Category: News And Announcements

The Opioid Response Network is a group of diverse individuals and 40 national organizations working collaboratively and led by the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry to address the opioid crisis and stimulant use across the country. The Opioid Response Network provides free training and education in evidence-based practices in the prevention, treatment, and recovery of substance use disorders. Visit www.OpioidResponseNetwork.org to submit a request to enhance your own efforts.

The Opioid Response Network works with states, health professionals, communities, organizations, healthcare centers, individuals, and justice and corrections settings. To support the development and delivery of resources and educational opportunities for those working in across justice and corrections and for the individuals they serve, the Opioid Response Network works in collaboration with several organizations forming a Justice and Corrections Stakeholder Committee.

Opioid Response Network Justice and Corrections Collaborators

These organizations include the:
• Association of Prosecuting Attorneys
• American Probation and Parole Association
• Major County Sheriffs of America
• National Center for State Courts
• National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges
• National Sheriff’s Association
• State Justice Institute
• The Police Assisted Addiction and Recovery Initiative

The Opioid Response Network:

•  Trained 45 state champion judges tapped by their Chief Justices from 48 states in substance use disorder prevention, treatment and recovery
•  Provided support for a judge in rural Tennessee to develop an implementation plan to start providing medications for treating opioid use disorder in a community jail
• Trained over 600 healthcare physicians in California corrections facilities in motivational interviewing
• Facilitated a conference in Rhode Island for 230 people representing 34 states to learn about a program that reduced post incarceration drug overdose deaths by more than 60% Opioid Response Network Justice and Corrections Collaborators

Now, how can we help you? Submit a request at www.OpioidResponseNetwork.org to start the conversation.

Juvenile court judges are fundamental players in promoting public safety and improving outcomes for the youth who enter their courtrooms. A new project launched this week by The Council of State Governments Justice Center and the National Council on Juvenile and Family Court Judges will conduct an unprecedented 50-state analysis of state juvenile court policies and rules.

The analysis will inform a national report—to be released in spring 2022—with findings and recommendations to ensure that juvenile court judges’ decisions are in the best interest of youth. By adopting a common set of judicial policies and practices, states can position judges to make effective decisions and drive improvement efforts that promote a more effective and equitable juvenile justice system. State Justice Institute is delighted to be funding such an impactful and vital project.

To read more about this project visit:
https://csgjusticecenter.org/2021/03/29/new-50-state-analysis-to-focus-on-critical-role-of-juvenile-court-judges/?mc_cid=33c347aeca&mc_eid=f470ba5595.

The National Center for State Courts (NCSC), with SJI support, has developed a new emergency management planning guide to help court officials better prepare for and respond to natural disasters and other emergencies that threaten court operations. The guide, which replaces one created in 2007, comes at a time when the nation is experiencing unprecedented hurricane and wildfire seasons, a pandemic, increasing civil unrest and domestic terrorism. The guide identifies how court officials should write emergency management plans, and connect with state and federal agencies that can help them before, during, and after natural disasters and emergencies.

The work to develop the guide started with a “lessons-learned” meeting in 2019, when court officials from states that experienced major natural disasters — Florida, Texas, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, California and Hawaii — gathered in Denver to share what did and did not work in their states. After the meeting, NCSC consultants conducted technical assistance projects in many of those states through the lens of the lessons learned.

The new guide, which was recently presented to the Conference of Chief Justices (CCJ), is intended to help all state courts as they create and refine their emergency management plans, commonly referred to as COOPs, or Continuity of Operations Plans. “While the challenges are great, many courts have learned quite a bit about how to innovate and maintain operations in the face of an emergency,” said Nathan Hall, the project director. “The recent lessons learned by these courts have been documented in the new COOP planning guide.” Hall added that it made perfect sense to develop a new guide because the 2007 guide needed to be updated, and other emergency management guides are not specific to courts.

Here are some initial steps, spelled out in the guide, for court officials to take before writing an emergency management plan:

• Get executive support.
• Assign a COOP leader.
• Assemble a COOP planning team.
• Understand emergency management laws and policies.
• Establish relationships with local emergency management officials and key court leaders.

This work will end with the development of additional online assessment and planning tools to help courts. “Moving forward,” Hall said, “this work should make the process of developing a COOP plan much more doable for courts and ultimately result in courts being better prepared for any emergency situation that may arise.”

The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ), with support from SJI, held a virtual roundtable discussion last month with representatives from organizations, programs, and agencies serving military-connected families. The roundtable discussion was held to further the NCJFCJ’s efforts to improve support for military-connected families that are involved in the juvenile and family court system. To this end, national-level entities that work with military-connected families were brought together to network, create new or enhance existing connections across organizations, and share information on programs, resources, and training opportunities.

Roundtable participants included representatives from a broad range of civilian organizations, military programs, and offices within the federal government, namely the Clearinghouse for Military Family Readiness, the National Children’s Alliance, Justice for Vets, National Organization for Victim Assistance, the National Military Family Association, the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, Zero to Three, the Battered Women’s Justice Project, the National Center on the Sexual Behavior of Youth, Family Advocacy Programs and JAG Corps staff from military installations, the Department of Defense/Office of Military Family Readiness Policy, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Participants also included NCJFCJ judges, Military Committee members, and staff.

The roundtable was the most recent activity in NCJFCJ’s Military-Connected Families and the Courts Project, which began in 2018 with funding from SJI. The project’s overall goal is to provide training, technical assistance, and resources to help strengthen collaboration and coordination across state court system professionals, civilian organizations, and military installations in order to better serve military families involved in the juvenile and family courts.
         
To read the full article, please visit: NCJFCJ Holds Roundtable Discussion with Military-Connected Family Organizations and Programs | NCJFC

The RFK National Resource Center has released the Dual Status Youth – Technical Assistance Workbook, Updated Edition to enhance its practical guidance for state and local jurisdictions on behalf of dual status youth. The highly successful framework, originally developed in 2003, continues to be presented in its original form given the successful outcomes it has generated for dual status youth and their families—as well as multi-system, youth-serving agencies throughout the country—for nearly two decades. 

This updated Technical Assistance Workbook provides access to a wealth of practical new examples of replicable products (e.g., memoranda of understanding, information sharing agreements, policies, procedural narratives, multi-disciplinary team structure and operations, system performance and outcome measures, data collection and reporting methods) that will support state and local jurisdictions seeking to undertake this important work. The RFK National Resource Center’s Dual Status Youth Practice Network and Peer Mentors are featured, demonstrating how peer-to-peer partnerships can assist jurisdictions in effectively navigating through challenges and obstacles to create successful outcomes. Additionally, the updated Technical Assistance Workbook highlights the increased importance of Implementation Science principles and tenets to ensure sustainability of dual status youth initiatives.

Currently, the RFK National Resource Center is working in five states and nine jurisdictions to positively impact multi-system initiatives on behalf of dual status youth. These efforts, combined with its long history of intensive technical assistance partnerships, have resulted in lessons learned, replicable products, and practice methods in more than thirty jurisdictions across the country. These are presented in the updated Workbook.

Like its predecessor, the updated Workbook serves as a companion piece to the Guidebook for Juvenile Justice and Child Welfare System Coordination and Integration: A Framework for Improved Outcomes, Third Edition (2013). Look for the red Guidebook icon in the workbook to reference to additional materials found in the Guidebook. 

Through the National Criminal Justice Reference Service, NIJ has made available the following final technical reports (these reports are the result of an NIJ-funded projects but were not published by the U.S. Department of Justice):

Title: Artificial Intelligence in the Criminal Justice System: Demystifying Artificial Intelligence, its Applications, and Potential Risks
Authors: James Redden, Molly O’Donovan Dix
Links: Summary, Full Document (pdf, 10 pages)

Title: Artificial Intelligence Applications in Law Enforcement: An Overview of Artificial Intelligence Applications and Considerations for State and Local Law Enforcement
Authors: James Redden, Brian Aagaard, Travis Taniguchi
Links: Summary, Full Document (pdf, 10 pages)

Title: Artificial Intelligence Applications for Criminal Courts: An Overview of Artificial Intelligence Applications for Prosecutors and Associated Considerations for the Criminal Court System
Authors: James Redden, Duren Banks
Links: Summary, Full Document (pdf, 11 pages)

Title: Artificial Intelligence in Corrections: An Overview of AI Applications and Considerations for Systems Administrators a Policy Makers
Authors: James Redden, Christopher Inkpen Ph.D., Matthew DeMichele Ph.D.
Links: Summary, Full Document (pdf, 8 pages)

View all recently added publications and multimedia.

March is Ethics Awareness Month. The National Center for State Courts (NCSC) has published the winter issue of the Judicial Conduct Reporter and is available online. The issue reviews judicial ethics and discipline in 2020 with stories on:
• State judicial discipline in 2020
• Removal cases in 2020
• Top judicial ethics and discipline stories of 2020

What judges said to women that got them in trouble:
• Judicial participation in demonstrations, protests, marches, and rallies
• Judicial ethics and discipline during a pandemic

What judges said that got them in trouble in 2020:
• What they said to or about litigants that got them in trouble • What they said to or about criminal defendants that got them in trouble
• What they said to or about attorneys that got them in trouble
• What they said to court staff that got them in trouble
• What they said in election campaigns that got them in trouble
• What they said to law enforcement that got them in trouble
• What they said off-the-bench that got them in trouble
• What they said on social media that got them in trouble

The Judicial Conduct Reporter is published electronically on NCSC’s website, and an index and current and past issues of the Reporter are available online. Anyone can sign up to receive notice when a new issue is available.

The FY 2021 Federal Grant Season is well underway with numerous open solicitations available.  Make sure to visit SJI’s Funding Toolkit for the latest grant information.  The Toolkit includes current grant solicitations, along with templates that can be used to prepare a grant application.  

As a reminder, applicants for DOJ/Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) grants should be aware there is a new process this year that includes both grants.gov and JustGrants.  Make sure you are aware of the deadlines and separate requirements to ensure your application is accepted.

The Toolkit also includes  FAQs about the grant making process, along with an answer from a grant expert.  Follow SJI on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn for the latest FAQ and funding announcements.  Send your funding and grant questions to fundingtoolkit@sji.gov.  Experts will provide answers, as well as references to additional resources.

SJI continues to addresses the impact of federal and state human trafficking laws on the state courts, and the challenges faced by state courts in dealing with cases involving trafficking victims and their families.  These efforts are intended to empower state courts to identify victims, link them with vital services, and hold traffickers accountable.  Several new resources are now available:

The National Immigrant Women’s Advocacy Project (NIWAP) at the American University/Washington College of Law, working in partnership with the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ)  is launching a National Judicial Network: Forum on Human Trafficking and Immigration in State Courts (“The Network”).  The Network will provide a forum for judges to: engage in peer-to-peer learning sessions with judges from across the country; participate in webinars; communicate with other judges in a member-only confidential Listserv; access topic-specific publications; and attend future in-person trainings on issues that arise in state courts involving human trafficking and immigrant victims.

The U.S. Department of Justice/Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) continues to provide resources that can help organizations and programs increase identification of, and enhance service delivery to, survivors of human trafficking:

• The Human Trafficking Capacity Building Center helps organizations and tribes start, sustain, or expand their anti-trafficking work. Visit the new website for more information about the Center, its services, and a wealth of downloadable anti-trafficking resources.
• The Development and Operations Roadmap for Multidisciplinary Anti-Human Trafficking Task Forces publication, produced by the International Association of Chiefs of Police with funding from OVC and the Bureau of Justice Assistance, provides new and experienced anti-human trafficking task forces with guidance to assess and plan task force development from start to sustainability.
• The Office for Victims of Crime Training and Technical Assistance Center (OVC TTAC) recently released the Human Trafficking Action Research Toolkit. The toolkit provides information, strategies, tools, and other resources to help organizations and programs understand and conduct action research.
• The Understanding Human Trafficking training, another resource offered by OVC TTAC, provides foundational learning on trauma-informed and victim-centered approaches to human trafficking through five interactive online modules designed so that a wide audience can benefit.

For more information and resources on anti-human trafficking efforts, please visit the Human Trafficking section of OVC’s website.

The National Immigrant Women’s Advocacy Project (NIWAP) at the American University/Washington College of Law, working in partnership with the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ)  is launching a National Judicial Network: Forum on Human Trafficking and Immigration in State Courts (“The Network”).  

The Network will provide a forum for judges to engage in peer-to-peer learning sessions with judges from across the country, participate in webinars, communicate with other judges in a member-only confidential Listserv, access topic-specific publications, and attend future in-person trainings on issues that arise in state courts involving human trafficking and immigrant victims.  The Network Forums are intended to help judges learn more about these complicated issues and, consequently, improve access to justice for human trafficking and immigrant victims of domestic violence, child abuse, sexual assault, and other crimes. 

NIWAP is inviting judges to join bi-monthly, peer-to-peer virtual learning sessions on the first Tuesday of every other month from 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. EST.  Each session will be led by a judicial facilitator, with topics set in advance by The Network’s steering committee. The first peer-to-peer session will be March 2, 2021, 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. EST.   During the first session, NIWAP will discuss the purpose of The Network, one of whose objectives is to identify best practices and tools that NIWAP can develop under its SJI grant.  You will hear from experienced judges about the goals of The Network, including the development of live webinar trainings, which can be uploaded and shared with your local jurisdiction.  As a member of The Network, you will be invited to participate in a Network members-only confidential Listserv through which you can communicate with other judges about human trafficking and immigration law issues that arise in your court or other state court cases. 

If you are interested in joining The Network, please register through this link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/VGY9VJM

Registrants will receive regular updates and registration information for peer-to-peer sessions, the confidential Listserv, and webinars/trainings.

NIWAP also has a current SJI grant is titled, Human Trafficking Victims: Developing Training and Tools for Courts.  Under this grant, NIWAP is developing materials on human trafficking, providing technical assistance, and offering pilot trainings for state court judges and judicial employees on human trafficking and the T Visa.  To view current deliverables under this grant, please use this link: