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 Addressing the Unmet Educational Needs of Children and Youth in the Juvenile Justice and Child Welfare Systems
May 27, 2010: Georgetown University's Public Policy Institute Center for Juvenile Justice Reform has released a new paper reviewing educational barriers encountered by youth involved in the juvenile justice and child welfare systems and describes recent legal and policy reforms. Promising practices and evidence-based interventions to improve educational barriers encountered by youth involved in the juvenile justice and child welfare systems and describes recent legal and policy reforms. Click here to access the PDF.
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 2010 Factbook Now Available!
April 12, 2010: The 2010 Rhode Island Kids Count Factbook is now available! The Factbook tracks the progress of 67 indicators, across five areas of child well-being including Family and Community, Economic Well-Being, Health, Safety, and Education. Data are also available for Rhode Island's 39 cities and towns.
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 Fact Sheet on Girls' Delinquency
March 15, 2010: A new fact sheet from the U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) reviews trends in girls' delinquency and describes research conducted by OJJDP's Girls Study Group. It also reports on OJJDP programs and publications that address girls' delinquency. The fact sheet also assesses whether girls were becoming more violent or if other factors contributed to their higher arrest rates. View the fact sheet, and visit OJJDP's Girls' Delinquency page for more information.
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 Successful Community Reentry for Juvenile Justice-Involved Youth
December 21, 2009: The report Back on Track: Supporting Youth Reentry From Out-of-Home Placement to the Community finds that reentrey services and aftercare programs which target youth who are exiting custody and connect them with professional case managers, mentors, or employment opportunities can reduce recidivism. By fostering improved family relationships and functioning, reintegration into school, and mastery of independent life skills, youth build resiliency and positive development to divert them from delinquent or other problematic behaviors.
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 Report Provides Informaton on Crimes in Schools
December 17, 2009: The Office of Justice Programs' Bureau of Justice Statistics, in collaboration with the National Center for Education Statistics, has published Indicators of School Crime and Safety, 2009. The report highlights crime and safety at school from the perspectives of students, teachers and principles. It also provides detailed statistical information on the nature of crime in schools and school enviornments and responses to violence and crime at school. Click here to access the report.
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 New Report on Juvenile Reentry Issues
November 24, 2009: The Youth Reentry Task Force of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Coalition recently released a report that oulines current findings on juvenile reentry issues. The Youth Reentry Task Force Report offers the following national policy recommendations: strengthen the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA) to incorportate the reentry stage of youth involvement in the juvenile justice system; eliminate barriers to needed medical and mental health services for reentering youth; fund Youth Reentry Grants to local community and faith-based organizations to offer a broad spectrum of services for reentering youth; and provide incentives to states to reduce long-term incarceration in favor of reentry services that support success in the community. Access the entire report here.
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 Coalition for Juvenile Justice Releases New Fact Sheet on School Engagement versus Exclusion
November 5, 2009: The new Coalition for Juvenile Justice fact sheet on school engagement vs. exclusion cites that "Zero Tolerance" and other well-intentioned school disciplinary policies and practices may have negative results, especially for students from racial/ethnic/linguistic minority groups, and those with special needs and other disabilities. View CJJ's fact sheet Ensuring School Engagement and Success vs Exclusion for Youth at Risk of Delinquency.
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 New Report from Fight Crime: Invest in Kids
November 5, 2009
A new report titled From America's Front Line Against Crime: A School and Youth Violence Prevention Plan offers four strategies to dramatically reduce school and youth violence. The strategies include engaging at-risk youth in evidence-based programs and providing after-school youth development programs. The plan urges federal, state and local governments to invest in programming now in order to prevent future violence and costs.
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 Preventing Youth Violence: New Strategies for Policy, Research and Practice
November 16, 2009 - An all-star panel of nationally recognized experts will discuss new strategies for research, policy and practice to prevent youth violence as part of the 2009 Lipsitt-Duchin Lectures in Child and Youth Behavior and Development. The event will be held on Monday, November 16, 2009 at 3:30 p.m. at Brown University. For more information and to register, download the invitation.
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New Demographic Data on Teen Violence
October 15, 2009: New data is available on adolescent violence and unintentional injury in the United States. The fact sheet illustrates that, combined with problems related to mental health, sexual and reproductive health, substance abuse, nutrition and obesity, violence and unintentional injury form part of a complex web of potential challenges to adolescents' health. Click here to view the fact sheet from the National Center for Children in Poverty.
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 Pre-Adolescents in the Criminal Justice System
September 3, 2009: A report from the University of Texas at Austin reviews research on pre-adolescents in the criminal justice system, providing a comprehensive look at how the nation treats pre-adolescent children who commit serious crimes and offers recommendations for the consideration of policy makers and advocates. The report found that more than half of states permit children under the age of 12 to be treated as adults for criminal justice purposes. Additionally, in 22 states and the District of Colombia, children as young as seven can be prosecuted and tried in criminal courts. Download From Time Out to Hard Time: Young Children in the Adult Criminal Justice System.
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 Juvenile Justice in Rhode Island
July 27, 2009 - Rhode Island KIDS COUNT releases its latest Issue Brief entitled Juvenile Justice in Rhode Island, at a policy roundtable at the Rhode Island Training School, Youth Development Center. The Issue Brief contains comprehensive data on juvenile justice systems in Rhode Island, including trends over the past decade in the number of youth referred to RI Family Court, violent crimes committed by youth and status offenses as well as providing an in-depth look at youth currently involved in the system.
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 Rhode Island Kids Count TV Show: Taking A Holistic Approach to Preventing Youth Violence
June 4, 2009 - View the June 2009 episode of the Rhode Island KIDS COUNT Television Show highlighting the work of the Institute for the Study and Practice of Nonviolence aired in the memory of David Cartagena, Senior Streetworker at the Institute and exceptional Nonviolence Advocate.
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America's Invisible Children: Latino Youth and the Failure of Justice
May 22, 2009: The National Council for La Raza (NCLR) and the Campaign for Youth Justice (CFYJ) have released a new report titled America's Invisible Children: Latino Youth and the Failure of Justice. The report examines the experiences of Latino youth in the juvenile justice system, with a particular focus on youth tried as adults. The report concludes that Latino youth are overrepresented in the juvenile justice system and recieve harsher treatment for white youth with the same offenses. View the report here.
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Release of 2009 Rhode Island Kids Count Factbook
April 6, 2009 - Rhode Island KIDS COUNT released its annual publication on the well-being of children and families in RI, the 2009 Rhode Island Kids Count Factbook. View a summary of Juvnile Justice indicators in the 2009 Factbook here.
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 New Documents Available on Juvenile Justice In RI
February 10, 2009 - According to a newly released fact sheet on juvenile justice in RI, 73% of admissions to detention at the RI Training resulted in stays of seven days or less. Also available is recent testimony present to the state legislators regarding the RI Training School and alternatives to juvenile incarceration.
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 New Report on Delinquency Prevention for Girls
January 8, 2009 - The Justice Department's Office of Justice Programs' Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention released a research bulletin, "Charting the Way to Delinquency Prevention for Girls," which reports that despite the rise in female juvenile crime, violence among female youth has not increased. The report can be found at: http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/223434.pdf
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 New Blog Dedicated to Juvenile Justice Teens Struggling with Substance Abuse
December 3, 2008- The professionally staffed blog, Reclaiming Futures Every Day (Part of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Reclaiming Futures Initiative) will be a resource for judges, probation officials, treatment providers and juvenile justice policy analysts to stay informed about the latest developments concerning teens and the cycle of drugs, alcohol and crime. Access the blog here.
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 Report Examines Juvenile Justice Policy & Practice
November 6, 2008: The Future of Children has released its latest publication, Juvenile Justice (Vol. 18, No. 2). The volume examines juvenile justice policies and practices with the goal of promoting reforms to the justice system that are based on solid evidence, acknowledging that adults differ from adolescents in ways that policy ought to take into account, and that antisocial acts that bring young people into contact with the justice system are often accompanied by other problems, which the justice system alone is often ill-equipped to address. Accompanying the release are an Executive Summary and Policy Brief.
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 Summary of the 2008 KIDS COUNT Essay on Juvenile Justice Reform Now Available
August 18, 2008 – A summary version of the 2008 KIDS COUNT essay, A Road Map for Juvenile Justice, presents the six pervasive challenges raised in the essay that face our nation’s juvenile justice systems today. It highlights key facts and data, and offers promising solutions for approaches that have been proven to improve outcomes for youth, families, taxpayers and communities.
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 Report on Juveniles Detained in RI Available
August 6, 2008 - There was a 10% decrease in juvenile detentions in 2007 according to the Rhode Island Justice Commission's report, Juvenile Detention Data 2007. The report details the nature of detentions and characteristics of juveniles detained in Rhode Island. The report focuses on juveniles securely and non-securely detained, not juveniles that may have been released at the scene, transported home, brought directly to the RI Training School or to Court. Also note that there report captures only the most serious offense for which the youth was detained.
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 RI Supreme Court Rules on Family Court's jurisdiction over 'gap kids'
July 21, 2008 - The Rhode Island Supreme Court ruled on July 10, 2008 that the state Family Court has initial jurisdiction over the case of a 17-year-old Barrington youth facing a murder charge and another youth who was charged as an adult during a brief change in the state law. The high court upheld a Superior Court judge's decision and rejected the argument of the Attorney General in ruling that the indictments of these youth should be held in abeyance until the Family Court holds a hearing and decides whether it will waive its jurisdiction over them.
In the summer and fall of 2007, Rhode Island KIDS COUNT staff worked extensively to get the law reversed that resulted in 17-year-olds being housed at the Rhode Island Adult Correction Institutions. On Tuesday, October 30, 2007, the Rhode Island General Assembly voted to repeal the law that was enacted that treated 17 year-olds as adults. The July 10, 2008 ruling means that the approximately 70 remaining youth who were charged as adults during the 4 month "gap period" last year will have their cases returned to the Family Court from the adult court system.
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