell was shot Easter Sunday 2009 at a home in St. Matthews.
Family Court Judge William Wylie Jr. said the teen needed more than probation to understand the consequences of violent actions. Wylie said he wasn't sure the shooting was just horseplay among the boys.
Once the teen finishes the sentence, he'll be on probation until he is 18. His name has not been released because of his age.
Our View: Committee bungles juvenile justice decision
Wausau Daily Herald (WI)
June 25, 2010
The state committee whose task was to make a recommendation about whether Wisconsin should close one of its two juvenile prisons failed spectacularly this week.
After months of study, the 11-person committee of experts in law and juvenile justice failed to reach a decision about the course the state should take.
In other words, the committee helped no one. This outcome doesn't help Gov. Jim Doyle to make an informed decision. It doesn't serve Wisconsin taxpayers by ensuring that state money is being spent wisely. And it doesn't help the juvenile justice system to do its best job of keeping communities safe and providing real rehabilitation to young offenders.
If we were governor, we'd instruct the committee to continue meeting and voting until a decision is reached.
The subtext behind the committee's inquiry was that one or the other of Wisconsin's juvenile prisons probably should be closed. Populations of juvenile inmates have been on a steady and pointed decline for more than a decade. At Lincoln Hills School in Irma, the 500-capacity facility peaked at 485 youth offenders in 1996, and today is down to only 167. Staffers there, even following some staff reductions, now outnumber juveniles. And trends are the same at the state's other facility, Ethan Allen School in Wales.
To be clear, this is actually a good problem to have. The general trend in the United States and Wisconsin has been toward more incarceration, not less. And all the reasons to doubt that the public's interests are well-served by growing incarceration rates -- and there are many reasons to doubt it -- go double or triple when it comes to juvenile offenders. It's not that we doubt that some detention facilities for juveniles may be necessary -- but it's quite obvious that putting children in prison ought to be a very last resort.
Lincoln Hills, which has a budget of $18 million a year, is also a major employer in Lincoln County, with more than 150 employees. There is, therefore, a significant regional interest in having it come out on top if one or the other school is to be closed.
For whatever it is worth, the committee did gather more votes to close Ethan Allen than Lincoln Hills. The vote to close Ethan Allen was 5-3, while the vote to close Lincoln Hills was 3-5. But neither vote gathered a majority of the committee's 11 members -- in part because three committee members who are circuit court judges decided not to vote.
We're not sure why any judge would agree to serve on the committee and then withhold the exact thing we entrust them to wield wisely -- their judgment. At any rate, it seems clear that it made the committee's actual decision-making function more difficult. (As an aside, none of our local judges was on the committee.) Perhaps the judges should be asked to reconsider.
Ultimately, the whole rationale behind having a committee of experts make a recommendation was to remove regional interests and political pressures and decide on the course that would best serve taxpayers, juveniles and communities. That would have been an important role for the committee to play, and an important, authoritative voice to have in the conversation. Too bad they blew it.
Juvenile detention real problem
The Journal (Martinsburg, WV)
By Matthew M. House, Guest Columnist
June 25, 2010
Gov. Joe Manchin recently announced a series of grant awards to fund youth programs, which is commendable. However, it will take more than money to reform the tattered juvenile justice system, not only in West Virginia, but also throughout the entire United States.
Grant money to decrease juvenile crime is welcomed, but it does little to deal with the 800-pound gorilla that prevents juvenile court from regaining its historical footing: the juvenile detention center.
The founders of the original juvenile courts focused on rehabilitation. Those pioneering judges would have been shocked to see their corrective system pronounced dead, buried under the concrete of a facility whose eight-figure price tag robs precious money that could target treatment resources.
History tells us that if you do nothing, nothing will improve. The reformers who developed the first juvenile courts a century ago knew the existing system did not work. It needed a full overhaul, and it got one, with groundbreaking judges like Julian Mack of Chicago and Ben Lindsey of Denver.
Juvenile court was transformed into a sanctuary where judges looked out for kids and society by fashioning themselves as teachers and counselors, rather than jurists. By getting the teens what they needed, the judges and the entire community cultivated productive citizens who almost never reoffended.
The "tough-on-crime" wave that has tried to replace the once-thriving rehabilitative method has failed miserably. As a teen advocate and family and divorce mediator, I cannot understand expanding detention when it is four to 10 times more expensive and six times less effective than preventing future crime through rehabilitation and education.
My work has taught me that no matter how nice the physical facility appears, and regardless of whatever seemingly caretaking title it bears, it still is a jail. Funds allocated to build it will be unavailable to finance rehabilitative programs.
The proper solutions are to reserve juvenile detention for only those offenders who threaten public safety and to devote the remaining funds to rehabilitation and treatment. The 1899 Chicago Juvenile Court and similar ones in Denver and other cities prized that same future-focused rehabilitation. Not surprisingly, that truly corrective approach brought about almost zero incidence of reoffending.
In my eight years as a law-degreed teen advocate and family mediator, I have never encountered a juvenile delinquent who could not be reformed. Many, indeed, have quickly proceeded to college and have even mentored other youth. Such outcomes would never have been possible within the cold walls of a detention center.
Contrary to what some believe, rehabilitation does not equate to excusing criminality. In fact, it best reduces crime. Caging a wayward teen for a few years before releasing him back into society without addressing and remedying his behavior is foolhardy.
The rehabilitative approach keeps a tight rein on kids until the underlying problems are solved. States practicing that model, such as Missouri, enjoy a 92 percent success rate of keeping offenders from reentering the system. The same is not true of incarceration, which finds half of released juvenile inmates reoffending within a year.
Moreover, as rehabilitation is eight times more financially effective, dollar for dollar, than incarceration, it benefits the taxpayers' pocketbooks as well. I would prefer not to spend huge sums to lock up some young offenders for just a few years when that same money could prevent exponentially more teens from ever harming society again.
Treating kids as adults to gain the satisfaction of seeing them handcuffed and tossed into jail cells is as spiteful to vulnerable teens as it is counterproductive to the anti-crime crusaders' own professed interests in public safety.
- Matthew M. House, J.D., chief facilitator of Juvenile Justice Month in September 2010, is a divorce and family law mediator in private practice in Portland, Ore. He frequently provides expert commentary related to family and juvenile law for television, radio and print media throughout the United States and is a recurring contributor. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree, magna cum laude, from the University of Oregon, and a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Idaho College of Law. He can be reached via e-mail at matthew@ or by calling 503-643-5284.
What’s the Matter with Kids Today
ABA Journal
By Mark Hansen
July 2010 Issue
A group of test subjects ages 10 to 30 is asked to solve a puzzle. It involves re arranging a stack of colored balls on placeholders using as few moves as possible. Each wrong move requires extra moves to undo it.
The test is designed to measure impulse control. Adolescents tend to start moving balls almost immediately, which usually necessitates rearranging later. Adults, however, tend to take more time to consider their first move, which generally allows them to solve the puzzle on their first try.
In another experiment, designed to measure mature decision-making abilities, test subjects are presented with a choice between a small, immediate cash reward and a larger, long-term cash reward. Younger subjects invariably have a lower “tipping point”—the amount of money they are willing to take to get their reward immediately. Older subjects are more willing to wait.
A third experiment is designed to test the effects of peer pressure. Driving a computerized car simulator, subjects choose whether to run a series of traffic lights that are about to turn red, both alone and in the company of friends. Almost invariably, the younger subjects take greater risks when their friends are present; older subjects tend not to change their driving in either case.
This is the kind of research in developmental psychology and neuroscience that is helping to shed new light on differences between adolescent and adult brains. It’s also part of the science that lies at the heart of a series of decisions, including a May ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in Graham v. Florida, that have changed the direction of juvenile justice.
Graham outlawed life-without-parole sentencing in nonhomicide cases for individuals under age 18, and it may be comparable to the Brown v. Board of Education case in juvenile justice, says Paolo Annino, a Florida State University law professor and director of the school’s children’s advocacy clinic.
It will likely lead to the resentencing of the estimated 129 juvenile offenders in this country now serving life sentences without possible parole for crimes in which no one was killed, give other juvenile offenders serving long prison sentences new grounds for seeking lesser sentences, and change our way of thinking about juvenile crime.
“It means we are finally acknowledging outside of the death penalty arena that kids are different from adults and need to be treated differently by the criminal justice system,” Annino says.
In Graham, the court held 5-4 that life without parole for a juvenile offender convicted of a crime not involving murder violates the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment. (Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. agreed only with the majority’s holding that Terrance Jamar Graham’s sentence was unconstitutional, not with its conclusion that all such sentences necessarily are.)
The majority based its decision in part on the scientific research into adolescent brain development first cited by the court five years ago in Roper v. Simmons, when it struck down the death penalty for juvenile offenders on the same grounds.
That evidence showed that adolescents, as a group, are more immature, more irresponsible, more susceptible to negative influences and outside pressures, and more capable of long-term change than are adults, which the court said made them categorically ineligible for the death penalty.
“These differences render suspect any conclusion that a juvenile falls among the worst offenders,” for whom the death penalty is reserved, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the 5-4 majority in Roper. “The susceptibility of juveniles to immature and irresponsible behavior means ‘their irresponsible conduct is not as morally reprehensible as that of an adult.’ ”
THE ROPER EFFECT
Roper marked a turning point for the court, which in 1989, in Stanford v. Kentucky, upheld death sentences for two child murderers: one a 16-year-old Missouri boy and the other a 17-year-old Kentucky youth.
It also spawned new Eighth Amendment-based challenges on behalf of three now-grown men doing hard time for crimes committed when they were juveniles. The first came from Christopher Pittman, a 21-year-old South Carolina man serving a 30-year sentence without possible parole for the murder of his grandparents in 2001, when he was 12. The court declined to hear it.
Next came challenges on behalf of Graham and another juvenile offender in Florida serving life sentences without parole for crimes in which no one was killed. Graham, now 23, was 16 when he received probation in the 2003 burglary and attempted robbery of a barbecue restaurant. In 2004, a month shy of his 18th birthday, he was involved in a home invasion robbery and was sentenced to life without parole.
Likewise, Joe Harris Sullivan, now 34, is doing life without parole for the rape of an elderly woman in 1989, when he was 13. At the time the court issued its decision in Graham, it dismissed Sullivan’s appeal as improvidently granted. The state had argued that Sullivan’s petition was procedurally barred because it wasn’t filed within the state’s two-year statute of limitations for appeals in noncapital cases.
Sullivan’s lead lawyer, Bryan Stevenson, executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Ala., says the Graham decision should give Sullivan and other similarly situated inmates new grounds to challenge their sentences.
Graham created a new categorical rule barring life sentences without parole for juvenile offenders convicted of nonhomicides, Stevenson reasons. And every time the court has created such a rule, it has been held to be retroactive.
“It’s an important win not only for kids who have been condemned to die in prison but for all children who need additional protection and recognition in the criminal justice system,” he says.
Justice Kennedy, who also wrote the majority opinion in Graham, said no recent data provided reason to reconsider the Roper decision and its observations about juveniles. If anything, he said, the evidence has become stronger and more conclusive in the five years since. Scientists say research demonstrates what every parent of a teenager probably knows instinctively: That even though adolescents may be capable of thinking like adults, they are mentally and emotionally still children.
While an individual’s cognitive abilities (thinking, reasoning) reach adult levels around the age of 16, studies show that psychosocial capabilities (impulse control, judgment, future orientation and resistance to peer pressure) continue to develop well into early adulthood.
Which answers the question so many parents have undoubtedly asked their teenage sons and daughters: How could somebody so smart do something so dumb?
Laurence Steinberg, a Temple University psychology professor who has been studying adolescent brain and behavioral development for 35 years, likens the teenage brain to a car with a powerful gas pedal and weak brakes. While the gas pedal responsible for things like emotional arousal and susceptibility to peer pressure is fully developed, the brakes that permit long-term thinking and resistance to peer pressure need work.
Steinberg says the latest research in developmental psychology confirms and strengthens the conclusion that juveniles as a group differ from adults in the salient ways the court identified in Roper. And emerging research in the field of neuroscience, not even mentioned in Roper, is helping to explain this biologically.
NEURAL TIMEBOMBS
Such research shows, for instance, that adolescents exhibit more neural activity than adults or children in areas of the brain that promote risky and reward-based behavior. It also shows that the brain continues to mature well beyond adolescence in areas responsible for controlling thoughts, actions and emotions.
Steinberg, a leading researcher in the field, says he knows of no serious debate over the merits of the science. While there will always be those who say more research is needed, he says he knows of no studies contradicting all the neurological and behavioral research that shows the brain is still maturing during adolescence, and that the maturation process continues well into adulthood.
Steinberg, it should be noted, was not a disinterested party to the litigation. He served as the lead scientist on an amicus brief filed by the American Psychological Association and others in Roper and Graham. He also believes that juveniles, because of their developmental immaturity, should not be held to the same standards of criminal responsibility as adults. He’s far from alone.
More than a dozen legal, religious, correctional, human rights and child advocacy organizations filed amicus briefs in support of the petitioners, including the ABA, the Prison Fellowship Ministries, Amnesty International and the Juvenile Law Center. So did groups of former juvenile offenders, friends and family of juvenile crime victims, educators and members of the juvenile corrections community.
The American Medical Association and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry also filed an amicus brief in support of neither side. Though they took no formal position on the constitutionality of life-without-parole for juveniles, their brief summarized matter-of-factly the same scientific findings in briefs filed in support of the petitioners.
The ABA, for its part, argued that sentencing a juvenile offender to life without possible parole was irreconcilable with the court’s holding in Roper.
A group of former juvenile offenders who have since become productive, law-abiding adults, including former U.S. Sen. Alan Simpson of Wyoming, argued that it is “fundamentally inhumane” to give up on youthful offenders, as their own brushes with the law had shown. The brief said Simpson helped set fire to an abandoned building, fired a rifle at a road grader, and slugged a cop who tried to arrest him after a bar brawl.
The state, for its part, didn’t dispute the array of medical and social science research cited by the petitioners that juveniles are developmentally different from adults. It said the criminal justice system already takes such factors as age and the severity of the crime into account in many ways. And it said the state needed to retain the authority to mete out adult-style punishments to violent juvenile offenders who commit adult-like crimes.
“Extending the rationale of Roper, developed in the limited context of the death penalty, to the exceptionally broad and virtually unlimited context of prison incarceration is compelled neither by legal logic nor by societal norms,” the state said in its briefs. Though others filed briefs in support of the state—including the National District Attorneys Association, 19 state attorneys general, 16 members of Congress and a coalition of families of people killed by juvenile offenders—only one took issue with the validity of the scientific evidence put forth by the AMA and others.
That brief, filed by the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, a public interest law firm based in Claremont, Calif., said evidence cited by those on the other side was far from being established as scientific fact.
Such evidence might be the type of “developing” science that lawmakers might want to consider when making policy choices, said the CCJ, but it is not the type of evidence that a court should ever use to overturn those policy decisions, and it has yet to meet federal admissibility standards. “The argument that the juvenile brain is too insufficiently developed to constitutionally permit imposition of life in prison without the possibility of parole (LWOP) for the most heinous and violent criminal offenses is predicated on advocacy masquerading as science,” the center said.
DEGREES OF DIFFICULTY
The National District Attorneys Association, on the other hand, argued in its brief against the imposition of a categorical ban on life without parole for juveniles. It said such a “one-size-fits-all” approach was not mandated by the Constitution and would also run afoul of the court’s holding that in noncapital cases the Eighth Amendment only prohibits sentences that are “grossly disproportionate” to the underlying crime.
Another brief on the state’s behalf by 19 other state attorneys general said life without parole for certain juvenile offenders is needed by states that must respond to ongoing violent juvenile crime.
“No one wants to believe that young people can commit horrible crimes. But sometimes they do. And no one wants to consider whether they should serve lengthy prison terms. But states must consider it, since they are responsible to their own citizens for protecting them, for deterring crime, for assuaging the victims, and for punishing the guilty,” it said.
A third brief on the state’s behalf by the National Organization of Victims of Juvenile Lifers, a group representing the families of people murdered by juvenile offenders, cited what it said is an “overwhelming national consensus” in favor of a life-without-parole sentence for juvenile offenders who show an exceptional disregard for human life.
“Courts, legislatures and American people have strongly approved of these sentences as an effective and lawful device to deter juvenile crime and protect law-abiding citizens,” it said. “A criminal justice system which categorically denies constitutional and proper sentences for juvenile offenders perpetuates no justice at all.”
Still, the scientific evidence on adolescent brain development was central to arguments by both Graham and Sullivan.
Sullivan’s lawyers cited what they described as a “scientific consensus” on adolescent brain development as evidenced in Roper. “Roper understood and explained why such a judgment cannot rationally be passed on children below a certain age,” they wrote. “They are unfinished products, human works-in-progress. They stand at a peculiarly vulnerable moment in their lives. Their potential for growth and change is enormous. Almost all of them will outgrow criminal behavior, and it is practically impossible to detect the few who will not.”
Graham’s lawyers, on the other hand, contended that a life-without-parole sentence for a 16-year-old is unconstitutionally disproportionate to that for adults who have committed the same crimes.
“As the Roper court noted, juveniles are more malleable and capable of reform than adults: It is cruel to simply ‘give up’ on them,” their brief said.
Bryan S. Gowdy of Jacksonville, Fla., Graham’s lead lawyer, notes that of the seven amicus briefs that were filed on behalf of the state, “not a single one of them was signed by a scientist. All of the science is on our side.”
NATIONAL RATIONALE
Besides the scientific research on adolescent brain development, the majority cited what it said was evidence of a national consensus against life without parole for juveniles based on actual sentencing practices in the states that permit it.
In so doing, it relied on a 2009 study by Annino and on its own research. The Annino study found only 109 juvenile offenders serving life-without-parole sentences for nonhomicides nationwide, more than two-thirds of whom—or 77 inmates—are incarcerated in Florida. The majority found on its own another 20 juvenile nonhomicide offenders serving life-without-parole sentences, bringing the total nationwide to 129. How ever, the solicitor general later said six federal inmates should not be included in the total because their sentences were not based “solely on nonhomicide crime.”
That means that only 12 of the 39 jurisdictions nationwide that permit life without parole for juvenile nonhomicide offenders actually impose such sentences, the majority reasoned, and most of them do so only rarely.
The majority also cited the relative severity of a life sentence for a juvenile offender in comparison to an adult offender and questioned the penological purposes of such a sentence. It noted what it said was a global consensus against life sentences for juvenile offenders under any circumstances, citing a 2007 study that showed the U.S. was the only country in the world that imposes life-without-parole sentences on juvenile nonhomicide offenders.
“A state is not required to guarantee eventual freedom to a juvenile offender convicted of a nonhomicide crime,” Kennedy wrote for the majority, which included Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and Sonia Soto mayor. “What the state must do, how- ever, is give defendants like Graham some meaningful opportunity to obtain release based on demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation.”
However, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a stinging dissent in which he was joined by Justice Antonin Scalia and in part by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. Thomas accused the majority of substituting its judgment for that of lawmakers, judges and juries, the District of Columbia and 37 states.
Thomas also assailed the majority for what he said was its faulty logic, pointing out its apparent willingness to accept a life-without-parole sentence for a juvenile offender who kills but not for one who commits an especially heinous or grotesque crime in which nobody dies. He was referring to the case of Milagro Cunningham, a 17-year-old Florida youth serving life without parole for the beating and rape of an 8-year-old girl he left for dead under a pile of rocks, whose case Roberts had also mentioned in his argument against the adoption of a categorical rule barring such a sentence.
Thomas also took issue with the evidence on adolescent brain and behavioral development cited by the majority, saying that even if such generalizations from social science are relevant to constitutional rule-making, the majority had misstated the data on which it relies, which differentiates between adolescents for whom antisocial behavior is a fleeting symptom and those for whom it is a lifelong pattern.
Gowdy, Graham’s lead lawyer, says he couldn’t be more pleased with the decision, which he says not only creates a categorical rule barring life sentences without parole for juvenile offenders but also requires states to provide all juvenile offenders with some type of meaningful opportunity for redemption.
ABA President Carolyn B. Lamm applauded the ruling, which she says gives correctional authorities and the courts the opportunity to help juvenile offenders who can be reformed, while keeping those who can’t behind bars where they can do no more harm. But she notes that the decision does not address the issue of life without parole for juvenile offenders convicted of homicides, which the ABA also opposes.
Hopefully, she says, lawmakers in states that still provide for such sentences will be persuaded by the ruling—as well as by recent legislation in states like Texas, which last year did away with life-without-parole sentences for juvenile offenders—to abolish the practice altogether.
Marsha Levick, deputy director and chief counsel of the Juvenile Law Center in Philadelphia, which also filed an amicus brief on behalf of Graham and Sullivan, says Kennedy’s opinion—in its acknowledgment of the research suggesting that teenagers are less blameworthy than adults and have a greater capacity for change—goes even further than anyone might have anticipated.
“When Roper came down, it wasn’t exactly clear if the court had moved beyond the view that death is different under Eighth Amendment jurisprudence to the view that kids are different,” she says. “With this decision, it is now clear that it has.”
REJIGGERING THE SYSTEM
After the ruling, Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum issued a prepared statement noting that the decision doesn’t prohibit “stern” sentences for juveniles who commit violent crimes. He also said he fully expected that Graham would be resentenced to a “very long” term in prison.
But McCollum acknowledged that the ruling will have a significant impact on the state’s juvenile justice and corrections systems.
“I will work closely with the legislature to identify and implement solutions that can better protect Florida’s citizens, families and guests,” he said.
Because Roper was a death penalty case and the court has repeatedly emphasized that “death is different,” as it did again in Roper, the decision has had little practical effect on noncapital cases.
But when Roper is cited, it is usually cited by the defense in support of the proposition that juvenile offenders—due to their inherently diminished culpability—should not be subject to the same criminal sanctions as adults.
A lot of people, including Sullivan’s and Graham’s lawyers, found it ironic that California, which apparently has no qualms about locking up juvenile offenders for nonhomicide offenses for life (it currently has four), cited Roper in its appeal of a district court ruling that struck down a state law banning the sale or rental of violent video games to children long before the Graham decision came down. The court granted cert in Schwarzenegger v. Entertainment Merchants Association for next term.
In its petition, the state cites Roper’s recognition of the “constitutionally significant, fundamental differences” between adults and minors—in particular, its findings that juveniles “lack maturity” and are “more vulnerable or susceptible to negative influences and outside pressures”—as part of its justification for trying to keep violent video games out of the hands of children.
A federal judge in San Jose, Calif., found the law unconstitutional in 2005 on the grounds that it violated the First Amendment rights of the video game industry. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at San Francisco affirmed the decision last year.
State officials refused to comment on the pending appeal. But they referred a reporter to the brief they filed in the 9th Circuit, which doesn’t even mention Roper. It does, however, cite what it says is a “large and continuously developing” body of social science suggesting that children who play violent video games can become aggressive, engage in antisocial behavior and perform poorly in school.
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