In Washington D.C., the Oak Hill juvenile detention center was well-known for its decaying interior, rampant drug-use, and abusive guards. As part of sweeping reforms, Oak Hill was closed in 2009 and replaced by a smaller and dramatically different facility, appropriately-named New Beginnings Youth Development Center. We interviewed Daniel Okonkwo, founder and the Executive Director of DC Lawyers for Youth (DCLY), which provides legal representation to young people and works to reform juvenile justice policy. DCLY partners with the New Beginnings Youth Development Center, where many of the changes detailed in the report have been seen firsthand by Okonkwo.

Sayre Quevedo: So it’s been almost two years since Oak Hill was closed and New Beginnings was opened. Are there any tangible changes you have seen in the community and among youth since this has happened?

Daniel Okonkwo: Yes, absolutely. There have been a lot of real changes. I think most noticeably, and the crown jewel in the juvenile justice agency’s crown, is that there are over 19 young people who are in college right now who have come through New Beginnings.

At Oak Hill, that was impossible. A lot of the kids at Oak Hill were actually suspended from the school [within the facility], so not only were they ripped from their communities and taken away from their community schools and isolated, they weren’t even getting an education at Oak Hill. But now we have young people who are coming out [of New Beginnings] and getting reconnected to school and reconnected to the degree that they’re going onto college.

There are also young people that are learning trades. There’s a metal workshop that New Beginnings has that teaches kids vocational work. No thought was given to the reentry of young people [back into their communities] during the days of Oak Hill. Or if there was any thought it was, “just give them some schooling and they’ll be okay on their own.” New Beginnings actually tracks them 6 months out to make sure they’re still connected to school.

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One in three young people in the United States are arrested by age 23, finds a study published this week in the journal, Pediatrics. Researchers analyzed data collected by The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ National Longitudinal Survey, which tracked approximately nine thousand youth 12-16 years old beginning in 1997. The number is up nearly eight percent from the 1960’s when roughly 1 in 5 young people reported being arrested.

According to a Reuters piece on the study, “Those arrests are for everything from underage drinking and petty theft to violent crime, researchers said. They added that the increase might not necessarily reflect more criminal behavior in youth, but rather a police force that's more apt to arrest young people than in the past.”

While many of the young people will likely never see the back of a squad car again, a story in the The Daily Mail underscores that even a small criminal record can present major challenges. "In days gone by fines and citations might have been deemed acceptable. Now many will find their employment prospects damaged by an arrest on their record - even for a minor offence."

From the NYTimes: “The researchers found that the probability of a first arrest accelerated in late adolescence and early adulthood — at 18, 15.9 percent of the participants reported having been arrested — and then began to flatten out as the youths entered their 20s.” Below chart illustrates the pattern.

In Washington D.C., the Oak Hill juvenile detention center was well-known for its decaying interior, rampant drug-use, and abusive guards. As part of sweeping reforms, Oak Hill was closed in 2009 and replaced by a smaller and dramatically different facility, appropriately-named New Beginnings Youth Development Center.

A report released this week titled, “From Notorious to Notable,” authored by Liz Ryan from the Campaign For Youth Justice and Marc Schindler from Venture Philanthropy Partners, details the transformation of Washington’s D.C.’s juvenile justice system in the years since 2000 when then Mayor Anthony Williams’ appointed a Blue Ribbon Commission to reexamine the issue.

We interviewed Daniel Okonkwo, founder and the Executive Director of DC Lawyers for Youth (DCLY), which provides legal representation to young people and works to reform juvenile justice policy. DCLY partners with the New Beginnings Youth Development Center, where many of the changes detailed in the report have been seen firsthand by Okonkwo.

By: Marcellus Campos-Reese

2,572. That’s the number of young people who have been in custody in Alameda County’s Probation Department from March 2010 until March 2011. The department -- which covers the cities of Oakland, Berkeley, Hayward and others -- estimates that on average as many as 270 young people come through its offices each day.

David Muhammad is the department’s new chief probation officer, and brings a lot of experience with him, some highly personal. Muhammad grew up in Oakland and went through the juvenile justice system himself. Eventually, thanks to what he calls “luck”, he ended up going to college. He went on to work in New York and Washington DC to reform those cities’ juvenile justice systems and served as the executive director of the Mentoring Center in Oakland.

As the new chief, Muhammad wants to encourage young people on probation to do better: “What I want to do is incentivize achievement. If you have a 1.0 grade point average and you raise that by one point, to 2.0, we want to get you 6 months off probation,” said Muhammad.

Muhammad wants to give the same incentives to adults in the system. “So if you are 19 in adult probation and you don’t have your high school diploma? You get your high school diploma (and) we want to get you 6 months off probation. For every six month of steady employment, we want to get you 3 months off probation.”

This weekend, advocates from all over the country traveled to Washington D.C. to show their support for reauthorizing the Juvenile Justice Delinquency and Prevention Act (JJDPA) and passing the Youth PROMISE (Prison Reduction through Opportunities, Mentoring, Intervention, Support, and Education) Act.  The Community Justice Network for Youth held a two-day conference on Saturday and Sunday, and a press conference this morning to urge the Obama administration to change the disciplinary system for young people. 

Youth, parents, and advocates will visit their individual legislators after the press conference and show their support for these issues. The overall message of the weekend is that youth are being mistreated while incarcerated, when incarceration is not the most productive solution. In addition, money is being spent in the wrong places.

The speakers at the conference consisted of people with personal testimonials, policy advocates, and directors of youth support services.  Youth Radio spoke with two of them to get their personal perspective on the issue.  

The following was broadcast on NPR’s All Things Considered

On Monday the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it cruel and unusual punishment to sentence juveniles to life without parole for cases not involving murder. Reginald Dwayne Betts’ story was included in an amicus brief in the case. At 16 years old he was found guilty for carjacking and spent more than nine years in adult prisons. But his sentence could have put him behind bars for life. Youth Radio sent us his story.

By: Reginald Dwayne Betts

I remember meeting a guy even younger than I was, waiting for the bus to go to prison. I'll call him Rashid. His voice still carried the cracks and high notes of adolescence, and his smooth face had never seen a razor. We were headed to Southampton Correctional Center in Virginia.

No fewer than a dozen of us were teenagers, all with peers at home waiting on driver licenses, graduations and proms - while we waited for a prison cell. Rashid's time was legendary: three life sentences with no chance for parole. It meant he awoke each morning knowing he would one day flatline in a cell.

IN PRISON, GUYS told me that Rashid robbed and raped an old lady. His crime had no explanation, and everyone I ever talked to about it thought it was wild, heinous, and unfathomable. Rashid didn’t talk about his charges, and I couldn’t look at him without thinking how his sentence would last until his final breath. In the visiting room, I caught glimpses of his family and it almost seemed normal. Except that Rashid, the youngest among them, rarely smiled. And in prison, surrounded by the violence cells inspire in men, he was just a kid. There was no meanness about him, just the fragility of someone in the deep end, arms flailing, unable to swim.
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New York’s system of juvenile prisons is broken, with young people battling addiction or mental illness held alongside violent offenders says a new report out by a state panel. The report outlines how juveniles are held in abysmal facilities where they receive little counseling, can be physically abused and rarely get even a basic education.

The state agency overseeing the prisons has asked New York’s Family Court judges not to send youths to any of them unless they are a significant risk to public safety -- recommending alternatives, like therapeutic foster care.

By: Reginald Dwayne Betts

Monday the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in two cases concerning juvenile incarceration. The ruling could determine if it should be unconstitutional to sentence juveniles to life without parole for non-homicide offenses on the grounds of cruel and unusual punishment. The United States is the only country in the world that sentences juveniles to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

My story is part of an amicus brief asking justices to reverse the harsh sentences, and give young offenders an opportunity to become productive citizens. I was a juvenile offender who spent more than nine years in adult prison, and my offense could have put me in there for life. Since I've gotten out of prison, I delivered my college commencement address at the University of Maryland, I published my memoir A Question Of Freedom, and I entered grad school. I'm making the most of my freedom, but I know others who will never have the same shot at redemption.

On Thursday the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania overturned the sentences of thousands of juvenile offenders due to a recently discovered corruption scandal.

Judge Mark A. Ciavarella, who passed sentence on the overturned cases, was discovered to have accepted $2.6 million from the owner of two privately run youth detention centers.  In return, the judge would send more teens to these facilities.