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Date: April 30, 2024 Tue
Time: 12:36 am
Time: 12:36 am
Results for juvenile delinquency (alabama)
1 results foundAuthor: Beyer, Marty Title: Review of Services for Alabama Girls Charged with Delinquency Summary: Alabama has made excellent progress in reaching a primary goal of the 2008 Juvenile Justice Act (Act) — to promote community-based alternatives to costly institutional settings while holding youth accountable for their actions. Alabama now is poised to make significant progress on another of the Act’s critical goals -- to promote a continuum of services for children and their families, from prevention to aftercare. Dr. Marty Beyer and Mr. Paul DeMuro, two nationally recognized juvenile justice experts, conclude in the following report that Alabama can take a giant step towards this goal by developing a trauma-informed system of care for girls charged with delinquency. After an extensive study of the Alabama’s present service delivery system for delinquent girls, Beyer and DeMuro observe the following: 1. The two Department of Youth Services (DYS) facilities which serve girls are Chalkville (Birmingham) and Working on Womanhood (WOW) (Tuscaloosa). Both facilities are highly restrictive settings with very low censuses. In November 2011, there were 23 girls held at Chalkville and four girls at WOW. Chalkville is an old, large, traditional training school with many physical plant problems making it very costly to maintain. 2. The girls at these facilities are low-risk and have high needs. They have often seen and been victims of violence and, in many cases, have suffered the loss of close family members. Most have been sexually and/or physically abused. They have difficulty trusting adults and forming relationships. Despite this, there is a general lack of understanding of the impact of trauma on girls and about interventions that are effective in working with traumatized youth. Too often symptoms from trauma are misinterpreted as part of the character of a girl, rather than a guide to what was behind behavior that could have changed. As an experienced Alabama probation administrator told the experts, the girls locked up in Alabama’s state facilities are more often victimized and abused by family members than they are perpetrators of serious crimes. 3. There is no system of care. Services to girls are hit-or-miss rather than systematic. DYS’s statutory authority is limited and in some cases no other state agency is mandated to step in for a girl, particularly when her time with DYS is complete. Gains made in DYS custody are often lost. There are marked differences in the availability of services based on geography; rural areas, not surprisingly, having the fewest options for girls. Services that could benefit a particular girl are often not available because the girl does not meet narrow eligibility criteria. Providers consistently told the experts that there are not enough community-based services to ensure that girls’ needs are met in the community in a way that ensures public safety. Details: Montgomery, AL: Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program, Center for Public Presentation, Southern Poverty Law Center, 2012. 15p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 10, 2012 at http://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/downloads/publication/ChalkvilleReport.pdf Year: 2012 Country: United States URL: http://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/downloads/publication/ChalkvilleReport.pdf Shelf Number: 124436 Keywords: Female OffendersFemale Offenders, Services for (Alabama)Juvenile Delinquency (Alabama)Juvenile Offenders (Alabama) |