REPORT/STUDIES

Safe Schools/Healthy Students Fact Sheet Spotlights Juvenile Justice

The National Center for Mental Health Promotion and Youth Violence Prevention has published Developing Safe Schools Partnerships: Spotlight on Juvenile Justice.

The information provided in this 2-page fact sheet draws on the experience of the Safe Schools/Healthy Students Initiative, a collaborative effort of the U.S. Departments of Justice, Education, and Health and Human Services.

Among the resources cited for developing effective juvenile justice-school relations is the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Preventions' Model Programs Guide, an online portal to scientifically tested and proven programs that address a range of issues across the juvenile justice spectrum.

Resources:

"Developing Safe School Partnerships: Spotlight on Juvenile Justice" and related juvenile justice resources are available at http://www.promoteprevent.org/Resources/briefs/juvenile%20justice%20resources.html

To access the Model Programs Guide, visit http://www.ojjdp.ncjrs.gov/programs/mpg.html.

FACJJ Issues Annual Report

The Federal Advisory Committee on Juvenile Justice (FACJJ) has issued its 2007 Annual Report.

Established under the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (JJDP) Act, the role of FACJJ is to advise the President and Congress on matters related to juvenile justice and delinquency prevention, to advise the Administrator of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention on the work of OJJDP, and to evaluate the progress and accomplishments of juvenile justice activities and projects.

The report outlines concerns and issues identified by FACJJ members and their State Advisory Groups. It contains 15 recommendations that illustrate why juvenile justice should remain a national priority and highlights the importance of reauthorizing the JJDP Act.

Resources:

FACJJ's 2007 Annual Report is available at http://www.facjj.org/annualreports/ccFACJJ%20Report%20508.pdf.

For further information about the Federal Advisory Committee on Juvenile Justice, visit http://www.facjj.org.

Report Examines Disproportionate Minority Contact

With funding from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the Program of Research on the Causes and Correlates of Delinquency has issued the report "Disproportionate Minority Contact in the Justice System: A Study of Differential Minority Arrest/Referral to Court in Three Cities."

The report draws on information from delinquency studies in Pittsburgh, PA, Rochester, NY, and Seattle, WA, to examine disproportionate minority contact and factors that might affect it at the police contact/court referral level.

Resources:

To access the report, visit http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/grants/219743.pdf.

NEWS ARTICLES:

A THREAT TO TEEN BRAINS

Alcohol's harms are worse for young people

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/national/2007/09/28/alcohols-harms-are-worse-for-teens_print.htm

BOSTON:
SPIKE IN VIOLENCE IN MIDDLE SCHOOLS RAISES CONCERNS

A Marlborough student was suspended for bringing a knife to school. A week later, a Concord student was arrested for putting 10 classmates on a hit list. Then there was the bomb threat at a Tewksbury school and a lockdown in Waltham where two knives were found in students' lockers, just a day after a pellet gun was discovered at another Waltham school.

Educators, police, and national school violence specialists struggle to explain rising violence among younger students, which is also reflected in national statistics. They cite an array of causes, including violent video games, movies, and television shows and news coverage of violence at school and in the community, which results in copy-cat incidents.

Specialists also say that today's students rebel earlier than previous generations did; have easier access to violent images, writing, and attitudes on the Internet and in online chat rooms; and have even less parental supervision than in preceding generations.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/10/02/spike_in_violence_in_middle_schools_raises_concerns?mode=PF

BALTIMORE:
EXPERTS ANALYZE KILLER IMPULSE

For decades, scientists have studied just what makes someone take a life, cross the line from angry person to violent killer. Baltimore has many Corey McMillons who kill brazenly, without remorse. Are they born with something broken or missing in their brains - impulse control, perhaps, or a conscience? What's the influence of their environment, of abusive parents, of dangerous neighborhoods, of violent video games?

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/crime/bal-te.killer07oct07,0,4479847,print.story?coll=bal_tab01_layout

VIOLENCE AT SCHOOLS OFTEN GOES UNREPORTED

Figuring out which of hundreds of violent incidents in Seattle Public Schools were reported to police last year is so complicated that it requires a search of two databases and a pile of handwritten paper records.

If that doesn't work, the principal may have the case number jotted on a business card in his desk drawer, said Interim Director of Safety and Security Pegi McEvoy.

Two years of district databases list more than 1,000 violent incidents — including assaults, threats, robberies and weapons possession — that don't appear to have been reported to police. But the district's record-keeping is so spotty that it's difficult to know for sure. The database field set aside for police case numbers was so seldom used that security officers sometimes used the space to jot down other facts about the incident.

This year, a federal Department of Education grant has allowed the district to implement a new computer system that will combine information about incidents and make it easier for security staff to keep track.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/PrintStory.pl?document_id=2003909382&zsection_id=2002111777&slug=schoolsafety28m&date=20070928

JUDGE: UNDERAGE BOOZE TEST UNLAWFUL

State law allowing police to examine pedestrians is ruled unconstitutional in fed court. (cite case)

Police officers in Michigan can't require pedestrians to take a breath-alcohol test without first obtaining a warrant, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge David M. Lawson struck down as unconstitutional a state law that allowed police officers to compel pedestrians younger than 21 to take the portable Breathalyzer tests.

The law was passed to bolster enforcement of underage drinking laws.

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070927/METRO/709270397

SCHOOL DISCIPLINE TOUGHER ON AFRICAN AMERICANS

In the average New Jersey public school, African-American students are almost 60 times as likely as white students to be expelled for serious disciplinary infractions.

In Minnesota, black students are suspended 6 times as often as whites.

In Iowa, blacks make up just 5 percent of the statewide public school enrollment but account for 22 percent of the students who get suspended.

In every state but Idaho, a Tribune analysis of the data shows, black students are being suspended in numbers greater than would be expected from their proportion of the student population. In 21 states—Illinois among them—that disproportionality is so pronounced that the percentage of black suspensions is more than double their percentage of the student body. And on average across the nation, black students are suspended and expelled at nearly three times the rate of white students.

There's more at stake than just a few bad marks in a student's school record. Studies show that a history of school suspensions or expulsions is a strong predictor of future trouble with the law—and the first step on what civil rights leaders have described as a "school-to-prison pipeline" for black youths, who represent 16 percent of U.S. adolescents but 38 percent of those incarcerated in youth prisons.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-070924discipline,1,1866416,print.story?ctrack=3&cset=true

YOUTHS SEE LITTLE RISK IN TRYING METH

Despite methamphetamine's addictive and sometimes deadly effects, one in three youths sees little or no risk in trying the illegal drug, a new survey finds.

Nearly one in four youths believes meth "makes you feel euphoric or happy" or helps you lose weight, and the same number said it would be "very" or "somewhat easy" to obtain meth, according to a first-ever national use and attitudes survey about the drug released Tuesday.

And yet, in a finding that might be of comfort to parents, three out of four youths said they are strongly opposed to using meth.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2007-09-18-meth-survey_N.htm

OP/ED: THIS IS YOUR (FATHER’S) BRAIN ON DRUGS

by Mike Males

A SPATE of news reports have breathlessly announced that science can explain why adults have such trouble dealing with teenagers: adolescents possess “immature,” “undeveloped” brains that drive them to risky, obnoxious, parent-vexing behaviors. The latest example is a study out of Temple University that found that the “temporal gap between puberty, which impels adolescents toward thrill seeking, and the slow maturation of the cognitive-control system, which regulates these impulses, makes adolescence a time of heightened vulnerability for risky behavior.”

Why, then, do many pundits and policy makers rush to denigrate adolescents as brainless? One troubling possibility: youths are being maligned to draw attention from the reality that it’s actually middle-aged adults — the parents — whose behavior has worsened.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/17/opinion/17males.html?pagewanted=print

UPCOMING EVENTS:

National Conference on Juvenile Justice, March 9-12, 2008, St. Louis, Missouri

For more information on this conference, go to www.ndaa.org.