Safe Passages for Youth in Gang plagued Streets

In Chicago, school officials are using federal stimulus funds to pay veterans to protect youth while they go to and from school. The veterans are part of Safe Passages, an effort by schools and the police department to reduce violence among youth before and after school in the gang infested neighborhoods of Englewood and Woodlawn in Chicago. In the NPR article, Chicago's Silent Watchmen Guard School Route, one principal shared that after school violence such as fights have significantly reduced. In Harlem Geoffrey Canada, President of the Harlem Children’s Zone organized “Safety Knights” a 10-block stretch (from 125th-135th streets) team of staff members watching over youth to make sure they get home safely between 5:30-6:30pm. Read the article “Gangs Plaguing Harlem Inspires ‘safety Knights’ to Patrol Streets” to learn more about the initiative.

Center for Court Innovation Video

For fourteen years I have had the privilege of working for an amazing organization, the Center for Court Innovation. While the Center itself is not widely known, many of the projects we have developed or encouraged are, including the Harlem Community Justice Center and Upper Manhattan Reentry Task Force. From a small demonstration project in the early 1990's, the Midtown Community Court, the Center's work has spawned hundreds of results driven justice innovations nationally, and increasingly internationally. Every day these projects are connecting addicts to treatment, assisting victims, smoothing the path home for persons leaving prison, and diverting youth from incarceration.

The ideas and practices developed through the Center's work have changed the way our justice system operates for the better. I am proud of the accomplishments represented in the video. It is a testament to the staff and volunteers of the Center and the leadership of our many community and agency partners.

Center For Court Innovation Video

Christopher Watler
Project Director
Harlem Community Justice Center

Youth in Harm's Way: Marijuana, law enforcement and young New Yorkers

A Center for New York City Affairs forum.

According to the New York Division of Criminal Justice Services. 70 percent of the 50,383 arrests for possession of marijuana in New York City in 2010 were of young people under 30, and 86 percent of those arrested were black and Latino. The debate on the classification of marijuana possession as a crime is heating up nationwide even as the number of arrests in New York has risen. Many substance abuse professionals, public officials and community anti-crime activists support a drug enforcement strategy that includes "broken windows" policing and drug treatment. Others question whether this is worth the cost, including the criminal convictions that can damage young people's prospects for education and jobs. Is it time for change, or not?

A conversation with:
Dan Donovan, Staten Island District Attorney
Oma S. Holloway, Director of Career Services, The Door - A Center of Alternatives
Noah Kass, LMSW and Clinical Director, Realization Center, Inc
Jenay Nurse, Criminal Defense Attorney, Bronx Defenders
gabriel sayegh, New York State Director, Drug Policy Alliance

Moderated by: Cindy Rodriguez, WNYC

Admission is free but you must reserve a seat. Please email centernyc@newschool.edu or call 212.229.5418.

Supported by the Sirus Fund and the Milano Foundation

Youth Today

Today's stories on Juvenile Justice. Read the two articles below from Youth Today.

White House Might Alter Juvenile Justice Spending Plan for 2012

National Council on Juvenile and Family Court Judges Hires New Leader

A Refreshing and Insightful Talk with a Juvenile Justice Academic

Jeffrey A. Butts is director of the Research and Evaluation Center at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York (CUNY). Previously, Jeff was a research fellow with Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, director of the Program on Youth Justice at the Urban Institute in Washington, DC, and senior research associate at the National Center for Juvenile Justice. He earned the Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. This month Juvenile Gang Task Force staff interview Mr. Butts at the Harlem Community Justice Center.

What inspired you to work in the field of Juvenile Justice?
I guess I became interested in the youth justice field when I was a youth myself, making mistakes and causing a little trouble. I never did anything serious, but I did end up in the back of a police car once, met with a probation officer, and received a diversion or informal disposition. I later realized how I directly benefited from policies that keep young people from being drawn into the formal justice system. I also benefited from having “resources” – namely, that my vocabulary was good enough to protect me during police processing and my family appeared to be attentive (and pissed off) when I got in trouble. These family resources are what a lot of youth today don’t have and this is what gets them drawn into the system; especially youth of color. This insight keeps me motivated.

How can someone working in the field with youth help connect them to needed resources?
We first have to rely upon parents, guardians, immediate family members and other relatives as much as possible because they hopefully have a natural motivation to stay involved. Next, creativity comes in when you have to go beyond the family, and that’s what we’re pretty bad at… A good youth justice approach would be to start by mapping out what’s available to a young person in terms of supports. We don’t do a good job at this because it takes too long and it’s a lot of hard work. As a system, we tend to like quick and easy solutions.

I find organizations and people who want to connect with other organizations for services but obstacles keep them from moving forward. Have you heard the same?
Sure… It’s easy to think that you can just call people up and say, “hey, let’s all work together,” but it’s hard to move the conversation beyond the professional realm where we can start to build normalized and natural resources for young people. The sad part to me, as an MSW social worker, is that the profession of social work used to be about building those bridges and establishing normalized relationships between individuals, families, communities and social supports. But, over the last 30 to 40 years, it seems that social work turned itself into just another behavioral health profession, with third party payments and Medicaid reimbursement. We lost touch with our original mission.

From the work you have done what has had the most impact on the Juvenile Justice System?
I think my own impact, to the extent I’ve had any, comes from three key things. The first is that I’ve always tried to do my research and writing in a way that speaks to regular people, not just academics. A few times, I’ve been lucky to see how my studies have actually changed the way people in the juvenile justice field think about something. The most rewarding thing to me is to know that people use my work and continue to cite it, even though it might be 10 years old. The second way I try to have impact is through direct relationships, like in my consulting work were I visit agencies, talk with people, and learn about what they do. The third way is probably through public speaking. Every time I talk to a room of 100 people or so, three or four walk up afterwards and start a conversation with me. I love meeting people in juvenile justice who are trying to find out how systems work and how they can find their own niche.

Personally what have you found most rewarding in your professional career?
The thing I find most rewarding is when I learn that my work has been used to change some policy or practice and that this change has had direct benefits for youth and families. … I was visiting a juvenile court once in the Midwest and I learned from talking with them that they had been using some of my work on court delay to make their adjudication process more efficient so that youth and parents would not have to wait around for months and months while the court decided what to do about their case. The court people didn’t even know they were citing my own work to me, but when I could see that a study I did 10 years earlier had actually helped them to improve their court procedures… well, that was a good day. As researchers, we don’t get to see that very often.

Where do you think we are going as a country in regards to Juvenile Justice?
Whoa… big question. I guess I would say that I’m cautiously optimistic. There was a time, mainly in the 1990s, when emotions were heightened, there was a lot of fear because crime rates had gone up so much and state officials were doing nutty things to the juvenile court system to try to make it “tougher.” Our whole system really started falling apart. Then, when the crime rate fell, some of that pressure subsided a bit too. Then, we also had all this great research coming out. New science about adolescence and about the impact of court sanctions started to change the way policymakers saw juvenile justice. Much of this investment came during the Clinton administration. New, high-quality research and practice information infused the justice system, and we’ve benefitted from that for most of the past ten years. That level of investment basically ended when 9/11 happened and even more so when Wall Street crashed the whole economy in 2008. Now, the good ideas in youth justice are starting to slow down. New program models are not popping up like they used to… and that’s a big concern for me.

What are things that you think are lacking in the Juvenile Justice System?
What do we lack? … Good practical community partners. I always think the best youth justice system would be one that was designed by a bunch of sensitive and intelligent parents of teenagers. They know how teenager test rules and how they enjoy breaking out of the boundaries we set for them. In fact, that’s their job. But, the teen years are also a critical period for shaping and protecting them from really bad decisions. It would be nice if we had a justice system that would act like a good, attentive parent and provide education, effective prevention, and always make sure that kids are aware of the consequences of their behavior. We should help them to make small adjustments at the first sign of trouble, but we don’t do this. We ignore, deny, and don’t react until really big mistakes happen, and then we come down on them like they are career criminals. That’s a tragedy. It shows a lack of creativity when we wait too long to act. On the other hand, we also have to be careful how we involved in the legal system. The second you start talking about a young person as a “delinquent” or an “offender,” you start making their lives worse. You lower their chances of success. So it would be nice if we could be more creative, more proactive, but also if we could protect and support youth at the earliest stages of legal trouble.

What work have you done around youth gangs?
Well, in one way, we’re always on the topics of youth gangs and violence. As soon as you say the words “juvenile crime” to people, they immediately think of gang violence, or a young “thug” with a firearm tucked into his waistband. Our culture is dominated by those images. It is actually a small part of youth justice, but it drives our politics, and so I have been around it a lot. I recently wrote a book chapter on gang violence with Caterina Roman at Temple University. We discussed how to bring youth development principles into gang intervention models. We also have a new OJJDP project, the evaluation of the Community-Based Violence Prevention Demonstration Project. The Center for Court Innovation is actually implementing one of the four sites in Crown Heights. The other three sites are in Denver, DC, and Oakland.

What would be your advice for Juvenile Justice professionals looking to address youth violence connected with youth gangs?
Stay creative. Don’t allow your organizations to have too much power over your thinking. Stay true to what you think is sensible. Of course, you have to attend to your organizational structures and what your supervisors and everyone else tell you about how the world of youth violence works, but don’t let go entirely of your own insights and your own beliefs and theoretical understanding. Bureaucracies try to make us think very conventionally, and that’s how we end up over-medicalizing crime and over-psychopathologizing adolescence. Also, because that is where the money is – in medical-style, clinical interventions. Society will pay us to fix a “bad kid” or a “broken kid,” but if I have a client who is basically a normal teenager, but who is poor, with insufficient work opportunities, and a criminal-prone lifestyle due to his surroundings, who will pay for him to learn a new way of living? Medicaid doesn’t pay for distorted social values; they pay for clinical disorders and diagnoses.

What kind of programs have you found to be most effective when working with youth gangs?
First, you have to focus on good partnerships with the police. Fifteen years ago, people used to think that the best way to deal with gangs was to do police sweeps; just pick up everyone who looks like they might be gang-involved, and put the fear of god into them. Things have evolved since then, but if you are a community activist and you think the police are your enemy, you are on the wrong track. The police cannot solve the problem, of course, but if you try to move forward without them, you won’t succeed. That is why the OJJDP/Spergel comprehensive gang model is so important. You identify and focus on the young people most at risk for getting involved in gangs, including those 10-14 year-olds who are often intrigued and charmed by gangs, but who may not be heavily involved yet. We need to be honest and acknowledge that gangs offer young people a sense of belonging, a sense of a future, a sense of safety and security, and that’s what everyone needs. But, we need to find ways to provide these things outside of gang life. Not easy.

I recently had a focus group with police officers who expressed a desire to get more directly involved in the community and with youth. What is your take on that?
Police officers really know a lot more than we do. They are potentially great partners…I recently visited the Outward Bound program in Baltimore, and they were bringing youth and police together for a series of one-day programs involving physical challenges, like ropes courses, climbing challenges, etc. By the end of that one day, they had established relationships with one another. It was good for both parties. Youth saw that they could get along with the police, and the police saw that not all youth were gang bangers and deviants.

Those were my questions. Thank you for your time.
You’re very welcome.

Talking Social Network Analysis with Dr. Andrew Papachristos

This month, I had the privilege of interviewing Dr. Andrew Papachristos, a professor at UMass Amherst. Andrew Papachristos received his Ph.D. from the Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago. Andrew’s research uses social network analysis to examine: (1) the social structures and group processes at the heart of interpersonal violence and delinquency; (2) issues of group dominance and reciprocity; and (3) the use of violence and honor as measures of social control. His research has appeared in Foreign Policy, Criminology and Public Policy, the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, and several edited books.


How did you get involved in your current field?
I grew up in Chicago and in High School I got involved in community organizing and outreach. In College I continued this work and did street intervention and diversion work. I have been doing this kind of work ever since.

What were the most valuable lessons learned as a gang outreach worker?
That gang life is not how the media depicts it. Violence and drugs are obviously a part of gangs but they are not as in your face as the media depicts it. I also learned a lot and gained a lot of experience from getting to know people involved in gangs, and seeing the opportunities and challenges in their life first hand.

Were there any obstacles in your work given the fact that you were never gang involved?
The interesting dynamic was that gangs did not want me to join and I was never pressured to join but I had friends in different groups so I could talk to different groups and members without ramifications. In fact it was a privilege, because I was able to cross boundaries, talk to different gang members, and go places where some of my friends were unable to go.

What do you find the most rewarding in your professional career?
I get to participate in so many activities within the field. I am able to teach, work with other professionals, talk to people who are directly involved, and do research. I am able to cross so many boundaries, work with so many people, and have the opportunity to do so many things.

Can you tell me about your social network analysis work?
It is an idea driven by websites like Facebook and Amazon and using tools to look at relationships between people. How you are connected and who you are connected to affects your behavior, health, influence, and power. This tool is helping us understand what delinquent groups and their social structures really look like. The vast majority of gangs are crews of guys who have influence and patterns of behaviors and this is what we are trying to study and map out. Who you hang out with and who you associate with is ultimately what is going to get you in trouble, so we are looking at these networks and the structures in order to help determine methods for intervention and prevention.

How is the social network analysis being used for prevention and intervention methods?
In our work with the National Network for Safe Communities we are using network analysis to design interventions, bring in and incorporate the people who are connected and can gather valuable information. On the prevention side, this tool is helping get the information to those who are at most risk but also to the people who are most likely to spread the information. In intervention, network analysis is being used to understand the structures and determine if the focus is on the right people and find those who are doing the shootings instead of focusing on everyone.

Do you have or can you recommend material that could be used to guide people who are unfamiliar with the social network analysis?
Books by Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers” and “Tipping Point”, Duncan Watts’ “6 Degrees”, “Linked” by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, and “Connected” by Nicholas A. Christakis and James H. Fowler.

How do you think social network analysis can help the Juvenile Gang Task Force?
Network analysis can help you get a grasp on the real problem and the hot, active, live beefs so that you can better determine and target proper groups and interventions. We do this well geographically, but doing this socially is even more effective. This tool can be more precise and help determine individuals who are most at risk.

What are the three main essential factors professionals should know when trying to study the gang problem?
The most important factor is to determine who is actually involved in the violence and constantly reevaluate this because this can change constantly. You then need to figure out the particulars of those groups, what do they do, are they big or small, who are the members, what is the structure of the group, who are the influential people of the group, and how do you reach the influential people? Finally, just do it. Once you evaluate and determine the methods and interventions that fit best in the respective community, implement them.

Are there programs that you can recommend we look into?
The National Network for Safe Communities is one of the most viable and transportable across boundaries. Avoid programs that are cookie-cutter. Street work and intervention like the Boston and Chicago Ceasefire models have particular and professional training programs for their staff who have street credit and are from the community. Most former members I talk to say that if they are not going to make it in the music industry they want to help youth but most don’t know how to do this.

Fewer Teens Prosecuted in Adult Court

A recent article by the New York Times explores the reversal of policies that emerged in the 1980s and 1990s that allowed the transferring of juvenile cases to adult courts. According to the Times, many of these cases have been "mishandled by the adult court system." Emerging science on the brain has also shown that the ability to exercise self management does not fully mature in the brain until the early twenties. This emerging science, combined with the growing criminal justice cost and poor outcomes from the policy, have led to the changes. New York is one of two states that still prosecutes juveniles as adults at 16 years old (North Carolina is the other state).