RECENT CASES

SERVING ALCOHOL TO MINORS

In re Jennings, __ Cal. __ (Cal. Sup. Ct. 2004)—Interpreting state’s offense for serving alcoholic beverages to persons under age 21, the California Supreme Court held that age is not an element of the offense which prosecutors must prove as part of the prima facie case, but it is an affirmative defense for defendants to prove an actual mistaken belief that the alcohol recipient was 21 or older. As a result, defendant was entitled to present evidence on the issue.
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/californiastatecases/s115009.doc

SEX OFFENDERS

In re Cesar G., __ N.W.2d __ (Wis. 2004)—Notwithstanding the mandatory language of Wisconsin’s sex offender registration statutes, the state Supreme Court holds that the general stay statute in the Juvenile Justice Code authorizing juvenile court judges to stay orders of disposition allows trial courts to stay sex offender registration requirements for juvenile offenders. The Supreme Court held that the trial court abused its discretion in failing to stay the registration provision in the juvenile respondent’s disposition order.
http://www.wisbar.org/res/sup/2004p/02-2106.pdf

NEWS AND INFORMATION

Kids’ Fire-Setting Tied To Family Ills, HONOLULU STAR-BULLETIN—“Childhood fire-setting, animal cruelty and eventually juvenile delinquency are linked to family dysfunction and ‘harsh parenting,’ a University of Hawaii-Manoa graduate student has found. Kimberly Becker, in the clinical psychology department, and her colleagues collected data as part of a degree program at the University of Arizona. They recruited 363 women in 1990 for a 10-year study on the effect of family violence on children's mental health.… The findings, reported in the July issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, showed children in families with domestic violence were more likely to set fires and be cruel to animals.”
http://starbulletin.com/2004/09/09/news/story12.html
See also Violent Marriages May Make Violent Children, WEBMD, http://my.webmd.com/content/article/90/100541.htm?z=1728_00000_1000_nb_04, for another report on the same research study.

Truancy Fight Refocuses On Parents, CHICAGO TRIBUNE—“For the first time in years, a Chicago parent may face trial on criminal charges for truancy of a student--a boy who has missed almost 200 days of school in two years. Prosecutors and school officials say more parents are likely to end up in court as part of a new crackdown on chronic truants.… During the 1990s, hundreds of parents faced prosecution under a truancy law that holds them accountable for their children's attendance. Prosecutors say simultaneous transitions in the state's attorney's office and Chicago Public Schools administration led to a lull in enforcement of the law in the late 1990s. But as the number of chronic truants began to climb again, school officials refocused attention on the problem, which they say is one of the biggest obstacles to improving school performance.”
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0409200223sep20,1,7518222,print.story?coll=chi-news-hed

Violent Crimes By Girls Rising, But The Reasons Why Remain Unclear, MILWAUKEE JOURNAL-SENTINEL—“Violent crime by boys is more frequent and usually grabs more attention, but violent crime by girls has risen more dramatically in recent decades, according to statistics. Overall arrests of girls in Wisconsin in 2002 were 57% higher than in 1986, while arrests for assault were up 102% - a total of 1,647 cases. For boys in the same period, overall arrests were up 25%, while assault cases were up 49%. …What's behind the violence among girls is not clear. Some attribute it to the rise of violence in pop culture and a distortion of the movement to empower women. Others say girls have always fought, and that what's changed is the way law enforcement handles them.”
http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/aug04/254029.asp?format=print

Scheme Helps Reform Young Offenders, CHINA DAILY—“Legal experts are calling for the promotion of community-based re-education programmes to prevent and tackle juvenile delinquency more effectively. ‘Diversion programmes could give children in conflict with the law another chance to reintegrate with society,’ said Guo Jian'an, director of the Institute for Crime Prevention under the Ministry of Justice.… The proportion of juvenile offenders among criminal suspects under arrest is increasing year-by-year, reaching 9.1 per cent in 2003. But China has not established a separate juvenile justice system for its population of roughly 360 million minors.”
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-08/23/content_367939.htm

RESEARCH

High-quality Pre-Kindergarten: The Key to Crime Prevention and School Success in Ohio, FIGHT CRIME: INVEST IN KIDS—Fight Crime: Invest in Kids is an anti-crime organization of 2,000 police chiefs, sheriffs, prosecutors and victims of violence. It recently released a report claiming to show an empirical connection between quality preschool education and future criminal behavior. The children in the study enrolled in a quality preschool program had significantly lower offense rates as they grew up than children who did not attend preschool.
http://www.fightcrime.org/reports/OHprek.pdf

Assessing the Mental Health Status of Youth in Juvenile Justice Settings, OFFICE OF JUVENILE JUSTICE AND DELINQUENCY PREVENTION —“Based on their findings and those of other researchers, the authors recommend best practices in assessing the mental health of juvenile offenders. This Bulletin provides guidance to juvenile justice professionals seeking to establish guidelines for mental health assessment in juvenile justice facilities.”
http://www.ncjrs.org/pdffiles1/ojjdp/202713.pdf

Violence-Related Behaviors Among High School Students—United States, 1991–2003, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL—The CDC has analyzed data from the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) to determine trends in violent behavior among youth ages 10-24. According to the analysis, weapon carrying and physical fighting has declined significantly among the studied population, but there was no significant change in the number of those who were threatened with a weapon, and the percentage of students who avoided going to school due to threats of violence actually increased over the period studied.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5329a1.htm#top

Blueprints for Violence Prevention, OFFICE OF JUVENILE JUSTICE AND DELINQUENCY PREVENTION—OJJDP has released the latest in its “Blueprint” series on juvenile violence programs. This latest report “presents lessons learned about program implementation, and provides recommendations for those designing, implementing, and funding violence prevention programs.” In addition, OJJDP has released the bulletin, “Successful Program Implementation: Lessons From Blueprints,” which presents evaluations of previously published Blueprint programs.
http://www.ncjrs.org/pdffiles1/ojjdp/204273.pdf
http://www.ncjrs.org/pdffiles1/ojjdp/204274.pdf

WEB RESOURCES

BJS Publications Collection—The Bureau of Justice Statistics has made its entire publications collection available to the public on CD at minimal cost. The CD contains all of the BJS publications that are available electronically. Documents are presented in Portable Document Format (PDF) and/or ascii text. Most tables are also available in spreadsheet formats. The publication is entitled “Bureau of Justice Statistics Publications Collection as of December 31, 2003,” NCJ 205170, and costs $10.57.
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/cd.htm#publications

The Blawg Channel—Web logs or “blogs” are the new, hot thing on the Internet. There are thousands of them on a wide range of topics, some interesting, some no more than one person’s ramblings. A great many blogs are devoted to legal topics, but none we’ve found yet are on the subject of juvenile justice. One of the newer interesting general law blogs is The Blawg Channel, co-written by several experienced bloggers. While the information is not specifically related to criminal law or juvenile justice, some may be interesting and useful.
http://www.blawgchannel.com/