To Stem Juvenile Robberies, Police Trail Youths Before the Crime

Todd Heisler/The New York Times

John Rivera, 19, during a New York Police Department juvenile intervention program visit. 

Three police officers knocked on the apartment door of a 15-year-old boy. He had already been on both sides of a police blotter: shot and stabbed, but also arrested on robbery charges. He ran in an East Harlem gang and lived with his grandmother on the seventh floor of a public housing building, where the stairwells reeked of marijuana. 

He was the type of teenager destined for trouble. And that was precisely why the officers were at his door on a recent winter night.

The New York City Police Department has embarked on a novel approach to deter juvenile robbers, essentially staging interventions and force-feeding outreach in an effort to stem a tide of robberies by dissuading those most likely to commit them. 

Read on....

Delinquent Youth Committed to the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services 2004-2011

This report explores recent trends in the commitment of delinquent youth to the custody of the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services (DYRS). Commitments to DYRS increased considerably from 2006-07 to 2009-10, due to more youth being committed following adjudication on misdemeanors. In 2011, commitments to DYRS declined, due to fewer youth being committed on felonies. By 2011, most youth committed to DYRS were misdemeanants. Understanding these shifts in the youth committed to DYRS will require a broad exploration of juvenile justice case processing involving all delinquent youth, using integrated data across juvenile justice agencies. 

 

Read on...

Pa. judge gets 28 years in 'kids for cash'

SCRANTON, Pa. — A longtime northeastern Pennsylvania judge was ordered to spend nearly three decades in prison for his role in a massive juvenile justice bribery scandal that prompted the state's high court to toss thousands of convictions.

Former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella Jr. was sentenced Thursday to 28 years in federal prison for taking $1 million in bribes from the builder of a pair of juvenile detention centers in a case that became known as "kids for cash."

Ciavarella was motionless when the decision was announced and had no reaction. From behind him, where family members of some of the children he sentenced sat, someone cried out "Woo hoo!"

In the wake of the scandal, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court tossed about 4,000 convictions issued by Ciavarella between 2003 and 2008, saying he violated the constitutional rights of the juveniles, including the right to legal counsel and the right to intelligently enter a plea.

Read on...

D.C. wants to teach juvenile delinquents Yoga, Tai-Chi

The District's troubled juvenile justice agency is looking for a yoga teacher, or maybe a tai-chi instructor, to work with some of the city's most dangerous youths. The idea for the new Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services programming comes from interim deputy director Barry Holman. Late last month, Holman e-mailed the agency's staff to see if they have "hidden talents that might be tapped to further our work with the young people in our care." In the e-mail obtained by The Washington Examiner, Holman said his primary interest was in finding among the staff an instructor certified in yoga, tai-chi, or another "mind-body connection discipline."

The agency is coming off a controversial year during which more than a dozen of its wards were charged with murder and at least a half-dozen were killed. A heavy focus on rehabilitation programs for city youths was blamed by critics for the soaring violence. Under political pressure, former Mayor Adrian Fenty fired then DYRS interim director Marc Schindler six months after he replaced Vincent Schiraldi.

Read on...