This Tow Youth Justice Institute Issue Brief discusses the range of residential programs that include the Re-Entry, Goal-oriented, Individualized Opportunity to Nurture Success (REGIONS), that have been developed by the Court Support Services Division of the Judicial Branch.

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The REGIONS treatment model incorporates Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and aligns with Risk Reduction and the Risk-Need-Responsivity principles and the Positive Youth Development approach. There are multiple REGIONS facilities focusing on specific groups in the juvenile process. These include secure, staff secure, and limited secure facilities. 

Summer is a critical time for engaging youth as schools are closed. Without structure, youth can become disconnected.
Disconnection has been identified as a major driving factor among youth getting involved in criminal activities. A lack of vocational opportunities enhances the vulnerability of at-risk youth to engage in criminal behavior.

Collaboratively, coordinated employment and training programs designed for summer have been recognized to have a positive long-term impact on youth by providing them with positive social and emotional engagements in pursuing potential career
paths and achieving their personal aspirations.

Summer Youth Employment Programs (SYEP) aim to create resources and opportunities for them by collaborating with
employers of various disciplines -- financial institutions, not-for-profit organizations, and public and private sectors – to further
help youth in gaining experience, networking, and securing employment. 

Each year, more than half a million Americans are released from prison and join a population of twenty million people who live with a felony record. Reuben Miller, a chaplain at the Cook County Jail in Chicago and now a sociologist studying mass incarceration, spent years alongside prisoners, ex-prisoners, their friends, and their families to understand the lifelong burden that even a single arrest can entail. What his work revealed is a simple, if overlooked truth: life after incarceration is its own form of prison. 

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Related: listen to an interview hosted by Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research as Professor Miller discusses his book and the impact of incarceration on individuals, families and communities. 
 

Connecticut Public Act 19-187, Sec 7, mandated establishing policy and procedures for addressing the complaints raised by young offenders. If a youth has a concern they feel has gone unresolved, their grievance can be taken to an ombudsperson. The intended outcome of establishing an ombudsperson is that it builds trust and relationships between youth in facilities and those professionals looking after their care during their sentencing.

Department of Correction: In December 2020, Connecticut DOC invited a proposal for establishing Ombudsperson services at two of its institutionsManson Youth Institution (MYI) and York Correctional Institution (YCI) - for professional, education, training, community, and social services that focus on three main things: Education, access to mental health, and programming. 

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Connecticut Judicial Branch Court Support Services Division (JBCSSD): JBCSSD has had its Ombudsperson program in continuous operation for over two decades. They contract with two Ombudspersons for youth in juvenile residential programs. These independent contractors are available to help youth who are either in a Detention Center, in a JBCSSD contracted residential program, or in a JBCSSD contracted per diem bed. The Ombudspersons can also assist a youth’s family, guardian, or other loved ones who have a concern or complaint. 

New York Times article

A 14-year-old girl and a 12-year-old boy took up weapons after a torturous journey through Florida’s juvenile mental health system.

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Since the mid-20th century, community-based counseling, therapy and in some cases medication have been preferred over lengthy inpatient treatment for children with serious behavior disorders. Some of those who worked with Nicole said she was sometimes pulled out of programs that might have helped her as a result of her own bad behavior.

“People say the system has failed on me,” Nicole said in a telephone interview from Volusia County jail. “I don’t think I should go to prison. Obviously, I don’t. Little kids like me, 14-year-olds, make mistakes.

CT Public Radio/CT Mirror Article

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About three hours into a public hearing hosted by the Judiciary Committee on Monday, Ranking Member Rep. Craig Fishbein asked an attorney a hypothetical question: What is the benefit of keeping a 13-year-old, charged with murder, in the juvenile justice system, as opposed to transferring their case to adult court?

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Fishbein’s question asked several points that the bill tries to answer: How should the state, and the courts, respond when a young child is charged with a serious crime? And, do certain criminal charges warrant putting a young teenager in adult prison, even if they’re being held pretrial, without having been convicted of a crime?

Op-Ed for the Tow Youth Justice Institute by Jason Szanyi, the Deputy Director of the Center for Children’s Law and Policy in Washington, DC. 

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"Those of us who track juvenile justice improvement efforts around the country have been puzzled and disturbed by narratives suggesting that Connecticut’s juvenile justice system is fundamentally broken. In part, this is because Connecticut’s work on youth justice reform during the last decade has made it a model for other states looking to align policies and practices with research, evidence-based approaches, and public safety.

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The other cause for our confusion is that many proposed changes to Connecticut’s juvenile justice system would almost certainly lead to worse public safety outcomes..."

Tow Youth Justice Institute Issue Brief, Winter 2022

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When offered an opportunity, children and young offenders are more open to influences that promote positive change. As evident from research, constructive feedback, guidance, and advice from mentors can play a critical role in shaping the mental
and emotional development of juveniles.

Criminal justice procedures that are overly punitive towards young and developing minds may create hurdles in rehabilitation and their paths to community reentry. A very positive development is that increasingly state agencies and not-for-profit organizations are realizing that creating learning and mentoring systems can help support rehabilitation, prevent recidivism, and thereby enhance public safety. An example of new mentoring initiatives in this area is the Credible Messenger Program. 
 

A conversation with currently incarcerated youth and advocates at the Juvenile Law Center, NYC Administration of Children's Services, and the Connecticut Office of the Child Advocate.

A recording of the webinar can be found here.
The slides can be found on CCA's website here.
Also, links to the reports referenced during the webinar. The Office of the Child Advocate report on confinement conditions at MYI can be found here, and the Department of Justice report can be found here.

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Manson Youth Institution (MYI) is the adult prison in Connecticut which incarcerates approximately 300-350 teens and young adult men. A recent report from the Department of Justice found that youth incarcerated at MYI had their constitutional rights violated, and CCA continues to represent and advocate on behalf of youth at MYI.

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In this webinar, youth incarcerated at MYI spoke about their experiences at the prison, as well as how conditions at MYI can be improved. State and national speakers provided context on the state of youth incarceration in Connecticut, and detailed opportunities for individual and systemic advocacy on behalf of youth at MYI

Recording of webinar from the Tow Youth Justice Institute, University of New Haven. The first in the Tow Institute’s 2022 Fact vs. Fiction Webinar Series: Reinforcing Successful Juvenile Reform for Safer and Healthier Communities, held on 1/18/22

Connecticut is seen as a leader in many ways as it pertains to evidence-based, data driven juvenile justice reforms. There have been significant reductions in juvenile crime across the board. Current reforms follow best practices. Legislative changes are made based on facts and data. Higher rates of youth incarceration are not inevitable; rather, they are driven by policy choices. You will hear from national experts in the field.

Moderator:

Marc Schindler, Executive Director, Justice Policy Institute

Speakers:

Michael Umpierre, Director, Center for Juvenile Justice Reform, McCourt School of Public Policy, Georgetown University

Lael Chester, Director, Emerging Adult Justice Project, Columbia University Justice Lab,

Tiana Davis, Policy Director for Equity and Justice, Center for Children’s Law and Policy

Clinton Lacey, President and CEO, The Credible Messenger Mentoring Movement (CM3)

Related Resource mentioned in above webinar:

A Roadmap to the Ideal Juvenile Justice System

Authored by Tim Decker, in collaboration with the Juvenile Justice Leadership Network and CJJR staff, this paper lays out the guiding principles and strategies for the ideal juvenile justice system, while providing a plethora of practical examples of these ideals in action.

Other publications from the Center for Juvenile Justice Reform at Georgetown University available here

From the Tow Youth Justice Initiative and the Institute for Municipal and Regional Policy at UCONN: 

Over the past few years there has been considerable media attention paid to youth car thefts In a number of parts of the state. This webinar is directed at establishing the facts of the situation and possible policy responses. This is our third panel discussion on the topic. We will explore the issue from the viewpoint of the youth and those who serve them both in and out of the justice system.

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The discussion opened up with welcome remarks from Andrew Clark, Director at the Institute for Municipal and Regional Policy, & Erika Nowakowski, Associate Director at the Tow Youth Justice Institute.

Moderator Kelan Lyons: Journalist at CT Mirror

Presenter: Dr. Jeffrey Butts, Director of Research & Evaluation Center at John Jay College of Criminal Justice,

Panelists included:
Brittany Lamarr, CT Justice Alliance, Youth Representative
Ramon Garcia, CT Justice Alliance, Youth Representative
Crystal Sanchez, Parent Representative
Sunindiya Bhalla, ROCA, Executive Vice President of Women and 2Gen

The Juvenile Justice Policy and Oversight Committee's Raise the Minimum Age subgroup finalized materials about the new minimum age for the JJ system and the community-based diversion system. 

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• Important Updates to Connecticut's Juvenile Justice Reforms

• Community Care Not Cuffs

Connecticut Public Radio | By Jacqueline Rabe Thomas, Jim Haddadin, Walter Smith Randolph

Omar McDew may never be able to count all the car thefts his football team has prevented. But this coach says giving children who live in one of the nation’s poorest communities something to do is the best crime-prevention strategy out there. “Those are 30-something kids that are not out in the streets stealing cars. We start in June, we don’t wait for football season, and part of the reason is to keep those kids busy and tire them out so all they want to do is go home and go to sleep.”

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But when the pandemic hit, the structured activities shut down — many for more than a year. “Latin club. African American club. The Polish Club. Ski Club. Robotics. Auto body shops. Young entrepreneurs ...” McDew recalls. McDew is also in charge of this city’s Juvenile Review Board, which is where children are sent when they get caught shoplifting or committing other low-level crimes. “A lot of my kids during COVID went right down the tubes because they missed that face-to-face interaction,” McDew said. “My kids do not respond to Zoom. My kids I work with, they need a face-to-face, they need to see people and feel people care about them.” During those long months when kids were stuck at home with nothing to do fears also grew across the state about crime.

"A general consensus among national, state and local experts in studying the data around juvenile justice reform is the understanding that mental and behavioral health challenges and exposure to trauma often are the cause for a youth’s entry
into the system. Higher rates of youth incarceration are not inevitable; rather, they are driven by policy choices.

In this brief, we will summarize the facts about juvenile crime and what our state has done to improve and reduce it. By doing so, we are not minimizing the impact that crime has on the victim, but offering an understanding of the facts in context of the discussion."

NY Times Opinion Guest Essay

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Unnecessarily provocative encounters between police and youth are common in the United States, said Lisa Thurau, the founder and executive director of the nonprofit Strategies for Youth in Cambridge, Mass., which created the training program. These encounters can result in arrests, which disproportionately affect young people of color nationwide. A report in 2014 by the Sentencing Project, an advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., concluded that Black youth are twice as likely as white youth to be arrested.

According to the Department of Justice, tens of thousands of teenagers are arrested each year for the vague crime of disorderly conduct. And 42 percent of them are Black.
 

In This Issue:
• Student Events
• 2021 JJPOC Recommendations
• Police Transparency and Accountability Task Force - Young Adult Listening Session
• 2021 Transforming Youth Justice Leadership Development Program Cohort #5 Virtual Graduation
• Introducing the Community Expertise Workgroup

Decades of research have shown that formally processing youth in the juvenile justice system does not prevent future crime and, instead, increases the likelihood of future criminal behavior by deterring psychosocial development.

Community-Based Diversion focuses on identifying and addressing the underlying needs/symptoms of the behavior and putting early intervention supports in place. In order to increase diversion, it is critical to include police, schools, families, the court and child welfare systems, as well as other stakeholders such as faith-based organizations and neighborhood groups. This collective “community” of diversion supports requires a “coordinating hub” to mobilize and streamline the array of community-based interventions with a capacity to meet the individual needs of at-risk children.

Tow Youth Justice Institute Issue Brief, Fall 2020

The relationship between community and police and, more specifically for this brief, youth and police is a complicated one. Research studies have documented this relationship as especially inequitable for youth who are 1) from urban environments, 2) from lower socio-economic areas, 3) male, and 4) a minority. “Black boys are policed like no other demographic. They are policed on the street, in the mall, in school, in their homes, and on social media. Police stop black boys on the vaguest of descriptions – "black boys running," "two black males in jeans, one in a gray hoodie," "black male in athletic gear." Young black males are treated as if they are "out of place" not only when they are in white, middle-class neighborhoods, but also when they are hanging out in public spaces or sitting on their own front porches.” 

For many youth, their first encounter with the justice system, whether it be in schools, their neighborhoods or social service settings, is with the police. These interactions can lead to a youth’s entry into the juvenile justice system or could be an opportunity for positive intervention. “The nature and circumstances of this contact can have a significant and lasting impression on a young person.” 

Episode of PodCast Ear Hustle: ARE YOU LISTENING? When a parent is incarcerated, the relationship with their kid is changed forever. 10/21/20, Season 6

Incarceration doesn’t just separate a parent from his or her child, it changes that relationship forever, often leaving wounds that may never heal. We talk with kids who have incarcerated parents, as well as a formerly incarcerated mom of four, and hear why sometimes acceptance is the only way forward.  

Launched in 2017, Ear Hustle was the first podcast created and produced in prison, featuring stories of the daily realities of life inside California’s San Quentin State Prison, shared by those living it. Co-founded by Bay Area artist Nigel Poor alongside Earlonne Woods and Antwan Williams — who were incarcerated at the time — the podcast now tells stories from both inside prison and from the outside, post-incarceration.

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Improving Outcomes for Youth (IOYouth) Statewide Task Force

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In June 2019, leadership from Connecticut’s three branches of government—Governor Ned Lamont, Judge Patrick Carroll, and Representative Toni Walker – launched the Improving Outcomes for Youth (IOYouth) Statewide Task Force with the goal of assessing whether recent juvenile justice system reforms have been implemented as intended and have had the expected impact. The Task Force’s charge was to determine what next steps are needed to ensure that policies, practices, and resource allocation decisions are aligned with what the research says works to strengthen public safety and improve outcomes for youth. The IOYouth Task Force, co-chaired by Rep. Walker and Melissa McCaw, Secretary of the Office of Policy and Management, included other elected officials, representatives from all three branches of government, state and local juvenile justice system leaders, and advocates, among others.

Click here to see a summary of the IOYouth Task Force Recommendations, or here for the full task force recommendation presentation.

During the 2018-19 school year, the Office of the Child Advocate (OCA) received multiple concerns related to Waterbury Public Schools’ (WPS) involvement of local law enforcement to address the behavior of young students with disabilities. Due to the serious nature of the allegations, OCA determined that conducting a broader investigation was warranted. OCA is an independent state oversight agency tasked by state statute to investigate and publicly report on the efficacy of child-serving systems, review complaints of persons or entities concerning the actions of any state or municipal agency providing services to children, and issue reports and recommendations to the public. 

OCA’s investigation found that in the six month period of September 2018 through March 2019, there were approximately 200 calls to police made by Waterbury elementary and Pre-K through Grade 8 schools as a result of a child’s behavior, typically either a behavioral health crisis or an act of physical aggression by a child or multiple children, with children as young as 4 and 5 the subject of calls to police. OCA found that more than half of the schools called police to respond to children more often than they called Emergency Mobile Crisis intervention teams. 

OCA’s report contains numerous recommendations to increase transparency and accountability for vulnerable children and increase strategic and cost-effective supports for students and teachers. Waterbury Public Schools leadership acknowledged historical concerns identified in this report and is committed to transformative change. 

Please click on the link for information regarding a program in CT for children and families impacted by parental incarceration – Connecting Through Literacy: Incarcerated Parents, Their Children, and Caregivers (CLICC).  CLICC is a Connecticut-based non-profit program which uses mentoring and literacy activities to strengthen communication and deepen bonds between children and their incarcerated parents. The goal is to reduce recidivism rates for incarcerated mothers and fathers, while also reducing the shame and stigma that their children can experience.

CT Voices for Children report: No Place for a Child: Alternatives for Children Under 12 in Connecticut's Juvenile Justice System

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Converging research suggests that children are not able to understand the legal process, that court involvement can harm the well-being of involved children, and that this can have long-term negative implications for public safety. In their new report, "No Place for a Child: Alternatives for Children Under 12 in Connecticut's Juvenile Justice System," CT Voices for Children conclude that raising the minimum age from seven to twelve and diverting young children to age-appropriate services is a superior alternative to the existing process. These recommendations align with that of the Connecticut Juvenile Justice Policy and Oversight Committee (JJPOC).

 CT Voices for Children report: No Place for a Child: Alternatives for Children Under 12 in Connecticut's Juvenile Justice System

Special Edition Newsletter, celebrating their 5th anniversary. The Tow Youth Justice Institute was founded on October 14, 2014 to gather experts in the field of youth justice for the state of Connecticut and nationally and be a resource toward work to reform the juvenile justice system and provide University of New Haven students opportunities for experiential education and leadership development. The Institute is also a research partner for Connecticut’s Juvenile Justice Policy and Oversight Committee (JJPOC).

Hartford Courant article by Josh Kovner

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With a federal civil-rights probe beginning Dec. 4 at the Manson Youth Institute in Cheshire, a national consultant Thursday recommended the responsibility of detaining minors be transferred from the Department of Correction and the Judicial Branch to a newly created, free-standing youth authority.

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No other state in the country has both its judicial branch and its correction department involved in the detention of youth under 18, Jason Szanyi of the Center for Children’s Law and Policy told a committee of lawmakers, advocates and juvenile-justice officials. The panel, called the Juvenile Justice Policy Oversight Committee, hired the Washington, D.C.-based consultant and will forward a decision on whether to create the new department to the legislature next year.

Hartford Courant article by Edmund Mahoney

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State prosecutors are considering a challenge to a new state law that closes courtrooms to the public and keeps records secret when teenagers aged 15-, 16- and 17-years old are charged with the most serious felonies, such as murder, armed robbery and rape.

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The days-old law - it became effective Oct. 1 - is one of the most visible aspects of an evolving package of measures developed over the last half dozen years or so by juvenile justice advocates and their legislative allies with the stated goal of keeping troubled teens out of the criminal justice system.

ISSUE BRIEF, A Publication of the Tow Youth Justice Institute 

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The handling of status offenses of youth has been a topic for discussion across the country and each state has taken
different approaches in their response to these actions. Definitions are provided [in the brief], but as a general statement, a status
offense is a conduct that would not be unlawful if committed by an adult but is unlawful only because of a child’s or youth’s
legal minor status.

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Although significant progress has been made in many states, every year "thousands of kids across the United States are
handcuffed, taken to court, or locked up for just these misbehaviors”.  “Using the justice system to respond to these cases
makes little sense, particularly when the primary options available to law enforcement, judges, and other system players
relate to protecting public safety, not addressing kids’ needs”. In some states, a child who commits a status offense may
end up in juvenile court. Other states have increased the use of residential placement for offenders, and others emphasize
community-based programs. Today, most states refer to status offenders as "children or juveniles in need of supervision,
services, or care." A few states designate some status offenders as "dependent" or "neglected children". 

CT Mirror Article 

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The Office of the Child Advocate released a scathing report on the substandard conditions in state facilities for imprisoned and detained youth and called for an overhaul of the system.

The child advocate’s office found that incarcerated youths, particularly boys who have complex needs and are imprisoned in the adult correctional system, are the most likely to lose meaningful access to education, rehabilitative services and visits with family, and are more likely to to be placed in isolation. In some cases, the report said, the conditions for youth may violate state and federal law.

Dual status youth are often an invisible population and experience a myriad of challenges. While states have a general understanding that there are many youth being served by both their child welfare and juvenile justice systems, in the majority of states, the movement has not been sufficient toward collaborating to better serve this very vulnerable population. Research estimates of youth in the juvenile justice system with child welfare involvement is upwards of 50%. 

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In recent years, better data collection and analysis in many localities has helped spur the development of strategies to reduce disparities among youth in contact with the juvenile justice system. This work is paving the way for a more equitable juvenile justice system that will treat youth fairly regardless of their race or ethnicity and address many issues common to the child welfare system.

All kids make dumb mistakes. But depending on your zip code, race, or just bad luck, those mistakes can have a lasting impact. Mass incarceration starts young. In Caught: The Lives of Juvenile Justice, hear from kids about the moment they collided with law and order, and how it changed them forever. Episode 8 is especially relevant.

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Episode 8: 'I Want Someone to Love Me Even for a Second'
Girls make up only a small fraction of the incarcerated juvenile population, but girls often land in detention because they have experienced some form of trauma: abusive families, bad experiences in the foster care system, and especially sexual abuse. Policy experts even use the term "sexual abuse to prison pipeline," and they say it's why incarcerating a young girl perpetuates more negative behavior and makes it harder to exit the system. Desiree is a young woman who has bounced between foster care, detention centers, and residential treatment centers since she was 10. Even though she has been the repeated victim of abuse, she says she's been made to feel like she's the problem...and she's angry about it. But she has her own ideas about how to make things better and she's making her voice heard.

What’s next for Juvenile Justice

While not specifically laid out with a measurable goal, several other critical factors have been identified by the JJPOC as important to
the achievement of its three strategic goals. Significant effort needs to be placed on ending the school-to-prison pipeline, improving
safety and health conditions and phase out secure facilities, supporting youth in their communities, and eliminating racial and ethnic
disparities across the juvenile justice system.
 

Today, Connecticut is widely considered a model for how a state can improve its juvenile justice system, while improving public
safety and overall youth outcomes. Increasingly, youth charged with minor offenses are diverted from court involvement, and may
instead receive behavioral health supports and other programming proven effective. 

CT Post Article 

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"A spike in local school based arrests and a budget crisis that threatens to strip the city school district of  what little counseling support it has does not bode well for those attempting to break the School to Prison  pipeline. Still, a panel of warriors trying to stop the large scale incarceration of students of color offered a  room filled with educators, school board hopefuls and lawmakers their best thinking on the struggle and  may just have picked up some foot soldiers...."

"Leon Smith, an attorney and director for the Racial Justice Project at the Center for Children's Advocacy, said the School to Prison Pipeline begins when kids are as young as 4 get suspended from school. Among all students, black and Latino males are two to three times more likely to be suspended than white boys. Black girls are five times more likely to be suspended than white girls. Studies also show that minority students are far more likely than white students to get into trouble for similar behaviors. Minority students are far more likely to be viewed as older, less innocent and troublemakers than white students, Smith said."

Article from the Economic Policy Institute by Leila Morsy and Richard Rothstein

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Educators have paid too little heed to this criminal justice crisis. Criminal justice reform should be a policy priority for educators who are committed to improving the achievement of African American children. While reform of federal policy may seem implausible in a Trump administration, educators can seize opportunities for such advocacy at state and local levels because many more parents are incarcerated in state than in federal prisons. In 2014, over 700,000 prisoners nationwide were serving sentences of a year or longer for nonviolent crimes. Over 600,000 of these were in state, not federal, prisons.

Research in criminal justice, health, sociology, epidemiology, and economics demonstrates that when parents are incarcerated, children do worse across cognitive and noncognitive outcome measures.

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