Downshifting

by: Dean Barker

Mon Sep 26, 2011 at 05:51:01 AM EDT

It would be funny if it weren't so tragic:

Sixty troubled students now under state supervision will soon have their cases closed and become the responsibility of the city.

For the past three months, the Manchester School District and Police Department have been scrambling to come up with a plan to keep these students out of the juvenile criminal justice system.

changes in state law and state budget cuts have reduced the scope of the CHINS (Children In Need of Services) program to care for only the most severe cases. The chronically truant, the runaways and other less severe cases are no longer funded under the program.

He said it's likely there will be cases that would have been brought before the court that will find services available in communities, but others will not move forward and those children will continue to be truant or commit crimes.

I failed to add: every minute a school community is spending their finite resources dealing with O'Brien's downshifting is a minute not spent delivering education to the rest of the student body.

(find me > 140 on birch paper; on Twitter < 140)

Children in Need of a Leader

by: Dean Barker

Wed Jul 13, 2011 at 07:33:09 AM EDT

House Majority Leader to Request Rules Change to Allow for Introduction of Caylee's Law Bill

   Concord-House Majority Leader D.J. Bettencourt (R-Salem) announced today that he intends to ask the House Rules Committee to permit the late drafting of legislation that would make it a felony for any parent who failed to report a child missing within a certain time of their disappearance.  According to Rep. Bettencourt, he would like to work with the appropriate policy committee to set the window for reporting a missing child to a time specific, but said it would likely be  somewhere  between 48 to 72 hours .  The legislation, called "Caylee's Law," comes in response to the recent death of the Florida toddler, Caylee Anthony, whose disappearance went unreported by her mother for nearly a month.

   "It is  unconscionable to think that any parent or guardian of a child would let their child's disappearance go unreported for any length of time," said Bettencourt.  "The Caylee Anthony case has clearly brought to the national consciousness the need to close the  hole in any laws that don't adequately protect our children.  We need to take steps right now to ensure that the search for any missing child can begin as quickly as possible and that any parent or guardian who fails to file a report suffer the consequence.

Here's something the TeeVee never "brought to the national consciousness" - what Bettencourt's budget did to "protect our children":

"There are dramatic changes as a result of the budget," [Edwin W. Kelly, administrative judge] said. "The Legislature has completely repealed the definition of a child in need of services [CHINS] from what we've known it to be over the years."

   It had been defined as children who are regularly truant from school, habitually run away from home or commit offenses that would be criminal if committed by an adult.

   ...Under this new definition, the number of children who qualify for CHINS will go from between 3,000 and 5,000 in one year to about 50.

He said it's likely there will be cases that would have been brought before the court that will find services available in communities, but others will not move forward and those children will continue to be truant or commit crimes.

(find me > 140 on birch paper; on Twitter < 140)

Abandoning Children in Need

by: William Tucker

Wed May 04, 2011 at 06:00:00 AM EDT

The Concord Monitor examines the impact of eliminating "Children in Need of Services" (CHINS), a state program in which parents or school officials can ask the court system for help with children whose behavior suggests serious problems.

That intervention ... is often a last resort for families dealing with uncontrollable, troubled children and the only way to provide adequate treatment and monitoring, said Maggie Bishop, the director of the state's juvenile justice division.

One of the more valuable aspects of the Children in Need of Services process is that it allows for oversight of a family's home, said Judge Ned Gordon, who oversees family cases in Franklin District Court.

"Usually, if a kid's not going to school, that's not the problem. It's a symptom of the problem," Gordon said. In addition to having a probation officer monitor a child and make sure he gets to school and participates meaningfully, the court can require a child to call the officer every night, impose a curfew and require that the child submit to random drug and alcohol testing.

Bringing the CHINS cases to court creates "a full-press effort," said David Kemper, chairman of the state's advisory group for the Coalition for Juvenile Justice, a national nonprofit association. "You're having a lot more people surrounding this kid and this family ... basically forcing this kid to make good choices."

Failure to intervene is likely to lead to increasingly negative outcomes: reduced engagement in school leading to a lifetime loss of employment and income, exacerbated family tensions resulting in assaults or abuse, and deeper involvement in criminal behavior and incarceration. Ultimately, they will require more costly services and will place increased burdens on local police and hospitals.

CHINS served 1,000 New Hampshire children last year. The House budget saves $7 million over the next two years by eliminating the program. GOP Rep. Neal Kurk, chairman of the House Finance subcommittee that proposed eliminating CHINS, said there was "no question" that cutting CHINS will shift costs elsewhere.

Next week, the Senate Finance Committee will begin voting on budget item recommendations.