On Juvenile Justice

Posted on by K

I just finished reading a book called “How to Live: A Search for Wisdom from Old People (while they are still on this earth) by Henry Alford; long have I been a sucker for anecdotal wisdom from those who have been on this planet decades longer than myself. I don’t think there was one person whom the journalist/author interviewed that professed to having been wise since birth, giving the impression (and not a very unique one at that) that wisdom comes with age and presumably experiences. While I was reading this book, I thought of a story a friend had told me recently.This friend is an MSW student at one of the many other social works in NYC and through her field placement, she often comes across individuals who are involved in the criminal justice system. One of the clients she met with recently was just 16 when he was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Now the young man is 26 and, for all intents and purposes, just beginning his life. I don’t know about all of you, but I believe I can say with some confidence that I was considerably more wise at 26 than I was 16. The experiences I garnered in those 10 years have provided invaluable lessons that still influence the decisions I make now, at 29. For example at 17, I learned that I do not look good as a redhead. At 29, my hair remains its natural color, brown. At 18, I learned that I can survive out from under my parent’s roof. At 22, that lesson served me as I hopped into the passenger seat of a friend’s car and moved across the country to California. It played a role as well in my decision, 3.5 years later, to leave California and head here to New York City. Lessons like these (and a boatload of others) come over time when one has the freedom to make their own decisions, for better or worse. These are not things my friend’s client could learn inside a jail cell. Sure, there are things he learned that I (hopefully) will never have to learn, those being hard lessons learned about surviving in prison, no doubt;. but those regular little lessons, the silly experiences that cause personal growth, my friend’s client was stripped of those when the judge ordered he be locked in prison for the next 10 years of his young life.

There is a growing debate in this country about the nature of the juvenile justice system. One that we should certainly have an eye on. In the last five years, the Supreme Court of the United States has issued two important decisions on this matter. The first came in the matter of Graham v. Florida  in 2010. This ruling established that juveniles could not be given life sentence for crimes not involving a homicide. The New York Times published  this article  discussing a loophole defense invoked by some states, exorbitantly long sentences like 70 or 90 years are not technically “life sentences.” Common sense would dictate that they are. The second ruling stemmed from Miller v. Alabama in 2012. This decision dictated that juveniles who committed homicide could not automatically be assigned life sentences. The Juvenile Law Center reports that 2,600 inmates nationwide are serving life sentence for crimes committed as a juvenile.

At the heart of these Supreme Court decisions is the idea that youthful offenders should be given a ““meaningful opportunity for release based on demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation.” I interpret that (and I’m no Supreme Court Justice) as the chance to grow and improve with age. If I was still being punished for the rash decisions I made in my youth, I would still have red hair. I know its not as simple as that, and certainly, there are offenses that a youth can commit that demand severe punishment. But shouldn’t there be a chance for a future? In New York City, we have the Division of Youth and Family Justice whose goal is to work with families and youth to break patterns of recidivism and put youth offenders on the path to successful adulthood. This is the sort of program my friend’s client probably would have benefited from instead of a jail sentence. Just today, I read  this article about “Girl’s Court” in Alameda County, California. Their objective is much the same, except the focus is exclusively on young female offenders. I’m of the opinion, though, that the wonderful work that is being done in these juvenile justice courts and detention centers should have begun earlier in the office of a social worker; someone who can see the systemic and individual barriers facing these offenders (prior to them becoming such) and help identify the strengths they can use to overcome them to achieve positive outcomes. I think this reform and debate is brilliant but its reactive and some may argue – too little, too late. How about us, social workers, take a different approach and start at the other end, doing some preventative work? Maybe then we could meet in the middle at a just juvenile justice system …. what do you think?

On a different solution

Posted on by K

Almost two years ago, I read this article in the New York Times. The article discussed sex offenders in Suffolk County who were forced (because of restrictive conditions placed upon them after release from prison) to live in two trailers on the edge of town. About 40 men all told split between 2 trailers, only one of which had a shower. Men from unlucky trailer #2 would be bussed to shower every few days in trailer #1. The men reported conditions were exactly as one might imagine them to be when 20 frustrated, angry men are living in bunk beds in a tiny trailer. What struck me (and the reason that I remember the article vividly over a year after I initially reading it) was how very much it sounded like even though the men had served their time in prison, they were still prisoners of the system (yes, I’m talking about this again). Sex offenders, I would venture to say, are among the most hated members of our society. They are pariah, modern day lepers. Believe me, I get it. I’m sure there are many who believe that these deplorable living conditions are more than those who have committed sexual assault deserve, and I can’t fault them for thinking that.

The idea that I’ve most connected to as I become indoctrinated as a social worker is that in order to understand a person’s presenting issue, one must step back and take a look at the person in the context of their environment (past and present). I thought about this when I read this article published on CNN’s website as a part of their Change the List Project. The article was one in a series attempting to find an explanation for Alaska’s high rate of sexual assault and highlighting efforts to change that statistic in the state. The author, John D. Sutter, was able to sit in on a group session held at a treatment program for sex offenders that seemed to embody this doctrine of social work. In this particular treatment program, participants are assigned a “safety net” of 5 volunteers from the community to assist them with their rehabilitation. It keep the participants engaged in the community and near the support and counseling that they very much need. Its the antithesis of hulling the offenders up in a trailer outside of town. It holds the offenders accountable for their actions, their “safety net” is watching after all and places their struggles front and center. By doing this, the program addresses the underlying issues that may have lead to the assault in the first place. Many sex offenders were themselves victims of sexual abuse or violence at sometime in their life. Others struggle with feelings of unworthiness, helplessness, lack of control. Working at all these underlying issues seems to give the offenders hope and motivation for change. Being cast off from society and sent to the outer edges of town where your neighbor’s hate you and protest your presence probably doesn’t do that. I would guess it adds an additional dimension to an already uphill battle.

Sometimes I get it in my head to write about topic, like this one, and everything seems to align to promote my agenda. I came across this article by the grace of the universe earlier this week. The author, a survivor of incest, says it much more eloquently. She calls on us (among other professions) to promote the creation of programs, like the one in Alaska, aimed at addressing the issue of sexual assault in a family WITH the family. She rejects the shunning of offenders (even the perpetrator of her assault) and calls for more group work, more family therapy, saying “We know where to begin to heal our families and our country. We know what to do. And yet, we’re not doing it. We’re giving in to fear and looking for a quick fix.”

I agree. I don’t think trailers and isolation are the answer ….. what about you?

Documenting the Justice Gap in America

Posted on by K

In 2009, Legal Service Corporation (the institution that oversees federally funded civil legal assistance programs for low-income individuals)  released a report on what they perceived as a justice gap for low-income individuals. Annually, LSC organizations turned away 1 million individuals and families seeking civil legal assistance. Read more 

To the graduates (of course)

Posted on by K

It’s graduation time around these parts. I’m in the extended MSW program so its extra bittersweet for me. Those that I started out here with two years ago are moving on, past the classes and the field placements and I am not…. one more year, just one more. I’m experiencing a sort of odd mixture of jealousy and relief. More school, ick. More time to figure out what is it that I want to do with myself, thank goodness.

With graduation and the end of the academic year comes, inevitably, the end of this blog and my parting note. A while ago, I came across this quote from George Saunders (I swear its not from the graduation speech at Syracuse that takes over the internet around this time of year).  

“Don’t be afraid to be confused.

Try to remain permanently confused.

Anything is possible.

Stay open, forever,

so open that it hurts, and

then open up some more, until the day you die…”

The line, while intended (if memory serves me correctly) to inspire young writers, seems to me really pertinent to social work, to what I’ve been talking about here, to what my fellow social media team members have been writing about on their blogs. Social work is confusing. I will never understand why some of the things that have happened to the clients I’ve worked with have happened.  I hope there never comes a time when it doesn’t boggle my mind how systems designed to help the most vulnerable groups  amongst us can fail them so entirely and unapologetically. I may never feel 100% certain that my work with my clients is enough, that its making a difference, that its what they need.  From this confusion, though, is the opportunity for fresh ideas, new solutions, for change to spring. Anything is possible.    So my friends as you graduate and enter the field, try to stay open to what that confusion can bring. It will hurt, absolutely. It will be incredibly frustrating, incredibly soul crushing. Being open to our clients can mean allowing in a lot of pain but don’t close yourself off. When you feel yourself getting burnt out, open up some more. Open up some more because thats how the real work gets done. We are blessed with the opportunity to be a catalyst for change, for real impactful change, in our client’s lives, in their families, their communities and their country. Let’s see what we can do with it…. no pressure.

Following the news…..

Posted on by K

The death penalty. It’s been in the news a lot as of late, so I feel a little obligated to write about it. It’s actually an interesting topic to think about as social workers, though, admittedly not one we will come across in New York state.  In a capital offense case (like any crime really), our clients could be anyone; they could be the perpetrator, the victim’s family, a survivor of the crime and likely our view on whether the inmate should be executed would shift as we come in contact with each. There are many arguments from each side; ranging from “an eye for an eye” to “cruel and unusual punishment”. I could present these arguments here but I think you already could guess what my own point of view would be so I thought I might just give y’all some facts, some stories, ya know, some information so maybe you could make your own decision

According to dealthpenalty.info (yes, thats a website), there have been 1,379 execution in our country since the death penalty  was reinstated in 1976.

So far this year, there have been 20.

Several of these 20 executions have made headlines. The problem that arose in a number of those executions was a shortage of the drugs used to lethal injections.This has left prison officials scrambling to find new lethal combinations.  In January, Ohio inmate Dennis Mcguire was killed used a new combinations of drugs and he appeared to gasp and convulse for 10 minutes after his injection. That’s not supposed to happen. Last month, Oklahoma’s Supreme Court ruled that inmates on death row did not have a right to know what drugs were going to be used in their execution. What followed was a the horrifically botched lethal injection of Mr. Clayton Lovett, a stay of execution for Mr .Charles Warner who was scheduled to be killed shortly after Lovett and nationwide debate. Beyond the modality of execution, there has been a recent calling for the end of the death penalty, based largely on the concern that innocent or incompetent individuals will be unjustly executed. CNN aired a series called Death Row Stories, discussing this. A little over a month ago, in Mississippi, Michelle Byron was granted a stay of execution on account of her possible innocence.

This clip sums things up pretty nicely.
And because I’m realizing the facts I’ve presented are REALLY biased… This article, and maybe this one too, might show the other side of things (I swear I searched for a good argument for and found very little to work with)

On youth court…..

Posted on by K

In case you haven’t noticed yet, I’m pretty interested in alternatives to incarceration, alternative sanctions in general, for individuals involved with the criminal justice system. In my elective class this semester, I learned of one alternative program for juvenile offenders that’s effectiveness kind of blew my mind: youth court. What is so incredible about youth court is that its essentially run entirely by young people in the community. I mean, yes, there are adults overseeing things, but the court staff consists of youth court members aged 10-18; the judge, the jury, the prosecutor, the defense attorney – all neighborhood kids.  When we are young, we are taught that peer pressure is an evil bad thing (did anyone else suffer through the DARE program?), but a youth court turns that idea on its head. The premise of youth court is that it harnesses the power of positive peer pressure to teach youth accountability to their community and put an end to patterns of disruptive behavior by addressing underlying causes of deviant behavior.

Youth court procedures vary depending on location but I’ll just give you a general overview on how it works. Youth courts get their cases through referrals from outside sources typically – the police, schools, community-based programs, the criminal courts themselves, social workers like us. After a referral, youth court adult staff members reach out to family and offender to explain the process and then if they choose to participate, schedule a hearing. The hearing is run entirely by youth members of the court. Youth members are teenage volunteers from the community. They receive extensive training in all the court roles. The youth members volunteer for a variety of reasons. One of the members that spoke to my class joined because his mother pressured him to. Another because it would look good on her college applications. The third because she, herself, had been a respondent in youth court and she wanted to give back to the program she credited with changing the course of her life for the better. Youth members act as the judge, jury and lawyers (referred to as advocates) during the hearing. The jury after hearing the case decides on a fair and appropriate sanction for the offender – community service, essays, psycho-educational workshops. Another interesting fact about youth courts is that, despite their inability to really enforce sanctions, they tend to have a high rate of compliance. One youth court in Brooklyn has a compliance rate of somewhere near 80%. Thats much higher than a typical criminal court.

I think this sort of program is a really amazing intervention option for social workers with clientele that includes youthful offenders.  We know that criminal courts don’t have a great reputation for providing services that address the underlying causes of crimes. For a teenager, getting to the cause of their destructive behavior can be particularly life altering. Youth courts provide a great opportunity to do this. They also provide a chance for socialization with peers that offenders might not have otherwise met; these relationships could have a positive impact on a youth. Additionally, from a youth court program, individuals learn more about the law. Maybe they learn how to react when police stop them or how to advocate for themselves to authority figures, all things that can greatly impact an encounter with law enforcement. As the humble social workers we are, we know that can never really know what sort of intervention our clients will respond best to. Some juveniles, like the one who spoke in my class, will benefit greatly from this sort of program, others will not but I really think we have to recognize referral options that may have a meaningful impact on our clients. We can’t  always be the catalyst for change, sometimes we need the community.

Read more here.

On Housing….

Posted on by K

Perhaps its because I’m in the process of moving (well, internally moving, ya know, switching bedrooms)  or maybe its spring cleaning fever (not a chance at all) but I’ve got housing on the mind this week and, fortunately for me, housing law is an area of law that I haven’t written about yet. What a coincidence, right?

New York is a city of renters and with that comes a lot of landlord/tenant disputes and eviction proceedings. This is an issue, we as social workers in this city, will likely run into at least a time or two (probably many more actually) with our clients. Housing court is not a pleasant place to be. Its a busy and chaotic place that many find confusing and intimidating (myself included). On account of the fact that the legal aid organization that I work at has a very strong, wildly busy housing practice and because this is an issue a number of clients that I have worked with have experienced, I’ve picked up a thing  or two about dealing with a housing case that I can pass along. Here are few things we can do as social workers to assist our clients when they find themselves facing eviction:

  • The most important thing your client can do is PAY ATTENTION TO THE FACT THEY HAVE BEEN SERVED WITH HOUSING COURT PAPERS. Appear in court on the day that the papers indicate. One should be there on time in the room that is indicated on their summons. They should bring with them all documents they have pertaining to the case like rent receipts, for example. With such a threat to their sense of security, many clients might want to invoke a defense of denial and ignore the issue. A default judgment entered in one’s absence is a really fast way to lose one’s home.

  • One thing that I was surprised, pleasantly so, to learn is that being evicted is not necessarily a fast process if one appears in court. The housing court will work with a respondent if they come before the court and explain what’s going on. The court’s objective is not to increase the number of homeless in our city. They want to work out a deal. Maybe your client can negotiate a way to pay back their rental arrears (overdue rent) and retain their apartment. Maybe your client won’t be able to save their apartment, but maybe they can buy themselves some time to figure out a new place to go. Relaying this fact can help to ease the client’s mind.

  • Sometimes in intimidating settings like the court, individuals feel pressured to sign agreements that they don’t completely comprehend. It’s good practice to really stress to your client that they should NEVER sign anything they don’t understand. If they have questions about the agreement, they must ask the judge. The judge is there to help them.

  • That being said, once you sign an agreement it’s a binding legal document. You will be held to the provisions listed in the agreement. If it says that you are to pay the rental arrears by a certain date, you must do so.

  • If a judgment is entered in one’s housing case and they are being evicted, they will receive a Notice of Eviction by a New York City Marshal. This is sometimes referred to as a Marshal’s Notice.  This will come in one of two ways. A “72  Hour Notice of Eviction” must be served personally (handed to them) on the respondent. In this case, a person  can be evicted on the fourth business day after the date of notice or any date thereafter. Instead of a “72 Hour Notice of Eviction”, a person may receive a court document entitled “Notice of Eviction”. If this is the case, the person can be evicted on the sixth business day after the date of notice or any day thereafter. It’s important to note that the clock starts ticking on the date of eviction based on the date of the notice and not on the date that the notice is received by your client. If your client receives either of these notices and wishes to keep their apartment, they should immediately go down to housing court and file an Order to Show Cause. One can do this by going to the Clerk’s office in the housing court and requesting the forms to file an Order to Show Cause. The Clerk will give them an Affidavit to fill out. The should check off all the boxes that apply to their case. On the Affidavit, one should indicate the reasons why they believe they shouldn’t be evicted. Include copies of any documentation they have to back up their claim. Write in any additional information that the judge should know about their case. Be very thorough! The Order to Show Cause will be read by the judge and, if they deem it sufficient, signed. The signed Order to Show Cause must then be personally served on the opposing party or, if they have an atty, their atty. It must also be served on the city marshal. The next step will be returning to court. At this point, your client has sort of preformed triage on their housing case and should consult with an attorney.

  • Getting a housing attorney is not easy in this city with the multitude of cases. It will be necessary to call around to all the legal aid organizations and be diligent about following their procedures for intake. Make sure your client continues calling until they actually speak to a person. From my own personal experience, my voicemail box is often flooded with messages from people looking for a housing lawyer who just pushed a random extension and left a message. That’s not an effective way to obtain a housing lawyer.  Some organizations wait until the individual is actually evicted to assist, so advise your client not to become discouraged and to continue to be proactive and attend their court dates with or without a lawyer.

This post has gotten incredibly lengthy but I hope its helpful. I really feel strongly that it would behoove our profession to know these sorts of things in a general way (shocker, right?). Being able to provide our clients with basic information in situations like these, when maybe there isn’t time to find a lawyer before one must take action, could really make a huge difference in the lives our clients.

PS This is a real interesting housing case in the courts right now.

on this again…..

Posted on by K

Last summer, for an elective class I was taking, I wrote a paper discussing whether a seriously mentally ill inmate can give informed consent for treatment. I know what you are thinking and the answer is yes, I am talking about this again. If you think about the three elements involved in granting informed consent – disclosure, understanding and voluntary consent – the prospect of a seriously mentally ill prisoner granting such seems bleak. To satisfy the disclosure aspect, a doctor must tell his patients  all material information about their treatment – possible side effects, alternative treatments, the whole lot. In a prison setting where cost efficiency is paramount, my guess is treatment options are incredibly limited — “if you want to get better, this is the pill that you can take.” The doctors are placed in an impossible conflict between the needs of the institution that they work for and the patients that they see. Understanding of their diagnosis and implications of treatment may be hard to come by as well when an inmate only begins receiving treatment after they have decompensated. As for voluntary consent, well…. In the case Washington v Harper, the US Supreme Court ruled that states could forcibly medicate their seriously mentally ill prisoners if the the medical practitioners on staff could demonstrate that the prisoner is a threat to themselves or others (Just FYI, outside the prison walls a judge is the only person who can rule a person incompetent and pave the way for forcible medication).  In a prison setting, one can imagine how easy it would be to determine that a prisoner is a threat to themselves and others. Disorder legitimately poses a threat to correctional officers and other inmates; being orderly in the midst of psychotic break is pretty unlikely.

Ya know, when I wrote that paper, I put a lot of thought into the logistics of informed consent, into the rights an inmate should have and how those rights were being violated but what I didn’t really think about was why an inmate might not want to be compliant with their medication.  A speaker in a different elective class that I am taking this semester provided some valuable insight on the topic. While I was aware that many seriously mentally ill individuals stop taking their medication because of side effects and a dulling of their senses, I hadn’t really thought about what those side effects could mean in a prison setting. Being over-medicated or numbed by a course of treatment while in the general population of a prison is not safe. I become then a target for predators, someone who is easily taken advantage of. I become vulnerable to sexual assault and other violent attacks.  A person might refuse their medication in that environment to survive; the symptoms of one’s mental illness may be a defense for them, perhaps a badly needed one.

While my liberal social worker self feels compelled to side with the prisoners in this debate, I absolutely see the other side of it. Having a seriously mentally ill inmate suffering from psychotic breaks or paranoid delusions who is refusing medication among the general population in a prison is a serious problem. It poses threats to the order of the correctional facility, to the staff and to the other prisoners. Its not hard to see why sometimes force needs to be used to maintain control. I do not at all believe the answer to this problem is to allow these inmates to refuse medication and decompensate. That solution isn’t good for anyone not the seriously ill inmates or the staff.  I believe the answer is to stop these individuals from entering the prison system at all. The answer is more community services, more alternative sentences, more acknowledgement of the underlying causes of crime and the creation of more programs to address such. The solution to me is an obvious one but the way that solution comes to fruition, I do not know. What I do know though is that every solution starts with acknowledging the problem. It starts with advocates; It starts with me and you and whoever else we can get ( preferably some people with access to funding. As much as I hate to admit it, money, we are for sure also going to need that…)