The FAMCare Blog

As stated in Article 40 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child:

"Every child in conflict with the law has the right to be treated in a manner that takes into account “the desirability of promoting [his/her] reintegration and [his/her] assuming a constructive role in society.”

Juvenile Justice caseworkers manage cases for "best case" outcomes and "case closed" status. When they are assigned a client, the case worker monitors and supports that youth from their first offense through juvenile court, detentions and residential or other out-of-home placements. The progress of a youth through the juvenile justice system is often long and arduous from intake, booking, and registration to court action, fines, detention, sentencing, probation, and residential placement. Frequently, these same youthful offenders are "cross-over" cases that have come to the attention of both child protective services and juvenile justice case workers.

Your response to last week's blog on the social worker's role in juvenile justice was overwhelmingly positive but many of you thought that the issues might be better clarified in context. So, let's try to put juvenile justice in some historical perspective.

• During a single year, an estimated 2.1 million youth under the age of 18 are arrested in the United States.
• Though overall rates have been declining over the past years, approximately 1.7 million delinquency cases are disposed in juvenile courts annually.
• Youth are referred to the juvenile justice system for different types of offenses.
• The majority of youth processed through the juvenile court are adjudicated (i.e., declared by a judge to be) delinquent, for most offenses.

Drug and alcohol use remains a severe problem among school age children, with the National Institute on Drug Abuse showing that 5.4% of 8^th graders, 9.8% of 10^th graders, and 14.3% of 12^th graders use illicit substances, and nearly 1.3 million teens have a substance use disorder. Unfortunately, recovery treatment is often unsuccessful when teens return to their schools and are surrounded by the same peers and the same opportunities to use. Data shows that nearly 70% of students who attend recovery and return to their school will relapse in 6 months or less.

The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) has posted a new article discussing OJJDP’s Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement and Juvenile Residential Facility Census.

Both OJJDP-sponsored surveys gather information from residential placement facilities that hold juveniles who are charged or adjudicated for an offense. The article describes the work that OJJDP and NIJ are performing to improve data collection on juveniles in residential placement and the facilities in which they are held.

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Since 1977 when Annie opened on Broadway, theatrical artists have been portraying endangered youth who have experienced both maltreatment and engaged in delinquent behavior like Oliver Twist and Little Orphan Annie.

Oliver! and Annie, two of Broadway’s most iconic musicals, star two children caught between Juvenile Justice and Child Protective Services. 

Case workers in Juvenile Justice have long been concerned about a subversive movement in the back halls of Congress and many state houses to erase any distinction between young offenders and adult criminals. As recently as the 1990s almost all 50 states overhauled their juvenile justice laws, allowing more youths to be tried as adults and scrapping long-time protections to help rehabilitate delinquent kids and prevent future crimes. Only ignorance of the history of juvenile justice in United States could be responsible for a now subdued but continued movement to “simplify” criminal justice by merging juveniles and adults together in the eyes of the law. May we take a moment to remind everyone how our juvenile justice system evolved to its present effective state.

OJJDP has released "Delinquency Cases in Juvenile Court, 2018." This fact sheet presents statistics on delinquency cases handled in U.S. juvenile courts from 2005 to 2018. During that period, the number of delinquency cases involving juveniles declined 55 percent. Decreases were experienced across four offense categories: property, public order, person, and drug law violation cases. The estimates are based on data from more than 2,500 courts with jurisdiction over 87 percent of the nation's juvenile population in 2018. This fact sheet is derived from the OJJDP-sponsored report “Juvenile Court Statistics 2018” and was developed with support from the National Institute of Justice.

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On November 24, 2020, OJJDP announced awards of more than $221 million to support juvenile justice. OJJDP awarded more than 225 grants to state, local, and tribal jurisdictions, research and academic institutions, and public and private organizations. The awards will enhance state and local juvenile justice systems; provide gang prevention and intervention services; support mentoring and reentry services for youth and families; and help states comply with the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act. Grant funding will also support programs for American Indian and Alaska Native youth.