Unidentified juvenile justice advocates are "ticked off" at the Obama administration for not finding an administrator for the Justice Department's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, reports Youth Today. The headless agency has been on the sidelines as advocates press Congress to reauthorize the agency and pass the Youth Promise Act being pushed by House Crime subcommittee chairman Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.)
The presumptive nominee, Karen Baynes, has withdrawn to be with her fiancee in Alabama. Youth Today reports that Obama will not nominate another woman considered for the job, Miami-Dade Juvenile Services Department Director Wansley Walters. OJJDP is being run now by holdover official Jeff Slowikowski and Melodee Hanes, who was in the headlines recently when the news emerged that her friend Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) had recommended her for U.S. attorney in Montana; she then withdrew from that competition and took the ODDJP job.
