Prof. Buckingham's New Scholarship: Trauma Informed Juvenile Justice

Professor Samantha Buckingham published "Trauma Informed Juvenile Justice" in the American Criminal Law Review.

ABSTRACT

The juvenile justice system fails to account for the astounding rates of childhood trauma exposure amongst system-involved youth. Trauma, an experience threatening to life, safety, or well-being, overwhelms an individual’s ability to cope. The experience of trauma is so pervasive amongst juvenile justice youth that a recent study found that 93% of children in an urban detention facility had experienced at least one traumatic event in the past year, and for more than half of those youth the trauma they reported was witnessing violence. When left untreated, or treated without targeted trauma-specific therapies, trauma sufferers are vulnerable to commit offenses as children and as adults. The stakes are high: untreated trauma can turn people into ticking time bombs bound to respond to triggers and misinterpret events, sometimes responding violently, even to mundane events in their daily lives. The good news is that when trauma is identified and treated with appropriate trauma-specific methods, child trauma sufferers in particular can heal, overcome their trauma, and grow in positive ways.

The juvenile justice system has yet to catch up with contemporary understanding of trauma’s impact on offending and the latest best practices for treatment of trauma. Specifically, the juvenile justice system fails to accurately identify trauma and often employs counter-productive responses to juvenile offending, such as removal from the home, programming and treatment that is general rather than trauma-specific, and the over-use of detention. Poor youth of color, the most marginalized among us, are the children who suffer the greatest from the current failure to incorporate a trauma-focused response in the juvenile justice system and are subjected to incarceration at unreasonably high rates. Incarceration itself is traumatic, it exacerbates pre-existing trauma, and it is counterproductive to long-term community safety.

This Article proposes four trauma-informed reforms: (1) create a presumption of trauma, (2) mandate trauma identification of youth in the juvenile justice system, (3) implement trauma-informed procedures, and (4) utilize trauma-informed dispositions, which will dramatically reduce our over-reliance upon incarceration in favor of safe-settings in the community. Endowed with trauma-focused reforms, the juvenile justice system is poised to identify and appropriately respond to the many traumatized children who come to its attention early enough to make a difference, capitalizing on the incredible potential for growth and resilience children possess, realizing the paramount goal of rehabilitation, promoting long-term community safety, and working to eliminate the incarceration of children.

Read or download "Trauma Informed Juvenile Justice."

Prof. Buckingham submits testimony to Senate subcommittee on school-to-prison pipeline

By Clinical Professor Samantha Buckingham

Senator Durbin (D-Ill.) held the first-ever U.S. Senate hearing on the ending the "school-to-prison pipeline." Senator Durbin is the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights. The Senator defined the pipeline as a "gateway" out of school and into the criminal justice system that functions to rob children of their "fundamental right to education." In essence, many children with cases in juvenile delinquency court are there because of issues that arose in public school; instead of sending children to the principal's office for misbehavior, students are now removed from the educational environment entirely. Statistics reveal that students of color, students with disabilities, and LGBT youth bear the brunt of school disciplinary measures that funnel them into the delinquency system. According to the most recent date from the Office for Civil Rights, more than three million students were suspended from school at least once during the 2009-2010 school year. Seventy percent of the students arrested for an event arising at school were Black and Hispanic. Unfortunately, Black males who have diagnosed disabilities are the group most often suspended.

In my experience both as a public defender and as a juvenile advocate through my work as the co-director of the Juvenile Justice Clinic at Loyola's Center for Juvenile Law and Policy, I have represented many children who have been arrested at school. My testimony to Congress described how the school to prison pipeline impacted three of the clients I represented through my work in the juvenile justice clinic. Law students were involved in each one of these cases, researching and writing motions, meeting with the clients, investigating incidents at the schools, and arguing before the court. The stories I chose to share with the committee demonstrate a few important concerns (though not every concern) about the school-to-prison pipeline: 1) children are punished twice, 2) timing is important to intervention on behalf of children with special education needs, and 3) increased police presence and increased funneling of children to delinquency courts for incidents occurring at public school can have a negative, stigmatizing effect.

One client of ours at CJLP was arrested at 11 after fighting back against another child who was the sixth-grade class bully. When he came to court for an appearance, the client brought with him a backpack full of trophies and set off the metal detector. He wanted to show the judge that he was a good kid and a hard worker. Going to juvenile delinquency court was a scary, unfamiliar, and humiliating experience. He was a smart young man, with caring parents, and a history of depression. The teacher knew he was being bullied and the teacher broke up the incident when he occurred. My client was charged with a felony in juvenile delinquency court. The bully was not charged with anything. Both the bully and his parent did not want my client to face charges in court. Nonetheless, and despite the counseling services his parents had already set up for him, the District Attorney and the court both refused to dismiss the case. To me, this case is a great example of a case which should have been resolved in school and did not need to be referred to juvenile delinquency court. It is the school-to-prison pipeline in action.

Stay tuned for reforms discussed at the hearing such as eliminating out-of-school suspensions and replacing them with in-school suspensions.

Solitary Confinement in U.S. Prisons and Jails: Cruel and Unusual Punishment?

By Clinical Professor Samantha Buckingham

There are an estimated 80,000 Americans in U.S. prisons and jails who are housed in solitary confinement on any given day. In recent years, there has been an increase in the use of solitary confinement for federal, state, and local prisoners and detainees. Prisoners in solitary confinement spend 23 hours a day locked down in isolation. The practice is used often for punishment and in the name of protecting prisoners.

On Tuesday, June 19, the U.S. Senate's Assistant Majority Leader, Senator Dick Durbin (Democrat-Illinois), held the first Congressional hearing ever to be held on solitary confinement. The hearing highlighted a horrific juvenile case and featured live testimony from both a former prisoner who endured the conditions and corrections officials. Sen. Durbin and his committee sought to examine the psychological and psychiatric impact on prisoners held in solitary confinement, the expense in running solitary units, the human rights issues involved, and state reforms which offer successful alternatives to the use of solitary.

To replicate what the conditions in solitary confinement are like for American prisoners, the ACLU assembled a real cell in Sen. Durbin's chambers. The cell was roughly 7 feet by 10 feet. It had nothing inside except for a bunk and a toilet. There was a small, out of reach window, which was covered, and a slot in the door just like the ones through which prisoners in solitary receive food trays.

In my written testimony, I described how the use of solitary confinement impacted two clients I have represented. The two stories illuminate some of the problems with the use of solitary confinement with vulnerable populations, particularly children who are charged as adults, the mentally ill, those who have previously endured abuse and neglect, and those who are at risk for suicide.