OJJDP to Youth Today on buried suicide report: Can't find anything as to exactly why it was held up.

Investigative reporter John Kelly followed up with OJJDP on why former OJJDP administrator J. Robert Flores buried suicide report.

Youth Today:

We sought OJJDP's reaction to that assertion from Acting Administrator Jeff Slowikowski. In an e-mail on Feb. 10 requesting the interview with Slowikowski, we posed four specific points we wanted to discuss:

1) Why was the suicide report released yesterday held at OJJDP since 2004?

2) Why was the study abruptly not approved in December after being set for publication?

3) Was it Bob Flores' call to hold and then cancel approval for release of the study?

4) Why did Slowikowski decide to publish it once he became acting administrator?

Last week, OJJDP Spokeswoman Kara McCarthy told us that Flores had signed off on publishing the report; Slowikowski is the name on the report because it was issued after he took over, she said.

That still left the larger question. What was the holdup?

This is the response that came back yesterday, via McCarthy:

"It went through the review process and it was published, it just took longer than should be expected. But the people who were involved in it are not here anymore. So I can't find anything as to exactly why it was held up."

"It took longer than should be expected?" And that is the OJJDP's explanation? The current OJJDP is explaining why the publication took long to published this year but not answering the question to why the suicide report was buried and not published under Flores' leadership. It is my hope that OJJDP department is completely restored with leadership and integrity. Flores is gone but the damage to that agency is still there.