Katner postulates that the post-Katrina New Orleans juvenile justice system required some new approaches in how the system is structured and utilized.  One approach he offers for consideration is to rethink the juvenile justice system in terms of a public health problem.  According to Katner, this may help to introduce intervention services for high-risk juveniles.  He also suggests adopting universal daycare to reduce delinquency and recidivism rates.

While these theories certainly have merit, can they be applied in the wake of Ike?  What is clear is that Galveston and surrounding municipalities have much to do to recover from Ike.  During this process of structural rebuilding, will the opportunity be taken to “rebuild” the current juvenile system?  Will the system take advantage of the proverbial “clean slate” and try to improve itself, or will it settle back into the comfortable, if not flawed, system for juvenile offenders?  Might Katner’s suggestions be put into practice?

It seems that the perfect time to take a good, hard look at a system that may be in need of repair, is when the city surrounding it is in the process of repair.  This requires some tough questions and a new perspective, but why not start with a clean slate?

As reported by Inside Bay Area:

Oakland attorney Sujatha Baliga says the juvenile justice system in Alameda County isn’t working for most youths. Too many young offenders are locked up, and far too many re-offend, she said.

Baliga, 36, is one of just 18 people nationwide who have received prestigious Soros Justice Fellowships to put their ideas for criminal justice reform into practice.

In April, the Soros organization began to fund Baliga’s work with Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth, which is seeking nonprofit status to set up new programs for young offenders in Alameda County.

Restorative justice is a philosophy concerned with repairing harm to crime victims, holding offenders accountable to help right their wrongs, and involving victims, communities and offenders in the rehabilitation process.

Baliga, a Harvard graduate who grew up in an Indian-American family in Pennsylvania, said she learned of restorative justice more than a decade ago in Dharamsala, India.

For years, she’d worked with victims of domestic violence and childhood sexual abuse at city-run shelters in New York and with private Bay Area nonprofits. She eventually found herself becoming enraged at abusers and people who otherwise victimize others.

By contrast, she saw that the Dalai Lama and many ordinary Tibetans, who’d suffered devastating losses, seemed serene and content. She learned that prior to Chinese occupation, the Tibetan government’s justice system was essentially based on restorative justice principles, because it focused on reconciliation and reducing anger on both sides of any dispute.”I knew he’d lost his nation and, like, a sixth of his population to slaughter,” Baliga said. “I was really amazed at this concept. Here’s somebody who has something to be angry about — and isn’t.”

Baliga said she had a chance to meet the Dalai Lama, who advised her to ally herself with her enemies as much as possible. She thought that would be difficult advice to follow because she was considering becoming a prosecuting attorney to help put abusers behind bars.But after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania’s law school, Baliga switched sides. She appealed criminal convictions for public defender’s offices in New York and New Mexico. She loved the work, but her heart was still in restorative justice.

Baliga recalls one client who wanted to make things right with his victims. He’d stepped into a family brawl, and unintentionally killed a family member. He was serving 15 years to life, and while his case was on appeal he told Baliga that he wanted to apologize.

It would have been healing for her client to own up to what he’d done and for the victim’s family to know he was remorseful. But with his freedom at stake, she couldn’t let him talk.

“We had really good appellate issues and there was a chance we could get it overturned, so it was, ‘Shhh, don’t tell anybody anything. We’re not talking about it,’ and I’m sorry I did it.”

Most of Baliga’s adult clients also had been juvenile offenders. In California, 75 percent of youths who serve time in state detention re-offend. Baliga wants to break the cycle by helping youths come to terms with their offenses and giving them support to stay out of trouble.

Her first project will help young offenders leaving juvenile detention camp transition to life outside. She plans to create “circles of support and accountability” that would include family or trusted adults who would help a young person comply with the terms of probation, and perhaps even deal with the underlying reasons for breaking the law.

“Sometimes the thing the kid offended for is not the root problem,” Baliga said. “The root problem is abuse in the family, or severe poverty that is not being taken care of.”

Deborah Swanson, chief of juvenile services at the Alameda County Probation Department, said she likes the idea of involving community members.

“It could be as simple as helping a minor get to a court hearing or helping a family navigate the system,” she said.

Swanson has joined Juvenile Court Presiding Judge Gail Bereola and other officials on a restorative justice task force, and hopes to help RJOY launch additional programs, including one that would offer alternatives to traditional sentences.

Restorative justice isn’t new. A patchwork of programs has been established in California and the U.S. for more than 20 years.

Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Kurt Kumli, who used restorative approaches with juvenile felony offenders for six years as his county’s chief deputy district attorney, said they work.

“Those kids were graduating (from the program) with an unheard-of 98 percent compliance rate,” he said.

Still, it’s been tough to implement restorative programs widely in California, Sonoma Superior Court Judge Arnold Rosenfield said. Part of the problem is what he calls “political propaganda” for tough-on-crime policies.

“The public gets the idea that there’s this crazed band of kids running around, and the system is weak,” Rosenfield said.

In fact, juvenile arrests in California were down 28 percent from 1995 to 2005, the most recent year for which figures are available, according to statistics provided by the state attorney general’s office. In Alameda County, there was a 24 percent decline in juvenile arrests during the same period, records show.

Additionally, Rosenfield said those who work in the juvenile justice system are loath to listen to outsiders who tell them to change the way they do business.

That’s not likely to be a problem in Alameda County, where top officials have been working closely with RJOY. But Rosenfield cautioned that the public also has to get behind restorative justice programs if they are to become effective.

“If it’s top-down, it’s never going to fly,” he said.

In shifting responsibility to the counties for hundreds of California’s youth offenders, the state recognized that its juvenile justice system cannot be reformed without radical change.

Though prompted by cost concerns, the realignment of responsibilities to the counties was the right policy move, one previously recommended by this Commission and others. Many counties have demonstrated that they can provide programs and treatment to youth offenders who need to turn their lives around in settings that allow them to reintegrate more successfully into their communities.

Once [the 2007 court ordered] realignment is complete, the number of youth offenders in state hands will shrink to fewer than 1,500. The annual cost of providing services to each ward, however, next year will rise to $252,000. This startling figure reflects the overhead expenses of a system built to serve a far larger population, the cost of reforms required under a court-supervised consent decree and the complex needs of these seriously troubled youth. Californians may fairly ask what they are getting for this outlay and whether other strategies can better deliver public safety and youth rehabilitation. The state has made slow, yet undeniable, progress. Still, advocates for youth offenders, frustrated by the pace of reform, have asked a court to place the juvenile justice system in receivership.

Whatever the court’s decision, the state’s costs per ward likely will increase as juvenile programming and treatment services are expanded and its crumbling facilities continue to age. The state’s master plan for renovating or replacing its juvenile facilities, promised to legislators, is long overdue. The delay may mean that the cost of bringing California’s facilities in line with current programming requirements or replacing them is unaffordable, particularly in light of the current budget deficit.

The prospect of ever-higher outlays for an ever-smaller juvenile population in state custody should prompt policy-makers to extend realignment to completion. The Commission recommends that the state begin planning now to ultimately eliminate its juvenile justice operations and create regional rehabilitative facilities for high-risk, high-need offenders to be leased to and run by the counties.

The conservator of the Texas Youth Commission has told Gov. Rick Perry that the embattled state juvenile prison system is almost done with changes needed to operate on its own again.

Richard Nedelkoff has recommended that the agency be removed from a conservatorship by July 31, almost 16 months after the TYC was put into forced management amid an inmate sex-abuse scandal and revelations of possible cover-ups.

TYC spokesman Jim Hurley said the recommendation to legislative leaders was “based on completing those things that need to be done” to ensure that the agency is repaired.

“If those are not completed (by July 31), then that pushes that date back,” Hurley told the Austin American-Statesman.

Perry spokeswoman Krista Piferrer said the governor had not made a decision.

“Obviously, the governor would like to end the conservatorship when the time is right, but that decision is one we’ll need to work out with the legislative leadership,” she said.

News of Nedelkoff’s recommendation drew silence from legislative leaders, some of whom said the agency was still lagging on several key initiatives.

Those include implementing new rehabilitation programs and a new classification system, ramping up the training of correctional officers, removing youths serving time for misdemeanor crimes and installing new security cameras at lockups.

Behind the razor wire at Rhode Island’s juvenile detention center, teenage offenders are restoring four vintage diners that have been brought there by preservationists for the New Hope Diner Project.

This fall, the first restored diner, Hickey’s, should open in Rhode Island, with some of the teenagers working the griddles and the cash register, and even preparing to manage the restaurant someday.

“The whole poetry behind it is that these are kids who have been pretty much cast away emotionally and criminally, getting a chance to restore beloved eateries that have been cast off from society, too,” said Daniel Zilka, the acting director of the American Diner Museum, who rescues decrepit diners and helps run the project. “If they continue on the path that they’ve been moving upon they would end up in an adult correctional facility. This is probably their last opportunity.”

The offenders at the detention center, some as young as 13, have been convicted of crimes like sexual assault, armed robbery, breaking and entering, and drug offenses, and sentenced to serve 6 to 18 months. The center, the Rhode Island Training School, also has maximum security for offenders including murderers, but offenders qualify for the project only if they behave well enough to move to the regular detention population. They must also have, or nearly have, a high school equivalency diploma.

Rob, 16, convicted of assault with a deadly weapon for striking his sister’s former boyfriend with a bat, rendering him deaf in one ear, is one of 16 youths reconstructing Hickey’s — its mahogany subfloor, porcelain panels, and a 1954 Chevy truck that Mr. Zilka bought on eBay.

“It keeps my mind off the negative,” said Rob (state officials withheld last names because juvenile offenders’ records are not public). “I can say, ‘Yeah I helped make that.’ ”

Rob, who said he had “been in detention a million times,” said he preferred the diner work over some other training programs, like the poetry and rapping workshop, which he said censored some language.

“You can’t express what you want — nothing about drugs, violence, sex,” said Rob, who plans to record a rap album and call it “In Harm’s Way, Volume 1: Talk Is Cheap.” “They just want us to rap positive. But I can’t just be talking about sunshine and flowers and how colorful they are. That’s not my life experience.”

Devin, 18, with a 10-year history of armed robbery and lesser crimes, said he also values the diner program, especially taking apart the stove and refrigerator because, “I always want to break things.”

“I’ve been doing the carpentry class my whole bid, but before the diner I was doing little boxes and plaques that you send home,” he said. “That really don’t teach you nothing.”

Now he is thinking of a carpentry job or diner work after he is released.

Fueling such ambitions is the point, said John Scott, the community liaison for the school who had the idea for the project, including the tool belts that offenders get when they are released.

“Building birdhouses like a traditional high school program is not what these kids need,” Mr. Scott said. “We’re actually preparing them for all kinds of skills: there’s ceramic tile in these diners, sheet metal work, plumbing, electrical. You always meet people who want these kids to be locked away, and I respect their ill-informed opinion. But I look at the training school as kind of like Home Depot of the correctional system. We give them the tools, and when they’re ready to use it, they’ll use it.”

Other offenders here take culinary arts classes, receiving food-handling certificates.

Bill Tribelli, the culinary arts instructor, will help devise the diner menus, featuring some old standbys like corned beef and cabbage and “hot wieners,” but also recipes from his cookbook, “Jailhouse Cooking.” Those dishes include Jailhouse Chicken, Jailhouse-Style Macaroni and Cheese (made with WisPride or Velveeta), or Strawberry Mousse (Cool Whip and instant strawberry pudding).

“We need to have jailhouse things,” Mr. Tribelli said. “Most of the people in the jail clientele like their food hot, spicy and full of cheese.”

Mr. Zilka envisions contemporary updates like tiramisù pancakes.

“Who goes to diners now and has tapioca pudding or liver and onions?” he said.

To keep the cash-strapped state from paying $25,000 to $200,000 to restore each diner, Mr. Scott and Mr. Zilka found partners in Rhode Island. New Harvest Coffee Roasters in Pawtucket concocted New Hope coffee (organic, fair trade, shade grown), and about $4 of each $11 bag supports the project.

Students at Bryant University in Smithfield are creating business plans for each diner. Angelo’s, an 84-year-old landmark restaurant in Providence, will operate the diners, employing offenders once they are released.

“Hopefully, one of them will be able to own one,” said Robert Antignano, the president of Angelo’s.

Norm Lambert, the carpentry teacher, said he had initially questioned giving offenders access to dangerous tools. “When I first started working here, I thought how foolish is this?” Mr. Lambert said. “You get a little bit of behavior problems. But it’s kind of like a carrot you hang over their head. If they act up and I have to discipline them, they’re not going to come back.”

Julian, 18, who said his offenses included grand larceny and beating up his father, knows that “if you assault anybody with tools it’s an extra two years.” He wants to put his juvenile record behind him, attend a college like Brown University and go to law school. Then, he said, “I want to be a state governor, actually.”

Families who owned the diners laud the restorations and do not mind the connection to convicted criminals.

“My father was one of the biggest juvenile delinquents there was till the day he died,” said Virginia Ryan, whose father, Ernest, operated Sherwood’s. He did not commit crimes, she said, but practical jokes, like resting a spoon on the stove before giving it to a customer who complained the soup was too cold. “The guy burned his lip.”

Joyce Hickey, whose father, John, ran Hickey’s, said having juvenile offenders restore diners is “fitting almost in some ways.”

“A wide variety of people frequented the diner, the continuum of life,” Ms. Hickey said. “My father was a fair man. He always did see the good in people without being blinded by the bad.”

This article reviews the now extensive literature on the varied arenas in which restorative justice is theorized and practiced - criminal violations, community ruptures and disputes, civil wars, regime change, human rights violations, and international law. It also reviews - by examining empirical studies of the processes in different settings - how restorative justice has been criticized, what its limitations and achievements might be, and how it might be understood. I explore the foundational concepts of reintegrative shaming, acknowledgment and responsibility, restitution, truth and reconciliation, and sentencing or healing circles for their transformative and theoretical potentials and for their actual practices in a variety of locations - family abuse, juvenile delinquency, criminal violations, problem-solving courts, indigenous-colonial-national disputes, ethnic and religious conflicts, civil wars, and liberation struggles. Restorative justice, which began as an alternative model of criminal justice, seeking healing and reconciliation for offenders, victims, and the communities in which they are embedded, has moved into larger national and international arenas of reintegration in political and ethnic conflicts. This review suggests that there are important and serious questions about whether restorative justice should be supplemental or substitutional of more conventional legal processes and about how its innovations suggest potentially transformative and challenging ideas and “moves” for dealing with both individual and group transgressive conduct, seeking peace as well as justice.

Menkel-Meadow, Carrie J., “Restorative Justice: What is it and Does it Work?” . Annual Review of Law & Social Science, Vol. 3, 2007 Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1005485

Major efforts have been made to reform TYC. Below is a timeline of TYC events and an update on where TYC is today:
A Timeline

February 2005 – Texas Ranger sergeant began investigating allegations of sexual abuse at Pyote Facility involving Ray Brookins, former assistant superintendent, and John Paul Hernandez, former principal. (DMN 2/18/07)

February 2005 - Ray Brookins and John Paul Hernandez both resigned (DMN)

February 18, 2007 – News Media Reports about the sexual and physical abuses occurring at TYC (DMN)

March 2, 2007 – Allegations of sexual abuse at the Ron Jackson State Juvenile Correctional Facility in Brownwood are reported in the media indicating that this was not an isolated incident (DMN)

March 2007 – State Auditor’s Office report identifies several issues (state auditor report)(PDF)

March 15, 2007 – DOJ reports findings from an investigation of the Evins facility. Finds the conditions unconstitutional because of the harm the inmates are experiencing. (DOJ report)(PDF)

March 15, 2007 – Between January 2000 and March 15, 2007 there were 16,310 allegations of incidents involving juveniles at TYC. 4,454 of those allegations were confirmed by TYC. (DMN)

March 29, 2007 – Texas Senate confirmed Governor Rick Perry’s appointment of Jay Kimbrough as Conservator of TYC. (press release)

April 9, 2007 – Brookins and Hernandez are indicted and arrested for “charges that they “sexually abused teenage inmates at the state juvenile prison in Pyote.” (DMN)

June 8, 2007 – SB 103 and companion bill HB 2807 were signed into law. The bills provide for reform efforts at the agency. (SB 103)

June 8, 2007 – Governor Perry appoints Ed Owens to replace Jay Kimbrough as TYC conservator. (Governor’s Website)

June 2007 – Dimitria Pope appointed as acting executive Director after spending most of her career working at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (DMN)

August 2007 – TYC announces new Pepper Spray policy. The new policy permits guards to use pepper spray more often than in the past. (DMN)

October 2007 – TYC ends contract with GEO Inc. for the Coke County facility. The 197 male inmates are immediately moved to the TYC facility in Mart, TX. (DMN)

November 2007 – TYC reverses its pepper spray policy (Texas Appleseed/Chronicle) (PDF)

December 19, 2007 – Governor Perry appoints Richard Nedelkoff to replace Ed Owens as conservator. (Governor’s Website)

February 12, 2008 – Dimitria Pope, the TYC acting executive director, announces her resignation (DMN)

May 6, 2008 – 70 inmates at TYC’s facility in Giddings broke out of their cells and started running around the campus and climbing into trees and onto the rooftops of the facility. (DMN)

June 12, 2008 - ACLU sues TYC for mistreatment of girls at the Brownwood facility (Statesman)

An Update on Reform

The Texas Observer Blog has had several posts recently describing how those involved with TYC reforms are feeling about the progress the agency has made.

Rehabilitating TYC

Perhaps the agency has been so hard to rehabilitate because its problems extend beyond a handful of troubled facilities or a flawed approach to juvenile justice. Mental health advocates blame public officials’ failure to recognize the importance of early intervention programs within the mental health system statewide as a key culprit.

Mission Redefinition for TYC

There was much talk of transitioning from large, rural TYC detention centers to smaller, urban facilities, which would keep youth offenders closer to their families, increase community involvement and allow for specialized treatment.

Trickle Down Reform

Despite the ACLU’s TYC lawsuit, many juvenile justice advocates assert that, while it’s slow-moving, there is progress at TYC — trickling down from the top.

What are you’re thought? Is TYC headed in the right direction? What should be done next?

The full article:

Pct. 6 Justice of the Peace Gustavo “Gus” Garza will not be able to allow spanking as an option for disciplining children in his courtroom, according to a court ruling Wednesday.

State District Judge Abel C. Limas, who asserted jurisdiction in the case, halted spanking as a form of punishment in Garza’s courtroom on Wednesday. Limas pointed to the protection, safety and emotional well-being of children as his reason for approving the temporary injunction.

“I am encouraged that Judge Limas acted to protect the interests of the children of Los Fresnos,” said Mark Sossi, the attorney who on behalf of three families requested that courtroom spankings be stopped.

The ruling came after the filing of a lawsuit by Mary Vasquez and Daniel Zurita against Garza last week. The lawsuit alleges that Zurita had felt compelled to spank his stepdaughter in lieu of a $500 fine and criminal conviction for truancy.

“Obviously, we had one judge acting outside his authority when forcing parents to spank their children in his courtroom,” Sossi said. “It doesn’t help the children with anything, and it contributes to a circus-like atmosphere in the courtroom.”

Cameron County Chief Counsel Richard Burst said he didn’t know whether the county would attempt an appeal.

“I think it’s best to sit on it and make a decision tomorrow,” said Burst, who with co-counsel Bruce Hodge, defended Garza at Wednesday’s hearing.

With the county’s legal represenation at his side, Garza took the stand early in the hearing to defend the spankings.

“I think that discipline works,” Garza said of paddling, which he said parents select in lieu of paying fines by choice. “It’s effective. It’s efficient. It’s immediate. There are no questions.”

Garza said that he did not compel or coerce parents to paddle children. However, he also testified that he does not provide other alternatives to fines, such as counseling or community service, because he does not believe these are effective.

He estimated that fewer than 100 children have been paddled in his courtroom since he took office in January 2007.

During the hearing, Sossi directed Garza to demonstrate how children are positioned for the paddling. Stepping down, Garza placed his arms on the armrests of a chair and bent down with his buttocks facing Limas.

“I find your approach trying to embarrass me,” Garza told the attorney. Sossi rebutted by asking whether Garza thinks 13- and 14-year-old girls and boys would find it humiliating.

Limas also found that there had been no criminal intent on Garza’s part and that the spankings had not been illegal. The judge ordered Garza to refrain from this form of disciplinary action in the courtroom.

Vasquez and Zurita also took the stand, noting that they do not believe in corporal punishment. Zurita said he felt he had no choice but to paddle his stepdaughter because he did not have the money for the $500 fine.

“There were no other options,” Zurita testified.

Limas indicated agreement in his comments from the bench, noting that he at times would not have been able to pay $500 either and that he had heard no testimony that the fines had been less than $500. “There needs to be a clear option,” Limas said.

Limas indicated that the Texas Legislature would be the body that could address the issue of corporal punishment in the courts.

“We are not here to make law,” Limas said.

Source: Perez-Trevino, Emma. Without a Paddle. The Brownsville Herald. June 11, 2008.

One can safely assume the sex health education taught in Goose Creek (Baytown) ISD meets the state’s abstinence-only-until-marriage guidelines.  If the 14 year old’s knowledge of pregnancy and childbirth was limited to the information Texas teachers are allowed to provide adolescents, she knew little if anything at all.

An irony in this case is the fact that the class was being taught the week the girl gave birth.  Another is that three weeks later (4/23/08) the program is being questioned by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.   Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data are staggering:

About 1/3 of girls in the United States get pregnant before age 20.  In 2006, a total of 435,427 infants were born to mothers aged 15–19 years, a birth rate of 41.9 live births per 1,000 women in this age group.  More than 80% of these births were unintended…  Although pregnancy and birth rates among girls aged 15–19 years have declined 34% since 1991, birth rates increased for the first time in 2006 (from 40.5 per 1,000 women in this age group in 2005 to 41.9 in 2006).  

Although this article will not discuss at length concerns regarding sexually transmitted disease (STD), keep in mind that unprotected sex presents the potential for unwanted pregnancy and potentially life-threatening illness.  According to the CDC 2006 National Surveillance Data for Chlamydia, Gonorrhea, and Syphilis girls age 15-19 have the overwhelmingly highest rates of Chlamydia.  Less notorious than the other two STD studied or HIV, Chlamydia is extremely transmissible, often undiagnosed or misdiagnosed as a more benign yeast infection and causes painful Pelvic Inflammatory Disease which if untreated can lead to sterility or even death.

Yet school age children in Texas and 27 other states are essentially taught to just-say-no. Their state’s acceptance of federal funding for abstinence-only education disallows teachers and school administrators from offering any additional prevention information.  Seventeen states have said, “no thanks.” 

Abstinence-only education has a lengthy and complicated history.  Emphasis on abstinence-only education began during the Reagan era.  After a brief period of openness during the early 1990’s, the policy was signed into law as an attachment to the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunities Act. The statute allocates funding only to states that promise their schools will teach students –including sexually inquisitive and active teens– to simply pledge abstinence.  Specifically, Title V, Section 510 states that “abstinence education” means an educational or motivational program which: 

1. has as its exclusive purpose teaching the social, psychological, and health gains to be realized by abstaining from sexual activity
2. teaches abstinence from sexual activity outside marriage as the expected standard for all school-age children
3. teaches that abstinence from sexual activity is the only certain way to avoid out-of wedlock pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and other associated health problems
4. teaches that a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in the context of marriage is the expected standard of sexual activity
5. teaches that sexual activity outside of the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects
6. teaches that bearing children out-of wedlock is likely to have harmful consequences for the child, the child’s parents, and society
7. teaches young people how to reject sexual advances and how alcohol and drug use increase vulnerability to sexual advances
8. teaches the importance of attaining self-sufficiency before engaging in sexual activity.

Educators, youth advocates, and family planning, public health, and HIV experts initially objected with no luck and no data at the time to convince the conservative Congress otherwise.  Despite independent studies suggesting oherwise, the Bush administration bolstered funding for the policy.  Furthermore, it has ignored data showing no significant behavioral changes with abstinence-only educated children versus those receiving comprehensive sex education.  A study commissioned by the government was quietly released over a year ago with little more than a press release.   

Comprehensive sex education incorporates abstinence into a more complete discussion of family planning and safer sex; and also can be tailored for age appropriate information.  Astinence only advocates often suggest that sex education should be provided by parents in the home.  If that is the case, why have you and I spent over a billion dollars telling school children to just say no?

Key critiques of abstinence-only-until-marriage programs include: 

> Abstinence only as a program goal is out of touch with current trends.  In fact, 95% of Americans have intercourse before marriage.

> Many abstinence-only programs withheld vital information such as accurate condom efficacy or dispensed blatant misinformation such as claims that 50% of gay youth have HIV and 10% of women commit suicide post-abortion.  Although many have corrected their curriculum, some persist in promoting false information. 

> Abstinence-only programs have failed to demonstrate behavioral changes based on extensive evaluation.

> Conversely, evaluation of comprehensive sexuality education programs (virtually all include abstinence education) show that many help youth delay sex and learn how to use condoms if/when they decide to have sex.

> Declines in adolescent sexual activity (often touted as proof that the abstinence-only program works) preceded widespread federal funding of abstinence-only education and are attributed to better use of contraceptives.  Sadly, data also show that those numbers are again on the rise.  

For those eager to suggest only certain liberal organizations intent on encouraging underage sex oppose the policy, think again.  The list of organizations publically opposed to the failed policy includes: the American Medical Association, Office of National AIDS Policy, Institute of Medicine, CDC, National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the American Academy of Pediatrics. 

It is time for policy makers to just say no to a failed policy that serves ideology, not youth or public health. The situation of an unwanted pregnancy in which school girls across America find themselves, IS shameful.  However, the shame is not on them for becoming pregnant.  The shame is on policy makers who have failed to speak truth to the complex topic of sex.  The shame is that ineffective abstinence only programs have received $1.5 billion tax dollars.  Conversely, zero tax dollars are spent on comprehensive curriculum which has been proven more effective by states that refused federal funds.  

For more information — including tips for discussing sex with your own children — check out the following websites:

Centers for Disease Control — http://cdc.gov

Advocates for Youth — http://www.advocatesforyouth.org

National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy — http://www.thenationalcampaign.org

The Healthy Teen Network — http://www.healthyteennetwork.org

On June 18, Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Arlen Specter (R-PA), and Herbert Kohl (D-WI) introduced legislation to reauthorize the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA), S. 3155. This much anticipated bill would reform and strengthen juvenile justice in a number of areas, including in cases of youth who come in contact with law enforcement and who have histories of abuse or neglect.

The bill urges states to make key improvements to juvenile justice systems, would prioritize and fund mental health and drug treatment for juvenile offenders, and encourages states to further address the overrepresentation of minorities in the juvenile justice system. The legislation supports the efforts of states that attempt to comply with the core requirements of JJDPA by making funds available through improvement grants to help bring states into compliance with the law.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to take up this legislation soon after the July 4 break. When a companion bill will be introduced in the House is not clear.