Why does the U.S. lead the world in youth imprisonment? What should a truly effective juvenile justice system look like? How can the media stay ahead of the story?
On April 23-24, 2012, 30 journalists from around the nation joined some of the country's most prominent juvenile justice experts, practitioners and advocates to explore those questions at a special symposium at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, organized by John Jay's Center on Media, Crime and Justice with the support of the Tow Foundation and in cooperation with John Jay's Center for Research and Evaluation.
The 30 journalists, selected as Reporting Fellows, examined current sentencing and detention practices, the impact of race, treatment of mental health and substance abuse, and the role of police, courts, schools (and parents) in the so-called "school to prison pipeline." The year-long fellowship also includes the establishment of a "juvenile justice news network" for reporters to assist them in following trends in this area, and new research--with the aim of providing the tools that can help foster informed public debate at local and national levels in 2012 and beyond.
The symposium entitled Kids Behind Bars: Where's the Justice in America's Juvenile Justice System, Covering the Juvenile Justice Reform Debate in 2012 featured keynote speeches from Gail Garinger, The Child Advocate of the State of Massachusetts; attorney Bryan Stevenson who argued the Supreme Court case related to juvenile Life Without Parole; and Mike Bocian, Pollster & Founding Partner, GBA Strategies.
Panelists included: Vincent N. Schiraldi, Commissioner, New York City Department of Probation, James Bell, Founder and Executive Director, W. Haywood Burns Institute, C. Jama Adams, Professor and Chair of John Jay College's Africana Studies Department and Joseph Gaudett, Chief of Police, Bridgeport, Connecticut.
Proceedings of the conference, including podcasts, research materials provided by speakers, are covered below. For a full list of speakers, panelists and the agenda click here.
NOTE: this page will be updated regularly with articles by Fellows and other information as it becomes available.
Unlike traditional schoolyard teasing, cyber-bullying can take place 24 hours a day, and often happens off school grounds, making it difficult for school officials to track. And because discipline is left to local school officials, it varies across Maryland and is considered too subjective to some parents and teachers. The consequences of cyber-bullying resounded in Maryland after the Easter Sunday suicide of 15-year-old Grace McComas. Her parents said the high school sophomore took her life after months of being victimized online. "This incident underscores the 21st-century bully, equipped with a cell phone and a Facebook account, is a constant source of torment for our kids," said New Jersey state Sen. Barbara Buono, lead sponsor on anti-bullying legislation there. The state's law, considered to be the most progressive in the country, requires all schools to have an in-house anti-bullying specialist.
Read full entry »Advances in technology have "fundamentally changed how we search for missing kids," Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, tells USA Today. When the center opened in 1984, days could pass before a child's photo was disseminated, Allen said. Now, details about a child or potential abductor can be circulated almost instantaneously through e-mail, text messages, social media and other electronic means.
That's vital, because "time is the enemy" when a child vanishes, he says. Investigators need to move quickly to prevent an abducted child from being taken out of town, hurt or even killed. "In 1990, our recovery rate for the cases that we intake here at the center was 62%" — and now it's 97%, he said. "The primary reason for that change is technology."
Read full entry »The Sioux City Journal in Iowa attracted national attention Sunday when it published a front-page editorial decrying bullying, after a teenager in the area who had been subjected to harassment committed suicide. The editorial began, "Siouxland lost a young life to a senseless, shameful tragedy last week. By all accounts, Kenneth Weishuhn was a kind-hearted, fun-loving teenage boy, always looking to make others smile. But when the South O'Brien High School 14-year-old told friends he was gay, the harassment and bullying began. It didn't let up until he took his own life."
The paper continued, "Sadly, Kenneth's story is far from unique. Boys and girls across Iowa and beyond are targeted every day. In this case sexual orientation appears to have played a role, but we have learned a bully needs no reason to strike. No sense can be made of these actions. Now our community and region must face this stark reality: We are all to blame. We have not done enough. Not nearly enough. This is not a failure of one group of kids, one school, one town, one county or one geographic area. Rather, it exposes a fundamental flaw in our society, one that has deep-seated roots. Until now, it has been too difficult, inconvenient -- maybe even painful -- to address. But we can't keep looking away."
Read full entry »As authorities searched a cellar in New York City for the remains of a boy missing since 1979, the Associated Press says the case changed child-rearing in America. Before Etan Patz, 6, disappeared, the notion that a child could be abducted right off the street, in broad daylight, was not familiar. Children roamed their hometowns freely, unencumbered by fear. They could walk to school and the bus stop and just about anywhere. That all changed after Patz set off for school and did not return. A new age of paranoia had grabbed hold of the national psyche. And so many years later, that paralyzing sense of fear has yet to fully release its grip.
"In many ways, it was the end of an era of innocence," said Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Exploited and Missing Children. "And parents suddenly became much more protective and much more hovering over their children." Patz was one of the first missing children whose face would appear on a milk carton. In the coming years more faces would follow, mutely appealing for help from a public that began, for the first time, to mobilize on a grand scale in its efforts to find them.
Read full entry »
By Cara Tabachnick
Journalists and juvenile justice experts gathered to discuss covering the juvenile justice reform debate in 2012 at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
Read full entry »
By Susan Tebben
Kentucky is facing up to one of its biggest drug problems.
Read full entry »
The National Coalition to Prevent Child Sexual Exploitation, a group of 30 major agencies and experts, has come together to create a plan preventing the exploitation and abuse of children.
Read full entry »
Hundreds of children are held around the world in secure and remote detention facilities, according to a new report by the The International Detention Coalition (IDC), which has formed a coalition to stop the detention of children.
Read full entry »
By Mai Fernandez
After years of headlines about child sex abuse by clergymen, these cases raised yet another alarm about the failure of institutions to protect children from predators. What do these cases tell us, and how should we respond?
Read full entry »Poor case management and improperly conducted interviews are too common in a Phoenix Police Department unit that investigates crimes against children including abuse and sexual assault, says an internal audit reported by the Arizona Republic. Investigators re-examined 969 cases assigned to the Family Investigations Bureau during a one-year period. It determined that case-management policies were not followed in more than 400 of the cases.
Detectives did not properly document or follow up on interviews with victims, suspects, and witnesses in 279 cases, including some in which investigators relied on state Child Protective Services employees to conduct the interviews. Evidence was not properly handled in 98. In those, detectives failed to collect, process or follow up on evidence adequately, including information collected in medical exams. Acting Phoenix Police Chief Joe Yahner said dealing with the problems "has been and continues to be the Number 1 issue of the Phoenix Police Department."
Read full entry »University of Southern California law Prof. Thomas Lyon, a Harvard-trained attorney with a doctorate in psychology, has helped show that open-ended, nonjudgmental questions can prompt more detailed narratives from children, reports the Los Angeles Times. His federally funded research shows that getting a child to promise to be honest actually makes it more likely that they will tell the truth. Lyon, 52, says, "Actually I find abuse work often terribly depressing, but what keeps me in it is how great the kids are despite the abuse they suffer. They still tend to be really resilient, really interested in things, really excited about stuff. And that's inspiring."
His field has generated debate among psychologists and lawyers for decades. "Anyone who works with abused kids knows the kids are afraid and threatened and reluctant and ashamed," said Lyon. Critics say he tends to be too pro-prosecution. Lyon said he is not out to convict the innocent but wants the criminal justice system to understand how memories of childhood abuse can last through adulthood. Lyon is among the experts who have trained sheriff's deputies in interviewing methods that they've subsequently used in recent abuse cases in the Los Angeles schools.
Read full entry »
By Matthew T. Mangino
The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing cases on the issue of life without parole for juveniles. Commentator Matthew Mangino says that if recent trends are any indication, the court will restrict the use of life without parole for juveniles, but will not eliminate the practice.
Read full entry »A 3-year-old boy fatally shot himself with a gun he found in a car while his family stopped for gas in Washington state today, police told the Associated Press, marking western Washington’s third recent shooting by a child. “It is incredible in light of the other ones,” said Tacoma police Officer Naveed Benjamin. “You would think people would take more care, not less.”
A man had put a pistol under the seat and got out to pump gas while the boy’s mother went inside the convenience store. They left her son and her boyfriend’s 4- or 5-year-old daughter in the car. The boy climbed out of his back-seat child seat, found the gun and shot himself in the head, police said. “You can’t predict what children are going to do,” Benjamin said. “You need to unload and lock it up if you’re not carrying it. [ ] It’s really not that hard to practice firearm safety.” Twenty-seven states have a law to prevent child access to firearms. Such laws can include criminal penalties for adults who allow children to get their hands on guns, but Washington lacks such a law, says the San Francisco-based Legal Community Against Violence.
Read full entry »
Violent behaviors of youths vary within various Latino ethnic subgroups such as Puerto Ricans, Cubans and Mexicans, found a new study.
Read full entry »
