Why keeping young offenders out of jail could reduce crime

See also strange email from San Diego ACLU chief counsel David Loy.

Why keeping young offenders out of jail could reduce crime

January 29, 2015

PBS Newshour

JUDY WOODRUFF: A new report out today on the state of juvenile justice in the U.S. finds that outcomes are better for youth kept under supervision closer to home, rather than those in secure state-run facilities.
In fact, it shows that those arrested and then locked up in juvenile detention facilities are 21 percent more likely to be arrested again than those monitored closer to home. And those who commit a second offense after time in detention facilities are three times as likely to carry out more serious crimes later on.
With us to discuss the report are Xavier McElrath-Bey of the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth. And Michael Thompson, he’s director of the Council of State Governments Justice Center. His group conducted the study for the state of Texas.
And we welcome you both.
Michael Thompson, to you first.
I read that you said there has never been a study done like this one. What did you mean by that and what were the main findings?
MICHAEL THOMPSON, Director, Council of State Governments Justice Center: Yes, we have never seen any state conduct a study like this. I mean, every state is seeing — or nearly every state is seeing a dramatic decline in the number of kids that it has in state-secure facilities.
But this study that Texas undertook is unlike anything done anywhere. We saw 1.3 million records pulled together over an eight-year period, a real exhaustive analysis that was done, that proves that really kids do, do better closer to home, kids staying under community supervision, instead of being in an incarceration setting.
We found that they were saving the state a lot of money, hundreds of millions of dollars, by closing these facilities and really putting the emphasis on community supervision. Very few states could conduct an analysis like, this yet it’s the kind of analysis that states everywhere should be conducting.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And what was — what was so different about the community incarceration care for these young men and women that was from the state-run facilities?
MICHAEL THOMPSON: Right.
I mean, when you hear it and you think about it, it really makes a lot of sense, right? I mean, what we have been doing is we have been pulling kids away from their community, sending them to a facility hundreds or thousands of miles away, interacting with staff who don’t look like them, don’t necessarily speak their language, uprooted from any kinds of ties they had in the community, further away from positive influences they had, like maybe family members or a pastor or a sibling.
And we expect there to be some tremendous corrective action when we’re putting them with a bunch of kids who maybe will have a negative influence on them because they’re a higher risk of reoffending. So, really, when we talk about it that way, we shouldn’t be surprised that those kids actually end up doing better when they’re closer to home.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Xavier McElrath-Bey, you were in a detention facility when you were 13 years old. What did you learn from that experience about this?
XAVIER MCELRATH-BEY, Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth: Well, at that age in particular, I was very much traumatized, to be quite honest with you.
I came from a household that contended with psychiatric disorders and substance abuse and a lot of very non-nurturing experiences I had as a child, and also faced with a lot of violence in my community.
So when you grow up in an environment like this and you are contending with such a sense of being unsafe and the feeling of being unnurtured, I feel like you naturally gravitate toward those things that give you the opposite impression. And for me in my life, that was the gang.
And the gang gave me a wealth of love and support. And, strangely enough, although it resulted in many poor decisions, it was what was, I would say, fundamentally needed for me in terms of my own development.
I would also say that recognizing these needs, you know, not only are we the only country in the world that overincarcerates kids, but we’re also the only country that’s known to sentence children to life without the possibility of parole.
I think this really flies in the face of what we know in terms of adolescent development. And it totally negates the reality that children have the capacity to change. And this is what we know, not just in terms of research, but also in terms of what we have seen with all the individuals that are coming out who have been able to have another chance at life.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Xavier McElrath-Bey, let me stay with you for just a minute.
What is — what do you believe is different and helpful about a facility, about a treatment program that is closer to home? Because, in many cases, it’s going to involve — they’re going to be isolated from other youth. What’s better about it?
XAVIER MCELRATH-BEY: I think we need to keep in mind that the majority of the kids that are coming into the system have experienced a lot of adverse experience.
They have been traumatized by violence, by abuse within their homes. We know this through research. And when we put a child in an environment that only reinforces that negativity in their life, we cannot expect a child to have a positive outcome. In fact, more often than not, that does more harm. It only retraumatizes the child. It only exposes them to further abuse and neglect.
And it’s almost as if we have picked up for other individuals and systems that failed them. But I think we could take on a better approach with our kids.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, Michael Thompson, what does it look like then from the standpoint of a state or a community? What do the results look like when young people come through a program that’s run at the community level?
MICHAEL THOMPSON: Well, again, what we’re seeing is that the kids are doing better when they’re in this community-based program, instead of in a state correctional facility.
But we also know that just putting in a program doesn’t automatically ensure great results. We have seen here in Texas that they have plowed a lot of the money they have saved into community-based supervision and community-based services. But what we’re finding is that those programs are not always delivered in a way that’s consistent with what the research says works.
So, for example, we find different programs serving low-risk youth, and they’re connecting those low-risk youth to some medium- or higher-risk youth, and those kids in turn are having a bad influence on those lower-risk youth. And that’s simply pulling them further into the system.
So, we have to figure out a way to make sure that these programs are actually delivered in a way that’s consistent with what the research says works...

Teacher Punished for Telling Students About Constitutional Rights

Teacher Punished for Telling Students About Constitutional Rights
By Todd Starnes
Fox News
May 29, 2013

An Illinois high school teacher was punished by a local school district after he warned students about the Constitutional rights before answering a school-mandated survey about emotional and at-risk behavior.

John Dryden, a social studies teacher at Batavia High School, was issued a formal reprimand and docked a day’s pay. The punishment was doled out during a closed-door school board meeting.

The controversy started when the school district directed students to complete a survey about at-risk behavior – including past drug, tobacco and alcohol usage.

“I advised my students that they had a Fifth Amendment right not incriminate themselves,” Dryden told a local newspaper. “It was not my intention for them not to take the survey.”

Batavia School Superintendent Jack Barshinger told Fox News what the teacher did was against the rules.

“The issue before the board was whether one employee had the right to mischaracterize the efforts of teachers, counselors, social workers and others and tell students in effect that the adults are not here to help but they are trying to get you to incriminate yourself,” he said.

But Dryden said several questions on the 34-page survey asked students to self-report what could potentially be criminal behavior.

“I’m not here to stir the pot,” Dryden said. “I’m just trying to protect my kids.”

Barshinger told Fox News that school rules protect students from self-incrimination.

“It is not possible for a student to incriminate himself in a school setting that would make him eligible for any police action,” he said.

And while the superintendent said students “absolutely” have constitutional rights – he said there is a caveat.

“Unfortunately, it is how they are applied in a school setting,” he said. “The Fifth Amendment – you don’t typically hear about in a school setting. That’s because the law has already been set that don’t allow students to self incriminate.”

[Maura Larkins' comment: What law is it that? And why did Barshinger say above that it was "school rules" that protected from self-incrimination? In fact, many adults who work in schools have hostile feelings toward certain kids, and go out of their way to get kids suspended or expelled. Also, they often call in the police.]

He also said parents and students were given the opportunity to opt-out of the survey.

[Maura Larkins' comment: If they had the right to opt out, then what's all the fuss about? Basically, that's what the teacher was telling them, only he gave them a civics lesson at the same time.]

Nearly 100 students, former students and colleagues turned out at the school board meeting to show their support for the embattled teacher. A Facebook petition generated nearly 6,000 signatures for the 20-year veteran teacher.

“He is able to break through student apathy like no other teacher I know,” fellow teacher Scott Bayer told a local newspaper.

Murder plot allegation against fifth-graders stuns Washington town

I am nonplussed, just like prosecutor Timothy Rasmussen and, I'm sure, the parents of the two boys in the story below. (I just looked up the meaning of the word "nonplussed", which I never quite managed to figure out. It turns out that the word has a standard meaning synonymous with "perplexed" and "confused"--that's the meaning I intend here. It comes from the French "no more", used when a person runs out of arguments and gives up. But the word is frequently misused to mean "unfazed", hence my confusion.)

A teacher with a gun would have been no help at all in this case. And as my prior post shows, some teachers have very bad judgment, and can not be trusted with guns.

It seems to me we need better mental health care for everybody in school: students, parents and staff members.

Murder plot allegation against fifth-graders stuns Washington town
Two fifth-graders in Colville, Wash., may be charged with conspiracy to commit murder after a knife and gun are found in a backpack at school.
By Kim Murphy
Los Angeles Times
February 14, 2013

SEATTLE — In what has become a chillingly familiar event across the country, school authorities in eastern Washington recently discovered a gun and a knife in the backpack of a student. But what stunned the small town of Colville was whom the backpack belonged to: a 10-year-old student at Fort Colville Elementary School.

School authorities said two fifth-grade boys planned to use the weapons to lure another student outside the school and kill her "because she was really annoying."

The boys last week confessed to plans to harm an additional six students at the school.

"This was a plan. And it was a plan to kill," Stevens County prosecuting attorney Timothy Rasmussen said Thursday.

Rasmussen said he would argue that the 10-year-old and his 11-year-old codefendant be held criminally responsible on charges of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and witness tampering — a charge filed after authorities said the boys promised to pay $80 to a student if he agreed not to tell anyone about the plot.

According to a court affidavit made public this week, the incident came to light shortly before 8 a.m. on Feb. 7, when a fourth-grader told a teacher he had seen an 11-year-old boy with a knife.

The teacher searched that boy's backpack and that of his 10-year-old friend and found the weapons in the friend's backpack. They included a knife with a 3¼-inch blade, a .45-caliber Remington 1911 semiautomatic handgun and an ammunition clip.

"My background is a high school counselor and psychologist, and quite frankly, in 30-plus years, I never heard of anything like this at this age level," said Colville School Supt. Mike Cashion.

Rasmussen was also nonplussed.

"To me, 10- and 11-year-olds do bad things," he said. "They throw rocks through windows. They shoot BB guns at people's cars. They hit people with sticks, they set a cat on fire. Those are things that children do. But this was a plot to kill."

When questioned separately shortly after the weapons were discovered, the boys admitted their plot, authorities said. "I was going to kill her with the knife and [the other boy] was supposed to use the gun to keep anyone from trying to stop me or mess up our plan," the older boy told detectives.

When shown a class list, the boy identified six other classmates who were targeted.

The older boy said he had been friends with the girl for several months "but that he hated her now." He said the girl "had recently become rude and would pick on him."

"The plan was nipped in the bud by other students who saw something and said something," Cashion said, adding that the school had been promoting a program that encourages students to report suspicious things.

Rasmussen said students younger than 8 were considered incapable of committing criminal acts in Washington state. For children between the ages of 8 and 12, the law presumes they are similarly incapable but calls for the court to hold a hearing to determine whether they had the capacity to commit a crime. That hearing is set for Feb. 20.

At a community meeting Wednesday night, Cashion said one parent expressed gratitude that because of the alertness of school staff, the gathering was a forum and not a funeral.

Another asked whether authorities would entertain the possibility of providing teachers with guns in the classroom. Cashion said he responded that the option was under consideration by the Legislature, but that most teachers weren't trained to use guns.

"I told them I can't imagine a teacher taking a gun out, leveling it at a fifth-grader and killing them," he said. "It's the antithesis of what we are."