Alvin W. Cohn, D. Crim.
Administration of Justice Services, Inc.

OJJDP Home Page
OJJDP has launched a redesigned home page on its Web site. Enhancements include expanded coverage of news, publications, and events and links to tools designed to assist specific users, such as first-time visitors and students. Aids for those seeking funding information and the latest data are also provided. Access the site at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/ojjdp.

Disproportionate Minority Confinement
The Building Blocks for Youth has released its final report, No Turning Back: Promising Approaches to Reducing Racial and Ethnic Disparities Affecting Youth of Color in The Justice System. The report discusses the Casey Foundation’s Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative and the campaign across the country. The report can be obtained at http://www.buildingblocksforyouth.org/noturningback/ntb_fullreport.pdf.

Search
The National Consortium for Justice Information and Statistics and the Bureau of Justice Assistance announce that registration is now open for the 2006 Symposium on Justice and Public Safety Information Sharing, which will be held March 13-15, 2006 at the Grand Hyatt in Washington, DC. For details see www.search.org.

Federal Coordinating Council Agenda
The Federal Coordinating Council on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and OJJDP will sponsor the national conference Building on Success: Providing Today’s Youth with Opportunities for a Better Tomorrow, January 9, 2006, where there will be pre-conference workshops. Plenary sessions will address four themes identified by the White House Task Force on Disadvantaged Youth. Registration for the conference deadline is December 9, 2005. See http://www.juvenilecouncil.gov/2006NationalConference/index.html .

Youth Birthrate
The birthrate among American girls ages 10 to 14 has fallen to its lowest level since 1946, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The number dropped 38 percent from 1994 to 2002, even though the number of girls ages 10 to 14 climbed 16 percent. Researchers attributed the decline to effective sex education. In 2002, 7,315 babies were born to this group, a birth rate of 0.7 live births per 1,000 females, about the same as 60 years ago.

Premature Births
More than 12 percent of U.S. babies, a record, were born prematurely in 2003 as a result of delayed childbirth and doctors arranging for inducing labor, especially among older women. A total of 499,008 premature infants were born in the U.S. in 2003, according to researchers at the March of Dimes.

Sexual Violence
Substantiated incidents of sexual violence occur at a higher rate at state-run juvenile facilities than at any other type of correctional facility, reports the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). The report found a total of 2,100 substantiated incidents of sexual violence in 2004 at 2,700 state and federal prisons, local jails, and juvenile facilities, which covered a population of 1.7 million inmates, representing 79 percent of adults and juveniles incarcerated in the U.S. at midyear 2004. Out of every 1,000 juveniles at state-run facilities, 5.15 were subjected to such violence. The rate is about 10 times greater for adults, where one out of every 2,000 inmates was a victim of sexual violence. A total of 8,210 allegations were reported at all of the facilities studied, where 55 percent were found to be false or unable to be substantiated. About one-third of all allegations were substantiated and about 15 percent were still under active investigation.

The report also found: œ Staff sexual misconduct accounted for 32 percent of the allegations; 37 percent involved inmate-on-inmate nonconsensual sexual acts; 11 percent were staff sexual harassment allegations; and 10 percent involved abusive sexual contact.

• Males were the victims and perpetrators in 90 percent of the substantiated inmateto- inmate nonconsensual sexual acts in prisons and jails.
  
  
• Females were the perpetrators in 67 percent of staff sexual misconduct incidents in state prisons, while 69 percent of the victims were male.

Details can be obtained at www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs.

Teenage Drivers
Teenage drivers tend to take more risks and drive more dangerously when other teenagers —especially boys—are sitting in the passenger seat, according to a study conducted by The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, where observations were made near 10 high schools in suburban Washington. Of the teenage boys who were observed driving dangerously, one in five had a teenage male passenger, but only one in 20 had a female. Overall, 14.9 percent of teenage boys and 12.1 percent of teenage girls were seen driving dangerously, which included speeding and tailgating. In all, the researchers tracked 471 teenage drivers and compared their driving with a large sample of adult drivers.

Childhood Vaccines
Contrary to some fears, childhood vaccines do not appear to overwhelm the immune system and make youngsters prone to other infections, according to a study by the Statens Serum Institute, near Copenhagen, of 805,206 children who received the standard setoff vaccinations. Researchers studied data of these children born in Denmark between 1990 and 2001 for their first five years of life, examining whether six standard vaccines children received increased the risk of seven other major infectious diseases. They found no significant increased risk of being hospitalized with other infections: viral and bacterial pneumonia, bloodstream infections known as septicemia, meningitis, diarrhea, upper respiratory infections, and viral central nervous system infections.

Prison Population
The number of prisoners in the U.S. rose 1.9 percent during 2004, according to the Bureau of Justice Assistance. This was lower than the average annual rate of growth during the last decade (3.2 percent) and just below the growth rate in 2003 (2.0 percent). For the report, see http://www.ojp.usdoj. gov/bjs/abstract/p04.htm.

School Safety
The Office of Community Oriented Policing (COPS) has released a CD-ROM, School Safety , which provides 50 resources related to school safety, including documents published by COPS, OJJDP, and other federal agencies, and also with links to school safety Web sites. Topics covered include bullying, gangs, school crime prevention, and youth violence. The content of School Safety is available online at http://www.cops.usdoj.gov/html/cdrom/school safety/index.htm.

Child Death Rate
The adolescent birthrate has reached another record low: the death rate for children between ages one and four is the lowest ever, and young children are more likely than ever to get their recommended immunizations, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. But white children are healthier than black or Hispanic children, and black children are much more likely to die violently, be assaulted, or suffer some other violent crime. About 83 percent are reported by their parents to be in very good or excellent health. In 2002, there were 31 deaths for every 100,000 children in the oneto- four age group, down from 33 deaths per 100,000 in 2001. The adolescent birthrate for 2003 was 22 for every 1,000 girls ages 15 to 17, down from 23 in 2002 and down from 39 births for every 1,000 girls in 1991. The rate of births to black or Hispanic teenagers is about double that of births to white teenagers, the report found.

Loaded Weapons
A study conducted by Pediatrics found that 1.7 million children live in homes with loaded and unlocked weapons. Nationally, 32.6 percent of adults reported having weapons in their homes, but the median for homes with children was a lower median rate of 5.4 percent. Alabama had the highest proportion of homes with loaded and unlocked guns and children (7.3 percent), followed by Alaska and Arkansas (6.6 percent).

For more details see http://pediatrics.aapublications.org/contents-by-date.O.shtml (in search window, type 2005 for year, 116 for volume, “guns” for key word).

Drugs and Juveniles
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration’s Office of Applied Studies has released a short report dealing with mental health concerns among youth, based on data from the latest National Survey on Drug Use and Health. See Suicidal Thoughts among Youths at http://oas.samsha.gov/2k5/ suicide/suicide.cfm.

In another National Survey on Drug Use and Health, a report finds Hispanic youth are the least likely of any racial or ethnic group to use drugs or alcohol. Among Hispanics, immigrant youth are less likely to use substances than native-born youth. See http://oas.samsha.gov.2k5/HispanicYouth/Hispanic Youth.cfm.

Student Numbers
A record 49.6 million students filled U.S. schools in 2003, breaking a mark set by their baby boomer parents. The growth is largely due to the children of those born in the late 40s to early 60s, who have since become parents themselves, according to the Census Bureau. Rising immigration played a part, too, pushing enrollment past the 1970 record of 48.7 million. During the peak enrollment year during the baby boomers’ time in school, almost 80 percent of students were non-Hispanic whites. By 2003, that number had dropped to 60 percent. Enrollment is expected to drop slightly through 2010 due to a decline in births from 1991 to 1997, but then pick up again.

Children and Exercise
Children should get an hour of exercise over the course of each day, reports the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, which based its advice on the recommendations of 27 different advisory groups. A research panel reviewed more than 850 studies on child physical activity and found that most recommended 30 to 45 minutes of continuous activity. The panel decided that 60 minutes of exercise was more appropriate because children typically are active in “fits and spurts” rather than in a continuous manner.

Mother Statistics
The U.S. Census Bureau released a series entitled Facts for Features on Mothers, including:

• 82.5 million is the estimated number of mothers in the U.S.
  
  
• 4 million women have babies each year, of which 425,000 are teens, ages 15 to 19, and more than 100,000 are age 40 and over.
  
  
• 10 million single mothers are living with children under age 18, up from 3 million in 1970.
  
  
• Only about 10 percent of women today ended their childbearing years with four or more children, which compares with 36 percent in 1976.
  
  
• 35,000 births occurred in 2002 attended by physicians, midwives, or others outside of hospitals.
  
  
• Two is the average number of children that women have today.
  
  
• Fifty-five percent of mothers with infant children in 2002 are in the labor force, down from a record 59 percent in 1998.

TV Exposure
Three new studies provide fresh evidence that children who watch a lot of television do poorly in school. The first study, by the University of Washington at Seattle, analyzed data from a national survey of 1,797 children and found that the more television children watched before age three, the more poorly they performed in school when they were six or seven. TV viewing from ages three to five, however, appeared to have a beneficial effect on reading and short-term memory. The second study, by the University of Otago in New Zealand, examined 1,000 children born in Dunedin, New Zealand and found that those who watched the most TV during childhood and adolescence were the least likely to finish school or go on to earn a university degree. The third study, by Johns Hopkins University and Stanford University, studied 348 third-graders and found that those with a TV in their bedrooms tended to score lower on standardized tests while those with a home computer scored higher.

Foster Care
Foster children are so handicapped by their experiences in the child welfare system that four out of five fail to thrive as adults, and more than half experience clinical mental health problems, according to a comprehensive study by the Northwest Foster Care Alumni, as reported in Improving Family Foster Care . The study found that foster care alumni lack the hallmarks of a successful adulthood, such as high school diplomas and jobs with adequate pay. Each year, 20,000 youth between ages 18 and 21 leave foster care and various studies find that most are woefully unprepared for adulthood. Among some of the findings:

• 22 percent experienced homelessness after foster care.
  
  
• 25 percent experienced post-traumatic stress disorder after foster care.
  
  
• 33 percent earn below the federal poverty line.
  
  
• 33 percent don’t have health insurance.
  
  
• 15 percent don’t have a high school diploma.
  
  
• 84 percent don’t have a vocational degree.
  
  
• 98 percent don’t have a bachelor’s degree.

The study can be found at www.casey.org/Resources/Publications/NorthwestAlumniStudy.htm.

Whooping Cough
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved a one-time booster shot for 10-18 year-olds to protect them against pertussis, also known as whooping cough. Although an initial vaccine and four boosters are given to most children before age six, scientists have discovered that the protection provided by those early inoculations diminishes over time. The additional vaccine will be added to a combined booster for diphtheria and tetanus that is already recommended for adolescents.

Meningitis Vaccination
U.S. health officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that teenagers and pre-teenagers should be routinely vaccinated against meningitis, a disease that can kill within hours. It is recommended that youths ages 11 and 12, as well as enrolled high school and college students, especially those living in dormitories, should get the shots. Bacterial meningitis kills about 10 percent of patients and others are permanently disabled by it. As many as 3,000 Americans become ill with meningitis each year and about 300 die.

Minimum Wage
According to new data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, young workers were the most likely to be paid the prevailing federal minimum wage ($5.15 per hour) or less in 2004. Among the statistics:

• 51 – percentage of minimum-wage workers who were under 25.
  
  
• 25 – percentage of minimum-wage workers who were ages 16 to 19.
  
  
• 6 – percentage of hourly paid workers under 25 who earned the minimum wage or less.
  
  
• 9 – percentage of hourly paid workers ages 16 to 19 who earned the minimum wage or less.

Missing Children
Between January 2000 and December 2004, police departments across the country failed to report nearly 4,500 missing children to the FBI’s National Crime Information Center, as required by the National Child Search Assistance Act of 1990. Seventeen of those children are dead and 131 remain missing.

Scripps Howard compared FBI records with 37,665 missing child reports filed with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and found that 12 percent of cases nationwide went unreported to federal authorities. The five states that failed to report most often include Hawaii (41 percent), Louisiana (23 percent), New York (20 percent), Mississippi (19 percent), and South Dakota (18 percent). Police officials across the U.S. blamed ignorance, confusion, and case backlogs for noncompliance with the reporting requirement. See www.shns.com.

Suicidal Behavior
Suicidal impulses and attempts are much more common in teenagers who think they are too fat or too thin, regardless of how much they actually weigh, according to a study published in Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine . Using actual body size based on teens’ reports of their height and weight, researchers found that overall, overweight or underweight teens were only slightly more likely than normal-weight teens to have suicidal tendencies. But teens who perceived themselves at either weight extreme–very fat or really skinny–were more than twice as likely as normal-weight teens to attempt or think about suicide The study was based on a nationally representative 2002 survey involving 13,601 students in the ninth through 12th grade. About 19 percent of respondents said that they had considered suicide in the previous year and about nine percent said that they had attempted it, reports the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Parent Centers
Research from the Technical Assistance Alliance for Parent Centers (the Alliance) shows that more than 1.7 million parents of children with disabilities and professionals contacted parent centers across the U.S. during 2003-2004. They sought help in obtaining appropriate education and other services for their children with disabilities; training and information to help their children; help with resolving school-based issues and with other agencies; and community resources for their children. According to Alliance research, 81 percent of parents said that their child received appropriate services; 92 percent said that parent centers helped them via telephone with the information they needed to make decisions about their children with disabilities; and 83 percent of parents reported that the help they received helped to resolve school problems. For information about parent centers, see www.taalliance.org.

Crime Rate
The crime rate in the U.S. remains at a 30- year low, according to victims’ surveys by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). In 2004, there were 21.4 victims of violent crime for every 1,000 people older than 12. With the exception of sexual assaults, BJS found that black men and young Americans were victimized more than any other groups.

Correctional News is a free publication that is concerned with statewide and national coverage of construction efforts, correctional people in the news, and also provides reader service online. For free subscription information, see http://www.correctionalnews.com/subscribenow.html.

Drug Use
The Office of National Drug Control Policy has announced the availability of Predicting Heavy Drug Use: Results of a Longitudinal Study, Youth Characteristics Describing and Predicting Heavy Drug Use by Adults . The report draws on data from the Department of Labor’s National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to describe the movement of adolescents and young adults between marijuana and cocaine use and identify early predictors of heavy cocaine use. The report can be obtained at http://www.whitehouse drugpolicy.gov/publications/predict drug_use.

Second Language
Brain scientists have found evidence to explain why people who learn a second language when they are very young tend to be more proficient bilingual speakers—learning two languages early in life appears to bulk up a key language center in the brain. A researcher at the University College in London performed brain scans on 25 people who spoke only English, 25 English speakers who learned a second language before the age of five, and 33 who learned another language between ages 10 and 15. The researchers then performed scans on 22 Italians who learned English as a second language and subjected them to detailed proficiency testing, and found the same thing: with those who were most proficient having the most dense gray matter in that area.

ACT Test
Fewer than one in four high school graduates who took the ACT test had taken the course work necessary to succeed in college. The report by ACT, Inc. showed that only 22 percent of the 1.2 million graduates who took the exam this year were ready for college courses in math, English, and science.

Busy Children
Public Agenda reports that almost 80 percent of students from kindergarten through 12th-grade participate in after-school activities. About 75 percent of children say their schedule is “just right, not too hectic.” More than 600 children and 1,000 parents were asked questions for a study on how children spend their time after school. Almost nine out of 10 youths said they need to be pushed by their parents to do things that are good for them; while the same percentage grumbles when their parents push.

For middle and high school students, 79 percent report they regularly participate in activities after school and on weekends. In addition, 57 percent participate in nonschool activity almost daily. Seven in 10 parents surveyed rate their child’s latest organized activity as high quality, and 79 percent of the students believe that program organizers care about them. During the summer, 56 percent of students say they were interested in academic programs to help them keep up with school work. Only 37 percent of low-income parents say they feel that their child is productively occupied after school, compared with 60 percent of higher-income parents. In addition, 20 percent of low-income and 23 percent of minority parents think the best reason for children to be involved in organized afterschool activities is to improve academically, compared with only nine percent of higherincome and eight percent of white parents. This may reflect dissatisfaction with schools in low-income and minority neighborhoods, the researchers state.

Juvenile Arresting Data
OJJDP has published a Bulletin which summarizes and analyzes national and state juvenile arrest data as presented in the FBI report, Crime in the United States: 2003 .

The juvenile violent crime arrest rate in 2003 was the lowest since 1980, and has declined steadily since the 1990s, as has the rate for property crimes. Other key findings include:

• 45 percent of the 1,550 juveniles murdered were killed with a firearm.
  
  
• 1,130 juveniles were arrested for murder, down 70 percent from the peak year, 1993.
  
  
• Females accounted for nearly one-quarter of juvenile arrests for aggravated assault and 32 percent of other assaults.
  
  
• The ratio of black to white disparities in violent crime arrest rates declined from 6-to-1 in 1980 to 4-to-1 in 2003.
  
  
• Between 1994 and 2003, juvenile arrests for drug abuse violations increased 19 percent.

The report can be obtained at www.ncjrs.org/pdffiles1/ojjdp/209735.pdf.

Mental Health
The National Institute of Mental Health reports that half of all individuals who experience mental illness during their lifetimes report the onset of the disease by age 14, and three-fourths report onset by age 24. The Institute surveyed more than 9,000 adults nationwide between February 2001 and April 2003 as a follow-up to its 1990 National Comorbidity Study. Earliest onset of mental illness was associated with failing to make initial treatment contacts and with treatment delays. Experts say youth with untreated mental illnesses may suffer debilitating symptoms during their most productive years, compromising their academic achievement, career prospects, and family relationships. Many also develop more severe illnesses, or co-occurring disorders, such as substance abuse. The report can be obtained at http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/294/3/293?ct.

National Indicators
America’s Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being , 2005 profiles the condition of children in America, including nine contextual measures that describe the changing population, family, the environmental context in which children are living, and 25 indicators that depict the well-being of children in the areas of economic security, health, behavior and social environment, and education. See http://childstats.gov/americaschildren/index.asp.

Home Schooling
The number of home-schooled students through grade 12 increased from 850,000 in 1999 to about 1.1 million in 2003, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

Job Stress
The National Institute of Justice reports in a research study that job-related stress is common among probation and parole officers, which affects job performance and relationships with supervisors, support staff, and family members. The report explores the causes and effects of stress and identifies promising practices used in nine sites to reduce its effects. Researchers found a number of major benefits from stress reduction programs, including cost savings to the agency, improved job performance, and increased safety for staff and the public. See http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/ pubs-sum/205620.htm.

Youth Courts
The American Youth Policy Forum announces the availability of Youth Court: A Community Solution for Embracing At-Risk Youth—A National Update . The report provides an overview of youth court programs, including their characteristics and benefits. See http://www.aypf.org/pubs.htm.

OJJDP Publications
The following are OJJDP publications as well as those sponsored by OJJDP:

• State Ombudsman Programs , written by Judith Jones and Alvin Cohn, is a Bulletin that describes the role of an ombudsman and examines how various states have designed diverse programs to serve the needs of children and youth. See http://www.ojjdp.ncjrs.org/publications/ PubAbstract.asp?pubi=11991.
  
  
• Juvenile Delinquency Guidelines: Improving Court Practice in Juvenile Delinquency Cases, by J. Robert Flores and Mary Mentaberry. This reports on a collaborative effort by the National Council of Juvenile and Family Judges and OJJDP to identify comprehensive and effective practices for juvenile delinquency courts, guidelines that define key principles for a court of excellence, and essential elements of effective practice, as well as implementation issues. See http://www.njcfcj.org/content/blogcategory/346/411/.
  
  
• The Mathematics of Risk Classification: Changing Data into Valid Instruments for Juvenile Courts , by Don Gottfredson and Howard Snyder is a report that can assist juvenile courts in developing and using risk classification instruments. It compares statistical methods for classifying risk and offers recommendations for selecting classification procedures. See http://www.ojjdp.ncjrs.org/publications/PubAbstract.asp?pubi=12183.
  
  
• Sustainability Planning and Resource Development for Youth Mentoring Programs is a guide prepared by the National Mentoring Center. It features a comprehensive look at how youth mentoring programs can create their own custom resource development plans. Subjects covered include planning strategies, corporate giving, foundations, government grants, individual giving, local events, the ethics of fundraising, and board involvement. See http://www.nwrel.org/ mentoring/pdf/sustainability.pdf.
  
  
• Alternatives to Secure Detention and Confinement of Juvenile Offenders . While secure detention and confinement is an option for last resort for serious, violent, and chronic offenders and for those who repeatedly fail to attend scheduled court appearances, effective community-based alternatives enable the judicious use of costly detention and confinement programs. To decrease reliance on secure detention and confinement, this Bulletin recommends developing objective, valid, and reliable tools to make placement decisions among alternative programs with varying levels of restrictiveness and types of services are available. See http://www.ojjdp.ncjrs.org/publications/PubAbstract.asp?pubi=208804.
  
  
• The Juvenile Justice Professional’s Guide to Human Subject Protection and the IRB Process is an online guide to the laws and regulations that govern research involving human subjects. It was prepared by the National Center for Juvenile Justice. The guide offers a comprehensive explanation of human subject protection legislation that can be found in the Common Rule for the Department of Justice, Title 28 part 46 of the Code of Federal Regulations. See http://ncjj.servehttp.com/irb/ index.html.
  
  
• Planning Community-Based Facilities for Violent Juvenile Offenders as Part of a System of Graduated Sanction , by Shelley Zavlek, presents essential information regarding planning community-based or regional facilities to provide secure confinement for serious, violent, and chronic juvenile offenders and outlines a process for their development within a comprehensive juvenile justice plan. See http://www.ojjdp.ncjrs.org/publications/PubAbstract.asp?pubi=12226
  
  
• Screening and Assessing Mental Health and Substance Use Disorders Among Youth in the Juvenile Justice System: A Resource Guide for Practitioners , by Thomas Grisso And Lee Underwood is a guide that offers comprehensive, user-friendly information on instruments that can be used to screen and assess youth for mental health- and substance use-related disorders at various stages of the juvenile justice process. It includes profiles of more than 50 instruments, guidelines for selecting instruments, and best practice recommendations for diverse settings and situations. See http://www,ojjdp.ncjrs.org/publications/PubAbstract.asp?pubi=11936.

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