All Kids Make Mistakes @kidsmistakes - Tumblr Blog

It has become a media cliche to compare neighborhoods plagued by gun violence to war zones. The combat metaphors range from children caught in the crossfire to explosions of gang warfare to SWAT-like police teams patrolling the streets. But behind the bleak imagery lies the hidden collateral damage of people’s tender psychological wounds: It’s an epidemic of trauma-related stress in the hospitals, schools and living rooms of these beleaguered communities.

Photographer Trent Bell recently took pictures of convicts, and asked them what advice they’d give their younger selves. The results are heartbreaking.

Obama's 'My Brother's Keeper' Initiative

From the CS Monitor:

“My Brother’s Keeper” – an initiative named for a biblical phrase he uses regularly, conveying a belief that society must help those facing challenges. It aims to keep young minority men out of what is often called the “school-to-prison pipeline.”

What do you think?

"When I started, I realized kids as young as seven can be taken into custody... into institutions like this. I felt nobody was paying attention to this and nobody knew this existed," Ross says.

Groups have invested $150 million in the program, according to the White House, and have pledged to invest another $200 million over the next five years. Obama signed an order on Thursday to establish the My Brother’s Keeper Task Force, which will determine best practices both inside and outside government to address the challenges faced by young minority men.

After Decades of Spending, Minority Youth Still Overrepresented in System By Lisa Chiu, jjiega

For more than 25 years, the U.S. Department of Justice has given hundreds of millions in grants to states to reduce the overrepresentation of minority youth in the juvenile justice system, yet youth of color still appear in disproportionate numbers in many areas of the system. According to data from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention analyzed by JJIE, black youth between the ages of 10 and 17 made up 17 percent of all children in that age group in 2010, but comprised 31 percent of all juvenile arrests, 40 percent of detentions, 34 percent of adjudications (guilty determinations), and 45 percent of cases transferred to adult criminal court.

The percentage of black arrests and adjudications has actually increased in the last 20 years. In 1990, black youth were 15 percent of the entire youth population, but they made up 27 percent of juvenile arrests, 33 percent of adjudications and 40 percent of detentions. The only area that saw improvement by 2010 was in transfers to adult court, where black youth comprised 49 percent of transfers in 1990.

U.S. law enforcement agencies made an estimated 1.47 million arrests of persons younger than 18 years old in 2011, an 11 percent decrease since 2010

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2014/02/25/6187816/juvenile-arrests-declined-eleven.html#storylink=cpy

Graphic: Expulsion disparity at charter schools

Half of all suicides in the nation's prison systems, Durbin said, involve offenders assigned to solitary confinement.

Did you know that youth of color are over-represented at nearly every point of contact with the juvenile justice system? Join JJIE for a live video chat with James Bell of the W. Haywood Burns Institute and Katayoon Majd of the Public Welfare Foundation. This informative and candid conversation on racial and ethnic disparities and the over-representation of youth of color in the juvenile justice system will help you better understand why so many kids of color are caught up in the system.

From the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange

Some state lawmakers are asking for more discretion in the criminal prosecution and sentencing of teens.

More happenings in Florida.

Juvenile Justice Experts Scrutinize OJJDP’s Role (link) Juvenile Justice Information Exchange By Gary Garely, February 17, 2014

For more than a decade, the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention has been beset by inadequate funding and Congress dictating how it spends much of what it does receive, frequent changes in leadership, and waning influence. Now the role, mission and funding of OJJDP have come under close scrutiny. On Thursday and Friday, a committee that is to recommend ways OJJDP can be strengthened and realigned got an earful from experts in the juvenile justice field. The committee is tasked with implementing key recommendations from a 2012 National Research Council report titled “Reforming Juvenile Justice: A Developmental Approach.” OJJDP itself asked for the upcoming report, which is being funded by the agency and two influential foundations with strong backgrounds in juvenile justice, the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Read more: http://jjie.org/juvenile-justice-experts-scrutinize-ojjdps-role/

The conundrum of the current African-American experience: How to rescue people from a system and culture that threatens to drown them?

New video tells story of 45% of kids without counsel—Colorado can do better! Watch it here. Get involved to help protect the rights of vulnerable youth. Join the Citizen Lobby Day Monday February 24 at the Colorado State Capitol. Please share this message.

lynnandstuff

kidsmistakes

People convicted of felonies should not forever lose their right to vote, according to Attorney General Eric Holder. In remarks prepared for delivery at a criminal justice conference Tuesday, Holder takes aim at state laws which strip voting rights from those convicted of serious crimes. “It is time to fundamentally rethink laws that permanently…

Hudson County juvenile detainees perform 'A West Side Story' with help of Kennedy School dancers

A children's home in Exeter is having success with a technique that facilitates communication between victims and perpetrators

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

All Kids Make Mistakes