Criminal Law

Supreme Court Turns Down Pittman Case

Posted on April 14, 2008
The Supreme Court opted today not to hear the case of 19-year-old Christopher Pittman, who was 12 years old on November 28, 2001, when he shot his grandparents, set fire to their home and stole their car to make a getaway with his dog. Pittman was tried as an adult in 2005; his attorneys unsuccessfully [...

JPI Opposes Clinton?s Anti-Crime Plan

Posted on April 14, 2008
According to the Justice Policy Institute, Hillary Clinton’s anti-crime package (see my earlier post here) “ignores critical research that finds that investments in employment, education, housing and treatment for those who need it is the most effective and fiscally-responsible way to improve public safety...

Upstate Prisons Update

Posted on April 14, 2008
New York Times Metro reporter Jim Dwyer filed a column on Saturday that does a good job of summing up where we’re at, and where we’ll probably stay, on the proposed plan to shut down underused/empty prisons (on both the juvenile and adult side) in upstate New York...

Clinton Unveils Anti-Crime Agenda

Posted on April 11, 2008
Stumping in Philadelphia ahead of the April 22 primary election, Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton unveiled a $4 billion plan to combat crime today. Most important, aside from the fact that she injected the topic into a campaign season that has essentially avoided it, is her call to do away with mandatory five-year sentencing for [...

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Philly Inquirer Commends JLC?s ?Dedicated Lawyers?

Posted on April 11, 2008
More praise, much deserved, for the Juvenile Law Center: the Philadelphia Inquirer ran a congratulatory editorial today praising the organization and celebrating its MacArthur Foundation award. Here it is, in full: The $500,000 grant from the MacArthur Foundation to the Juvenile Law Center is just the latest confirmation of the good and important work the [...

LWOP Progress in California

Posted on April 11, 2008
Baby steps. On Tuesday the Public Safety Committee of the California State Senate voted 3 to 2 in favor of the Juvenile Life Without Parole Reform Act (Senate Bill 1199), written by State Senator Leland Yee, a Democrat representing San Francisco/San Mateo...

On Kunzru?s Revolutions

Posted on April 10, 2008
For those who might be interested: here is a link to my latest published piece, a longish review of British novelist Hari Kunzru’s new book, My Revolutions, which appears in the current issue of The Nation. Not much in the way of juvenile justice policy, though it does touch on themes concerning violent youth and [...

JLC, Prizewinner

Posted on April 10, 2008
Congratulations to the Juvenile Law Center, which has just won the third-annual John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Award for Creative and Effective Institutions. The prestigious $500,000 prize, which went to eight organizations worldwide this year, honors small nonprofits (i...

Privacy Rights and Wrongs in Wisconsin

Posted on April 08, 2008
Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle, a Democrat, vetoed a bill yesterday that would have stripped privacy rights from juveniles who come into contact with the law. As this brief AP report explains, the proposed measure would have made juvenile court records available to law enforcement officers, judges and district attorneys, as well as employees in [...

Support for TYC Shutdown: Overstated?

Posted on April 06, 2008
Following up on that Austin American-Statesman article I mentioned yesterday, which cited “very broad-based support” for an incipient plan to do away with the Texas Youth Commission: Here’s Grits for Breakfast with some commentary: In related news, the Austin Statesman’s Mike Ward and Senate Criminal Justice Chairman John Whitmire tag teamed again today for another story [...

Wyoming Prison Stats Tell the Tale

Posted on April 05, 2008
State population in 1982: 510,000 State population in 2006: 515,000 Increase in state population from 1982 to 2006: ~1 percent Number of inmates in state prisons in 1995: 1,300 Number of inmates in state prisons in 2008: 2,043 Increase in prison population from 1995 to 2008: 57 percent Number of employees managing/working in local jails and state prisons in 1982: 583 Number [...

Texas State Senator: ?We Need a Clean Start?

Posted on April 05, 2008
Close TYC? That’s the gist of a plan that’s being discussed by state legislators, who hope to write it up and present it this summer. As the Austin American-Statesman reports, State Senator John Whitmire is stepping out as unofficial spokesman for the plan, which would call for a total makeover of the state’s troubled juvenile [...

CJJ: Kohl Amendment ?Promising?

Posted on April 04, 2008
News brief from the Coalition for Juvenile Justice April/May e-newsletter: Promising Federal Juvenile Justice Appropriations Cycle Gets Underway in Congress The Fiscal Year 2009 federal juvenile justice appropriations cycle is off to a promising start, despite the President?s Budget Proposal and anticipated challenges related to the election year...

CNN on Juv Prison Abuse

Posted on April 04, 2008
Check out this long article by CNN writer Ashley Fantz on widespread abuse in US juvenile prisons. It’s not a pretty picture–in fact, it’s quite dark. But as Jerome Miller, a psychiatric social worker and co-founder of the National Center on Institutions and Alternatives, tells Fantz, “It’s a nationwide crisis that has been going on [...

Revisiting Those Byrne/JAG Cuts

Posted on April 03, 2008
A few months ago, when I first learned that President Bush’s federal domestic spending bill for 2008 included a 67 percent reduction in appropriations (from $520 million to $170 million) for the Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) program, which funds local crime control initiatives and drug task forces, I wasn’t sure how to respond...

Meet J. Robert Flores, OJJDP Chief (Underminer)

Posted on April 03, 2008
Juvienation reader Bill Bush writes in with this comment in response to my post from a few days ago on cronyism at the OJJDP. Who is Flores? What is his background prior to OJJDP? I read his bio on the agency web site but it isn?t all that illuminating...

12-Year-Old Boy Kills His Mother?s Assailant

Posted on April 02, 2008
This page-one story in today’s Washington Post describes the terrifying scene that confronted Cheryl Stamp and her 12-year-old son Monday night. When the boy heard his mother screaming in the kitchen of the boarding house where they live (in Prince George’s County, Maryland), he rushed in and found her being strangled by a fellow resident, [...

New JPI Report on Overuse of Jails

Posted on April 02, 2008
A new report by the Justice Policy Institute, “Jailing Communities: The Impact of Jail Expansion and Effective Public Safety Strategies,” documents the heavy toll paid by communities that have seen a massive expansion of their jail populations in the past twenty years...

Colorado Enacts Restorative Justice Law

Posted on April 01, 2008
Signaling his support for the restorative justice approach to juvenile crime, Colorado Governor Bill Ritter signed House Bill 08-1117 into law yesterday. The innovative measure, which passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in both the State House (63-1) and Senate (33-0), is designed to create an alternative to incarceration that is neither punitive nor lenient...

Cronyism at the OJJDP

Posted on March 31, 2008
More federal news. Well, maybe it’s not news, exactly–Youth Today reported on it back in January, with an update in early March, and I’ve sat on it for a little while without commenting. Which shouldn’t reflect on the quality of the story, since it’s such a good scoop, but rather on my scattered brain...

Leahy on JJDPA: ?It Should Be Reauthorized?

Posted on March 29, 2008
Ah, good. We’re one step closer toward reauthorizing the federal Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA). Senate Judiciary Committee chairman has announced that hearings will be scheduled following Easter recess, and he’s officially on board...

Mishi Faruqee on Closing NY Youth Prisons

Posted on March 28, 2008
This week’s guest on Radio Civil Liberties–a weekly broadcast produced by the New York Civil Liberties Union, which airs live every Saturday at 11 a.m. on WBBF AM 1120 in Buffalo–was Mishi Faruqee, director of the Juvenile Justice Project at the Correctional Association of New York...

Violence Up at Baltimore Youth Prison

Posted on March 28, 2008
Violence involving inmates at the Baltimore City Juvenile Justice Center has spiked in recent months, according to data released this week by the state’s juvenile justice monitor. As the Baltimore Sun reports, “In the first three months of the year, there have been 155 youth-on-youth assaults and 28 youth-on-staff assaults at the Baltimore City Juvenile [...

Justice Dept. Unveils New JJ Blog

Posted on March 28, 2008
The National Institute of Corrections (NIC), an agency within the US Justice Department’s Federal Bureau of Prisons, has set up a new blog, Juvenile Justice Connection, to “facilitate the exchange of information among juvenile justice professionals,” according to the press announcement...

Readers Respond to Billy Wolfe Article

Posted on March 27, 2008
Ever since I posted on Dan Barry’s article about Billy Wolfe on Monday, I’ve been getting an impressive and sustained amount of traffic to the site, which has been accompanied by a noticeable uptick in comments. Check out the comments here and add one of your own; there’s a lively discussion going on among Juvienation [...

NYT: Shut ?em Down

Posted on March 27, 2008
Editorial in today’s New York Times: New Day, Line by Budget Line Moving beyond the steamy executive headlines, the New York Statehouse had better show taxpayers something more promising than business as usual as it tackles the deficit-threatened state budget...

Abortion Battle in Arizona

Posted on March 26, 2008
In Arizona, teenage girls are getting caught in the crossfire of the abortion wars. The State Senate voted 18-12 yesterday in favor of a bill that would add additional barriers to teenagers seeking abortions in the state without the consent of a parent or guardian...

Vegas Girls

Posted on March 26, 2008
The focus in Nevada on juvenile sex offenders (see yesterday’s post below) might be a tad misplaced. Sex, yes; juveniles, yes. But the offenders–in Las Vegas, at least–are more likely to be adults than teens. As this AP report notes, Las Vegas has become a hub for underage prostitutes...

NYT Metro on ?Ghost Jails?

Posted on March 26, 2008
Don’t miss this strong piece from the New York Times Metro section on the struggle over the proposed plan to close the “ghost jails” in upstate New York.

Nevada Judge to Rule on Juv Sex Offender Laws

Posted on March 25, 2008
The new juvenile sex offender laws in the state of Nevada, as laid out in Assembly Bill 579, are so Byzantine and so poorly worded that when a case landed in family court last week, the Las Vegas Sun reports, “the district attorney, who is fighting for stricter legislation, and the public defender, who is [...

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