Youth in the News
Volume 3, Number 11, June 1-15, 2008
Contents
State Watch
Legal
Research
Government
STATE WATCH
- In Indiana, a juvenile mental health effort is a model for how counties can avoid placing nonviolent offenders into the delinquency system.
- New York adopts new rules to accomodate LGBT youth in juvenile detention centers and to include transgender kids in the state's anti-discrimination policy.
- In Kentucky, the state public defender system plans to stop representing kids in juvenile court in 13 of its 29 offices, despite reports that the state's juvenile justice system urgently needs reform.
- Indiana has developed education standards to teach financial literacy to middle school students.
LEGAL
- In Ohio, juvenile courts are struggling to handle youth defendants with low IQs who don't understand the charges against them.
- In California, a landmark class-action lawsuit is settled that will require that juveniles will have a preliminary hearing with an attorney within 13 business days of being arrested.
RESEARCH
- A new Child Trends brief highlights the challenges faced by rural out-of-school programs and suggests several strategies that can strengthen them.
- A study from Massachusetts General Hospital reports that adolescents with bipolar disorder are at an increased risk for smoking and substance abuse.
- A new survey by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention reports that fewer black and white high school students are having sex or using drugs and alcohol compared to the 1990s, but Latinos are not sharing in many areas of progress.
GOVERNMENT
- In Congress, a House Subcommittee hears testimony on effective ways to address gang violence.
- The House passes a measure re-authorizing the Reconnecting Homeless Youth Act, which increases funding for disconnected youth programs for the next five years, increasing the amounts by 50 percent over the last year.
ARTICLES
INDIANA
Juvenile Mental Health Effort in County a Model for Others
June 14, 2008
By James D. Wolf, Jr., Post-Tribune Correspondent
About 45 officials from juvenile courts of five counties as well as Indianapolis came to Valparaiso to hear about Porter County Courts' mental health diversion program.
Officials from Marion, Lake, Johnson, Clark and Bartholomew counties were among those at the presentation Friday, as were people from the Indiana Department of Community Corrections.
The program identifies children in the juvenile justice system who have mental issues, whether clinical depression, bi-polar disorder, chemical dependency or other problems, and helps them before they get too far into the system.
It's the first such juvenile program in the state.
"Our hope is the project is a model for how communities can avoid placing children who are nonviolent into the delinquency system," said Judge Mary Harper, who started the program after seeing a 2004 presentation.
"It really fights recidivism," Harper said, adding that only three of more than 120 juveniles have been back in the courts since it began in 2005.
The five other counties have started programs, but Porter is furthest along, said Laurie Elliot, executive director of the Youth Law TEAM of Indiana. TEAM is a acronym for Technical Assistance Education Advocacy Monitoring.
Elliot's organization, part of the state bar, facilitates the mental health diversion, which is still a pilot project.
However, counties could replicate and adapt the program, Amy Karozos, staff attorney for Youth Law, said.
"It seems like it got everyone pumped up and interested," she said of the presentation.
Deana McMurray, director of Community Corrections for the Department of Corrections, called the program progressive.
The program is a partnership between The Family and Youth Services Bureau, the prosecutor's office, the public defender's office and Porter-Starke services, said Amy Beier, chief probation officer for Porter County.
NEW YORK
The State Adopts New Rules for LGBT Youths in Juvenile Detention
June 3, 2008
By Maria Luisa Tucker, The Village Voice
A year and a half after paying a $25,000 settlement to a male-to-female transgirl, the agency that runs the state's juvenile-detention centers has quietly adopted a host of new rules to accommodate lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth in its custody.
The new rules, adopted in March by the Office of Children and Family Services, now allow transgender youth to request special housing, wear their hair however they want, be called by their chosen name rather than their legal name, and shower privately. The new guidelines even allow biological males to wear girls' panties and bras if they prefer. The agency has also included transgender kids in its anti-discrimination policy—a first for any New York state agency, according to OCFS spokesman Edward Borges.
The policy shift and new rules—quietly hailed by transgender advocates who say that transkids often get harassed by staff and peers at detention centers—were approved without fanfare or even a press release.
"We were concerned about the Post—what their headline would be, you know? Twisting it and making it sensational," says Mishi Faruqee, the director of youth-justice programs at the Children's Defense Fund and co-chair of the working group that created the guidelines. As the OCSF trains its staff on the new guidelines this month, the agency has continued its strategy of easing into what it admits, for some, is uncomfortable new territory. "There are a lot of staff, especially in upstate facilities, [for whom] this is a whole new world," says Borges.
The policy shift comes after a 2006 lawsuit that received little attention outside the gay media, but that created big waves inside the OCFS.
Alyssa—formerly Andrew—Rodriguez was born male, but identified and dressed as a girl. She had been diagnosed with gender-identity disorder, a common psychiatric diagnosis for transgender people, and has prescribed feminizing hormones at age 12 or 13. Rodriguez was regularly taking the hormones to develop breasts and suppress facial-hair growth when she was arrested and placed in a juvenile-detention facility at age 15. Once in juvie, her hormones were taken away for months at a time, and the staff was directed to call her Andrew. Worse, she was transferred back and forth between the regular boys' facilities and special facilities for the two years she remained in state custody.
In a civil complaint alleging sex and disability discrimination, Rodriguez reported that she developed hot spells, headaches, a more masculine voice, depression, and suicidal thoughts as a result of being abruptly taken off hormones, and was punished simply for insisting that she was female.
Her experience wasn't all that unusual. Although no agency has numbers on how many transgender youth are in custody, the Urban Justice Center estimates that lesbian, gay, and transgender youths constitute between 4 and 10 percent of New York's juvenile-detention population. Advocacy groups say those youths often come out of detention with stories of verbal and even physical harassment.
As part of the 2006 settlement between Rodriguez and the OCFS, the state paid her $25,000 and agreed to change its policies for transkids. However, the original guidelines that came out of those first meetings contained language that was offensive to transgenders, says Faruqee—and even with the imperfect guidelines, there was no training to implement them inside the detention centers.
After Governor Eliot Spitzer appointed Gladys Carrión as the new commissioner of the OCFS last year, the guidelines were revised. The more substantive rules allow transgender youths to request placement at a facility where transkids won't have to share sleeping quarters with anyone else. The policy also allows them to dress and groom themselves however they like. Biological males housed in the boys' facilities are even allowed to use makeup, shave their legs, and wear their hair long.
The new guidelines aim to create better staff interactions with transgender youth—directing staff members not to use terms like "homosexual" or "transvestite," and also to call transgender kids by the name (and pronoun) that they prefer. The rules also direct the OCFS to continue hormone therapy for kids who are already receiving it at the time of admission, at least until a proper evaluation can be given. The agency will now even consider requests from transgender youths to begin hormone therapy while in its custody.
KENTUCKY
Perils Seen for Juvenile Justice
June 13, 2008
By Brandon Ortiz, Kentucky.com
Anti-poverty groups are sounding the alarm on Kentucky's juvenile justice system, just a month before state public defenders plan to stop representing some kids who skip school, smoke or commit other offenses that aren't crimes for adults.
Black and other minority youths in Kentucky were four times more likely than their white peers in 2006 to be placed in a juvenile detention center instead of a diversion or probation program, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation's 2008 Kids Count Data Book, which measures child well-being in all 50 states. The report was released Thursday.
Nationally, minorities are three times more likely to be placed in custody.
Kentucky has the second-highest percentage of kids in custody for so-called status offenses, which are offenses that are not crimes for adults, said Terry Brooks, executive director of Kentucky Youth Advocates, which helped compile information for the report.
Status offenders include truants, runaways and children beyond the control of their parents.
Locking up kids for status offenses is expensive and counterproductive, Brooks said. It does nothing to help the youths and it makes it more likely that they will commit crimes later in life.
"We know there is a direct pipeline from youth incarceration to adult imprisonment," Brooks said. "We're inventing a prison crisis."
The 2008 Kids Count says the nation's juvenile justice system urgently needs reform. The system has abandoned its original goal of rehabilitating youth in favor of a punitive approach that doesn't work and is costly, the report argues.
The report urged states to create more community-based programs to treat youths.
The report was released just weeks before the state public defender system plans to stop representing kids in juvenile court in 13 of its 29 offices, including Lexington's. That will only make problems worse, Brooks said.
Public defenders will ask judges to order the state to pay for private attorneys. It is unclear whether they can succeed with that demand.
"What I'm worried about is we're going to see status offenders in jail without any attorney at all," said Tim Arnold, the post-trial division director for the Department of Public Advocacy.
County-by-county numbers were not in the report. Brooks said that Kentucky Youth Advocates is collecting those numbers and plans to release a more detailed report on Kentucky this fall.
Of Kentucky juveniles in custody in 2006, 72 percent had been charged with non-violent offenses. That compares with 66 percent nationally.
There was one good sign in the numbers. Kentucky's violent crime rate for juveniles ages 10-17 was significantly lower than the national average. In 2005, the rate of Kentucky youths arrested for violent crimes was 202 per 100,000. The national rate was 283 per 100,000.
But a Fayette County prosecutor called Kentucky's detention rate for status offenders "disturbing."
"That is extremely surprising and equally disconcerting," said First Assistant Fayette County Attorney Brian Mattone.
Mattone said that Kentucky's racial disparity figures might be skewed by rural counties. His boss, Fayette County Attorney Larry Roberts, flatly said that Lexington's system does not have any racial disparities.
Assistant Fayette County Attorney Diane Minnifield, who handles juvenile cases, said diversion is offered for all juvenile misdemeanors. Status offenses are largely in the hands of the judge, she said.
Youths are not jailed per se for status offenses. Rather, they're placed in custody for contempt of court when they violate a court order to attend school or stop drinking, for example.
Minnifield said Fayette County's detention rate for status offenders increased with the advent of family courts in 2002.
Before family courts were created, district court judges heard all juvenile cases, from skipping school to serious offenses such as rape or burglary. Family court judges do not hear the more serious cases.
The result, Minnifield said, is that family court judges don't see the very worst kids and are quicker to jail kids for small offenses.
Judges need to work with the entire family to address juvenile behavior, she said.
"If you have a kid not going to school and his brother is breaking into cars, they need to be in front of the same judge," Minnifield said.
If a child doesn't want to go to school, putting him in detention isn't going to change his mind, Arnold said. Officials should address the root cause of why the child is not going to school, he said.
"I think everyone who has ever dealt with a teenager knows how ineffective it is to say, 'Stop it. Don't do it again or else,'" Arnold said.
Kentucky gives its judges far more power than other states to hold someone in contempt. Legislators have been afraid to regulate that power, he said.
Arnold thinks Kentucky judges frequently misuse their contempt power, and he says that's a major contributing factor for the state's high detention rates. He gave an example of a 500-pound child who was ordered by an Eastern Kentucky judge to lose weight. When the child couldn't lose weight, the judge ordered the child into custody.
Public defenders quickly filed a habeas corpus petition and blocked the judge from enforcing the order.
In another case, a judge ordered a child not to have any more excused absences.
"So if their arm is cut off, they still have to go to school," Arnold said.Read the 2008 Kids Count report.
INDIANA
Indiana Youth Failing Financial Literacy
June 8, 2008
By Bill Stanczykiewicz, thestarpress.com
Umpiring little league baseball is a good gig when you're 12 years old. You don't need a work permit. You get to hang out at the park. And you get paid.
His first paycheck of $200 was more money than he had ever held in his hand. Dad agreed to help him deposit the check in the bank, but first he had some decisions to make. How much to save? How much to spend? How much to give away?
So many decisions, and if he's a typical Indiana adolescent, the choices he makes likely will not be good.
In a national financial literacy exam administered by the National Jump$tart Coalition, 62 percent of Hoosier teens failed. One-third passed with a grade of just C or D, and less than 5 percent earned a B. None received an A.
These results are troubling as Indiana tries to improve upon the state's negative national rankings in personal financial management. Indiana mortgage foreclosures have surged 38 percent in four years, and the Hoosier state ranks fourth in the nation for bankruptcies.
This is bad news now and worse news later since a majority of Indiana youths say they learn most of their money-management skills from family members.
The financial risks for young people further intensify after high school. Most college students receive their first credit cards during their freshman year and eventually open as many as four credit card accounts. Research reveals that a student's lack of knowledge about finances is directly related to that student's level of credit card debt. Few college students are aware of the current interest rate on their credit cards, and many express unrealistic optimism that they will pay off their debts once they complete school.
In response, the Indiana Department of Education has developed six education standards to teach financial literacy to middle school students. These standards are designed to help students learn how to make wise financial decisions, develop budgets, keep financial records, manage credit and debt, and build long-term security through saving and investing.
A new test based on these standards was administered this spring, and results will be available later this year. The state's goal is to have every eighth-grade student pass this exam.
Families, meanwhile, retain the primary responsibility for teaching financial skills to children. Regardless of the amount of money available to children through allowance or chores or selling lemonade, parents immediately should start teaching their kids about saving, spending and giving.
Help children understand the difference between needs and wants. And once those are identified, parents can help children learn how to prioritize their current and future expenses.
If money is not available, "play" money can be earned and then redeemed for rewards at home like staying up an extra 15 minutes at bedtime or other special privileges. Trips to the grocery store can include questions and lessons about quantity and price. And as children get older, information about checking and savings accounts, how taxes are deducted from gross pay and how to use debt to finance major purchases like homes and automobiles become invaluable.
The American Institute of CPAs recommends four steps for teaching good money habits to kids. Start with an allowance. The right amount is up to you. The key is to be consistent, and then instruct your child about choosing well among saving, spending and donating.
Next, take your child with you to open a bank account. This will dispel the common, youthful notion that money simply comes out of a machine. Then, with the account in place, start talking with your child about short and long-term financial goals.
Finally, and this could be the hardest step, teach your child to be a good consumer. This involves discussing the messages in commercial advertising and learning how to say, "No," to impulse buying at the store.
As for the little league umpire's first paycheck, he decided to take 10 percent in cash for current spending, deposit the rest in his savings account, and consider how best to donate another 10 percent to charity. These decisions won't impact the national or world economies, but they are an important first step in a lifetime of learning about earning and responsible money management.
OHIO
Ohio Juvenile Courts Struggle with Youth Competency Issue
June 13, 2008
By the Associated Press, cleveland.com
The state's juvenile courts are struggling to determine how to handle defendants with low IQs who may be too violent for the streets but become prey in detention centers.
Ohio law requires that adults accused of crimes understand court proceedings and be able to assist in their defense. Otherwise, they can be sent to a state mental hospital for treatment aimed at restoring them to competency.
But Ohio has no such law or facilities for incompetent juveniles who may be considered a danger to themselves or others, and many juvenile judges use the competency standards written for adults.
"It is an issue all of the judges have been wrestling with for years," said Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court Judge Peter Sikora.
Twenty-one other states have laws on juvenile competency that consider issues such as mental illness, mental retardation, age and maturity, said Christopher Mallet, a Cleveland State University researcher.
Summit County Juvenile Court Judge Linda Tucci Teodosio said her experience shows the number of juveniles with questions of competency has risen. She said it's likely
Juvenile courts in Summit County, which includes Akron, and Hamilton County, which includes Cincinnati, have programs aimed at teaching defendants the court system.
because younger kids are being charged with crimes, and they may be less able to understand the court process.
A proposal for a bill that sets juvenile competency standards and guidelines for restoration or hospitalization has been developed by a group of judges, lawyers, mental health advocates and Ohio Supreme Court officials, with the support of Ohio Supreme Court Justice Evelyn Lundberg.
No lawmakers have signed on to support it.
In Cuyahoga County, the juvenile court evaluated the competency of 56 youths charged as delinquents - about one in 170. Only 0.6 percent of juveniles were evaluated for competency in 2007, compared with 3.1 percent of adults.
Many times, charges were dismissed or a judge referred the child to the county Department of Children and Family Services. But Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court Judge Thomas O'Malley said those options could leave the public vulnerable to a violent offender.
Often treatment centers will not accept violent youth or sex offenders or will take only those who have been convicted, said Children and Family Services director Jim McCafferty. They also are not designed to help restore competency so children can stand trial.
"My concern is to fix the behaviors so the child doesn't, as an adult, end up in the same spot," he said.
CALIFORNIA
Lawsuit Gives Paroled Youths New Set of Rules
June 6, 2008
By Julia Reynolds, Nontereyherald.com
Youths facing a return to prison on parole violations will be awarded the same rights as adults after the state settled a landmark class-action lawsuit this week.
"The juvenile system has always been very different. This gives them rights ... and saves the state money," said Michael Bien, a lawyer whose firm worked on the case with the the nonprofit Youth Law Center, a Bay Area-based youth advocacy group. The suit was filed in 2006 in federal district court in Sacramento.
Attorneys in the case argued that practices of the state's Division of Juvenile Justice, formerly known as the California Youth Authority, are violating youths' constitutional right to due process.
Young people suspected of violating parole are often "warehoused" in local jails for up to three months before receiving a hearing, the attorneys said, even for less-serious violations such as missing a rehab meeting or for a traffic violation.
Juveniles will now have a preliminary hearing with an attorney within 13 business days of being arrested, and a new system will be set up to allow more access to community-based alternatives to prison.
Officials with the Division of Juvenile Justice have praised the settlement, calling the new system "good for everyone."
Monterey County Juvenile Hall officials have been vocal advocates of keeping more young offenders in local programs instead of sending them to the state-run youth facilities.
Probation chief Manuel Real said in a recent interview that several years ago, the county had one of the highest per capita youth commitment rates to the state's youth prisons.
"Kids have been paroling out little by little. We'd rather keep them here," he said.
The shorter jail time brought about by the settlement will save taxpayers money, Bien said.
"No one's more expensive to incarcerate than these (state-held youths) right now," he said. "For $250,000 a year, you could send your kid to Harvard several times over."
Extensions common
Unlike adults in prison, Bien said, incarcerated youths often have their sentences extended up to six months per year of sentence, for a variety of reasons.
One of the case's plaintiffs was a young pregnant woman from the East Bay Area whose parole was about to be revoked after she got into a fight with her boyfriend, he said.
Bien said youth authorities essentially told her, "'We'll keep you (locked up) until you have the baby, since your drug program won't take pregnant women.' We thought she'd rather go to another treatment program at home. They wanted her to have the baby in prison."
The settlement does away with those kinds of extensions.
The case was heard in the federal courtroom of Judge Lawrence Karlton, who in 2003 presided over a similar agreement — known as the Valdivia settlement — that granted similar rights to adult parolees and overhauled the state's parole revocation system, which has been under the eye of prison reform groups and federal judges for several years.
The new rules will apply to the state's current juvenile prison population, as well as youths on parole.
The state's youth prisons, many of them antiquated, were built to house more serious young offenders age 12 to 25, who today number slightly more than 2,500.
Many local youths have called the Youth Authority prisons little more than "gang factories," where older, sophisticated gangsters "school" county youngsters in criminal philosophy and techniques.
Changing the environment
After news reports of dismal conditions in Youth Authority prisons several years ago, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger folded the agency into the state's adult corrections department, renaming it the Division of Juvenile Justice.
In 2005, state officials and the San Quentin-based Prison Law Office, which sued over conditions in the division, reached an agreement to reform the youth prison system and create a therapeutic environment more conducive to rehabilitation.
Last year, a team of national experts was called in to assess conditions. They declared the system "broken," too expensive and ineffective, leading some to suggest that the division should be dismantled.
Officials have since announced that two of the eight youth prisons in the state are scheduled to close by July 31, including the El Paso de Robles Youth Correctional Facility just south of the Monterey County line, which houses fewer than 150 wards.
In addition to the closures, counties are now "opting in" to house youths instead of sending them off to the state.
Monterey County has been participating in the opt-in program since September. The state pays the county up to $125,000 per year for each ward.
"In our county in 2002 to 2004, we were one of the mightier committers to the California Youth Authority," said probation chief Real. "Since then, we've been trying to take care of kids locally."
Bien said the state has until December to fully implement the settlement's changes, although some parts are already in effect.
RESEARCH
Strengthening Out-of-School Programs in Rural Communities
June 12, 2008
By Ashleigh Collins, Jacinta Bronte-Tinkew, Ph.D., and Cassandra Logan, Ph.D., Child Trends
Young people who live in rural areas are less likely to finish high school and complete college than their urban and suburban peers. This Child Trends brief highlights the challenges faced by rural youth and proposes five key strategies for obtaining resources for rural out-of-school programs. Click here to view the brief.
RESEARCH
Report Confirms Increased Risk of Smoking, Substance Abuse in Bipolar Adolescents
June 4, 2008
The Massachusetts General Hospital
A study from the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) supports previous reports that adolescents with bipolar disorder are at increased risk for smoking and substance abuse. The article appearing in the June Drug and Alcohol Dependence – describing the largest such investigation to date and the first to include a control group – also indicates that bipolar-associated risk is independent of the risk conferred by other disorders affecting study participants.
"This work confirms that bipolar disorder (BPD) in adolescents is a huge risk factor for smoking and substance abuse, as big a risk factor as is juvenile delinquency," says Timothy Wilens, MD, director of Substance Abuse Services in MGH Pediatric Psychopharmacology, who led the study. "It indicates both that young people with BPD need to carefully be screened for smoking and for substance use and abuse and that adolescents known to abuse drugs and alcohol – especially those who binge use – should also be assessed for BPD."
It has been estimated that up to 20 percent of children and adolescents treated for psychiatric problems have bipolar disorder, and there is evidence that pediatric and adolescent BPD may have features, such as particularly frequent and dramatic mood swings, not found in the adult form of the disorder. While elevated levels of smoking and substance abuse previously have been reported in young and adult BPD patients, it has not been clear how the use and abuse of substances relates to the presence of BPD or whether any increased risk could be attributed to co-existing conditions such as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), conduct disorder or anxiety disorders.
The current study analyzes extensive data – including family histories, information from primary care physicians, and a detailed psychiatric interview – gathered at the outset of a continuing investigation following a group of young BPD patients into adulthood. In addition to 105 participants with diagnosed BPD, who enrolled at an average age of 14, the study includes 98 control participants of the same age, carefully screened to rule out mood disorders.
Incidence of each measure – alcohol abuse or dependence, drug abuse or dependence, and smoking – was significantly higher in participants with BPD than in the control group. Overall, rates of substance use/abuse were 34 percent in the bipolar group and 4 percent in controls. When adjusted to account for co-occurring behavioral and psychiatric conditions, the results still indicated significantly higher risk in the bipolar group. Analyzing how the onset of bipolar symptoms related to when substance abuse began, revealed that BPD came first in most study participants.
The data also indicated that bipolar youth whose symptoms began in adolescence were more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol than were those whose symptoms began in childhood. "It could be that the onset of mood dysregulation in adolescence puts kids at even higher risk for poor judgement and self-medication of their symptoms," Wilens says. "It also could be that some genetic switch activated in adolescence turns on both BPD and substance abuse in these youngsters. That's something that we are currently investigating in genetic and neuroimaging studies of this group."
He adds that clarifying whether bipolar disorder begins before substance abuse starts could have "a huge impact. If BPD usually precedes substance abuse, there may be intervention points where we could reduce its influence on drug and alcohol abuse. Aggressive treatment of BPD could cut the risk of substance abuse, just as we have shown it does in ADHD." Wilens is an associate professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.
RESEARCH
Less Sex, Drugs and Booze for High School Kids
June 4, 2008
By Will Dunham, Reuters.com
Fewer U.S. high school students are having sex or using drugs and alcohol compared to the 1990s, but Latinos are not sharing in many areas of progress, health officials said on Wednesday.
For the students overall, just under half have had sex, 75 percent have tried alcohol and 20 percent smoke, the government survey found.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention questioned 14,041 students in grades nine through 12 in 39 states in spring 2007 on a range of risky behaviors in a survey it has conducted every two years since 1991.
In 1991, 54 percent of the high school students said they had ever had sexual intercourse, compared to 48 percent in 2007. In 1991, 19 percent said they had at least four sexual partners, compared to 15 percent last year, the survey showed.
But there were major racial and ethnic disparities.
Sixty-six percent of black high school students said they had ever had sex, the highest of any of the groups, although it was down from 82 percent in 1991, the CDC said. In addition, 28 percent of blacks in 2007 said they had sex with four or more people during their lifetime, down from 43 percent in 1991.
Forty-four percent of white students reported ever having sexual intercourse, down from 50 percent in 1991. And the number with at least four sex partners fell to 12 percent from 15 percent in 1991.
But Latinos made no such progress. In 1991, 53 percent reporting having sex at least once, compared to 52 percent in 2007. And the number of Latinos who had sex with four or more people during their life was 17 percent in 1991 and 2007.
Compared to either blacks or whites, Latinos were more likely to have reported attempting suicide, using cocaine, heroin or the drug ecstasy or riding with a driver who had been drinking alcohol, the CDC said.
NEEDS OF HISPANICS
Latinos are the largest and fastest growing minority in the United States. They make up 15 percent of overall population, and about 20 percent of children.
"It's extremely important that our schools and community programs understand and address the health-related needs of our Hispanic students," Howell Wechsler, director of CDC's Division of Adolescent and School Health, told reporters.
The survey showed that much of the progress in reducing sexual activity occurred in the 1990s and there has been no reduction among high school students overall this decade, in fact showing small increases since 2001. However, the survey found that more sexually active teens reported using condoms.
The survey said 20 percent of the high school students had used marijuana at least once in the prior month -- up from the 15 percent in 1991 but down from a peak of 27 percent in 1999. In addition, 38 percent said they had ever used marijuana, more than in 1991 but down from 47 percent in 1999.
Seven percent of the students said they had ever used cocaine, down from 10 percent in 1999, and 4 percent had used methamphetamine, down from 10 percent in 2001.
Twenty percent reported being current cigarette smokers, down from 28 percent in 1991. In addition, 45 percent said they had least one drink of alcohol in the prior month, down from 51 percent in 1991. And 75 percent said they tried alcohol at least once, down from 82 percent in 1991.
The survey also found more and more teenagers are using a seat belt while in a car, fewer have carried a weapon, and the percent who have attempted suicide has fallen from 9 percent in 2001 to 7 percent last year.
NATIONWIDE
House Committee Look for New Ways to Curb Gang Activity
June 11, 2008
By Will Skowronski, Kansas City infoZine News
Stable upbringings and early-age prevention programs, not handcuffs, will keep youths out of gangs, a well-known civil rights attorney told House members Tuesday.
"If you give a child a chance, it makes a difference," said Charles Ogletree Jr., a Harvard law professor.
Ogletree presented a review of research that found public support for education and prevention over prosecution and longer prison sentences, a strategy he said also works.
He testified along with other academicians, law enforcement representatives and a former gang member before the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security about effective ways to address gang violence. The six largely agreed with Ogletree.
Commissioner Frank Straub of the White Plains, N.Y., police department said the city was forced to get creative after series of violent crimes shook the community in 2006.
"There is not single response to youth violence and gang activity," Straub said. "Enforcement alone is insufficient."
Besides increasing patrols and arresting gang members, Straub said the police department met with the city's Youth Bureau and community leaders to come up with other ways to end the violence. Multiple programs were established to bring police and youths from troubled areas together, create alternatives to imprisonment and provide jobs for at-risk youth.
There haven't been any murders in White Plains since 2006, and violent crime continues to drop.
Ely Flores, a former gang member, grew up in South Central Los Angeles without a father. More youths from the neighborhood, Flores said, were sent to prison than college.
"Where I'm from being scarred and bruised is like wearing stripes on the battlefield," Flores said.
But a violent childhood, Flores said, doesn't mean a person will always be dangerous. After a 14-year-old friend was murdered, Flores reached out to two youth support programs that changed his life, LaCausa YouthBuild and the Youth Justice Coalition. He's since traveled to Israel and Palestine to try to bring peace between those youths.
"Think about my story," Flores told the House members. "A gang member can become a productive member of society. A gang member can become an advocate for peace and an advocate for justice."
Robert Macy, executive director of the Boston Children's Foundation, said rather than keeping violent people off the street, imprisonment can actually increase gang membership as people look for protection in jail.
Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., the committee chairman, said he hopes the testimony will help stall a proposed "suppression" bill that calls for even stronger sentencing of suspected gang members and create support for community-based intervention programs.
The incarceration rate of about 700 of every 100,000 Americans, Scott said, is seven times the international average, but violence continues anyway.
"You can reduce crime or play politics," Scott said.
Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., said lawmakers need to change their way of thinking.
Some very violent people need to be arrested, Waters said, but there are many who don't.
"Jobs, job training and investment will do the job," she said.
But Rep. Randy Forbes, R-Va., said gang activity will only be reduced once police crack down on the established gang networks.
"Letting gang networks run free is not free, either," Forbes said. "We need a combined approach that begins by pulling down these networks."
Forbes said the suggested programs do not address the problems posed by gangs such as MS-13 that are largely made up of illegal immigrants.
NATIONWIDE
House Passes Youth Aid Measure
June 10, 2008
By Jessie Halladay, Courier-journal.com
When Rusty Booker was just 12, he left what he described as a troubled home, looking for refuge.
He went to a library, his 10-year-old brother in tow, and asked for help -- and Safe Place found him a place to stay.
Booker, now 18, spent time with several foster families and eventually left a bad placement to return to the shelter at 17.
Through Safe Place assistance, Booker said he's turned his life around. He's working on his General Educational Development certificate and hopes to attend college.
Last July, Booker told his story to members of Congress in hopes that they would reauthorize the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act, which provides federal funding to programs that help disconnected youth. The current law expires Sept. 30.
"It's really important," he said of the law. "It helps other people to get the help they need and it can change their lives like it changed mine."
Yesterday, the House passed the legislation unanimously. The Senate is expected to take up the measure sometime this summer.
The law, which was sponsored by Rep. John Yarmuth, D-3rd District, authorizes money for youth programs for the next five years, increasing the amounts by 50 percent over last year. It would provide $150 million for residential services and $3 million for runaway prevention.
Dennis Enix, director of Louisville's YMCA Safe Place Services, said his agency, which provides shelter and crisis intervention for teens in trouble, relies on the federal dollars provided by the act. The federal money makes up about 20 percent, or $320,000, of the agency's $1.6 million budget.
"It's essential" money for the service it provides, he said.
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