Blog from the Justice Programs Office
The scene may be familiar: a family movie showing three young children, beginning a road trip to visit their mom who lives far away. The camera zooms in on one of the little girls and her uncle asks, “what do you tell people when they ask why Mommy is in Florida?” She responds, “I tell them that it’s something only the family needs to know about, and they seem okay with that.”
Continue reading “When we punish the family – a review of The Sentence”
To kick off the new school year, I am delighted to welcome Dean Vicky Wilkins to JPO’s blog. Not only is Vicky a dear friend of my mine, she is the dean of the School of Public Affairs at American University, which houses JPO, and she has been an incredible partner to and administrator for this center. We share a commitment to providing opportunities for purpose-driven students to connect their learning to their passions. I’m proud of the students who have come to work for us at JPO and excited to see where their futures take them. I am also incredibly proud of leading an office filled with passionate professionals fueled by purpose.
– Director Kim Ball, Justice Programs Office
Addiction is both a personal health crisis and a public health concern; it wreaks havoc on individual lives and can damage entire communities. The opioid crisis, for example, has led to the deaths of thousands of people, devastated families, and left cities and towns struggling financially from the loss of a workforce. How we understand addiction, therefore, has significant policy implications. The trouble is, addiction is difficult to treat, relapse is common, and there is no scientific rule to explain why any given drinker, user of prescription drugs, or recreational marijuana user becomes dependent or addicted.
Continue reading “The Dangerous Oversimplification of Addiction”
This month is full of new beginnings for JPO and for me. JPO is packing up and cleaning out, preparing for an office reconfiguration. We’ve grown and changed over the last two years and so have our needs. We’re losing our library and conference room to create more office space to house our growing team of experts and leaders—but isn’t everything online now, anyway, and, really, who meets in person anymore? Continue reading “New Beginnings – Fun and Stressful at the Same Time”
I’ve been working for a little over a year as a student associate at the Justice Programs Office (JPO). Most of my time is taken up by being graduate student at American University’s School of International Service but being a student associate at JPO has been a very rewarding part-time job. As an international affairs student, the daily legal issues I study are very different from those most students who focus on domestic government study. During our studies, we international affairs students observe whether a country adheres to the rule of law or we compare the philosophical underpinnings that countries use in designing legal or governmental systems. Rarely do we take a deep look at the American legal system or the American criminal justice system. My time here at JPO has built on my personal thoughts about the American criminal justice system and brought them into sharper focus.
According to Merriam-Webster, the definition of perception is “a result of perceiving,” “a mental image,” “awareness of the elements of environment through physical sensation,” “quick, acute, and intuitive cognition,” or “a capacity for comprehension.” Perceptions are the way that we understand something and are often based on our knowledge of real events or our own life experiences. When it comes to our understanding of crime, our perceptions of crime can be based on experiencing crime as a victim ourselves, what we know about the criminal activity in our community from local news or conversations with neighbors, listening to political conversations about crime, or reading stories about criminal activity on social media.
Since a peak in the mid-nineties, the number of juveniles placed into secure detention has fallen dramatically, in part to due to a decrease in juvenile crime, and in part due to an increase in pre-trial diversion programs and post-adjudication alternatives to incarceration. These programs, such as the 
juvenile drug treatment courts (JDTCs) I work with, seek to bring about behavior change and ensure public safety, without the iatrogenic consequences of incarceration.
Continue reading “Unlocking Alternatives to Juvenile Detention”
If you’ve looked for a job in the last decade, there is a great chance that Indeed was your go-to search engine. With just a few clicks, thousands of vacant job opportunities were at your fingertips. Granted, many other job-seeking candidates applied for those same employment opportunities. According to Interview Success Formula, on average, companies receive 118 applications for each new position. I think it’s safe to say that the job market is competitive. It’s even harder for treatment court participants who may have a lack of education, limited skills, and/or a substance use disorder.
For me, summer is the sound of cicadas, the sight of lightning bugs, and the setting off on a family vacation. My mother was a teacher and my dad a farmer, so their schedules aligned perfectly with my school schedule, which allowed us to take summer vacations as a family. Because my dad didn’t like to fly, we drove everywhere—across the country to California, down to the southern tip of Texas, and out to the beaches in Virginia and Florida. I’ve continued this tradition with my daughter. We take a family vacation every summer. Continue reading “Kim Ball’s Summer Reads”
My role at the Justice Programs Office (JPO) is to be heard but rarely seen. I am not asked to go to conferences and present on the constitutional right to counsel. I am certainly not going out into the field to provide training and technical assistance to adult and juvenile treatment courts. But you have probably seen my Friday News Roundup or read my social media posts. I liken my role at JPO to a spotlight. I use my writing abilities and communications knowledge to shine a light on the fantastic work that JPO does and on the talented people that work here.