Another buried study at OJJDP: First, suicide study, now DMC.

Page 46 of the Oversight and Reform Committee hearing with Flores last year:

Rep.Diane Watson:

I am concerned that you say very little about
integrating minorities, disproportionate minority contact and
improving juvenile detention and the correction centers. Too
many of our youth, African American youth and Hispanic youth
in our city end up in lockups.

I want you to explain to me why you haven't set as a
priority and you have--well, I say you didn't share that with
your staff. You just came up with this set, as I understand.
So how do you explain veering off and putting your own targets in place rather than the criteria of DOJ?

Mr. FLORES. Ma'am, Congresswoman, I would first say a
couple things. Gangs are an incredibly high priority for the
Department and for my office. In Los Angeles, we have had a
long-term relationship with the mayor's office since my
tenure to really focus on gangs. In fact, it has been so
successful it was the model that was recommended by Connie
Rice for the mayor's office to adopt. The last that I know
is that the mayor's office is in the process of funding, to
the tune of $150 million, more or less, the in essence
replication- -

Rep. Diane WATSON. Can I just interrupt you? I am looking at
the list, and I am sure you have that list, and it says
disproportionate minority contact and improved juvenile
detention and correction centers. I made reference to it
when I opened. I don't see it on your list of priorities. I
don't know what you put in place. You said you worked with
the mayor. Is that the mayor of Los Angeles?

Mr. FLORES. Yes, ma'am.

Rep. Diane WATSON. Okay. Well, I don't see it reflected in
your priorities. I am looking at, on the other side of this
paper, your priorities. I think you have the same list that
I have. So can you explain why there is not an emphasis, or
are you referring to something that was already there? These
are different priorities.

It is my only hope that the AG Eric Holder investigates further into former OJJDP Administrator J. Robert Flores into what other studies that Flores buried or covered up that prevented rehabilitation for juveniles in his six years of tenure.

Youth Today exposed last week news of OJJDP's buried suicide study during the Flores years. Now, under Flores' leadership, a report on Disproportionate Minority Contact was buried. By the way, Disproportionate Minority Contact (DMC) refers to the disproportionate number of minority youth who come into contact with the juvenile justice system.

Youth Today:

OJJDP contracted for Center for Children's Law and Policy (CCLP) Executive Director Mark Soler and his DMC policy director Lisa Garry to write a report on Disproportionate Minority Contact, which was supposed to be part of the most recent DMC Technical Assistance Manual, published in 2006. While the report was mostly instructive rather than revelatory - it focused on how to start DMC work in local communities and how to help move public opinion toward progressive DMC positions - sources tell us it included a section on addressing DMC issues with public officials.

When it was not included in the manual, sources say, the authors were told by OJJDP that it would become its own separate bulletin or report.

OJJDP doesn't provide an explanation on why this report was buried.

Click here to read on the Juvenile Justice scandal on Justice League blog.

Author says former OJJDP Administrator buried suicide report

by SP Biloxi

Youth Today reports that Lindsay Hayes, a project director for the NCIA, handed a report to former OJJDP Administrator J. Robert Flores on a study of juveniles who committed suicide while in confinement in winter of 2004. In the study, it showed that more than a third of the 110 suicide deaths that occurred between 1995 and 1999 weren't known to the supervising or licensing state agency. Flores did nothing on Hayes' report in five years nor disclosed to Hayes why.

Now this report called Characteristics of Juvenile Suicide in Confinement is now available online and has become Acting Administrator Jeff Slowikowski 's problem. Reporter John Kelly of Youth Today reports:

OJJDP published the study and made it available on its website today.
Among the major findings in the report:

*More than one state agency was unaware of suicides at private juvenile facilities with which it held a contract.

*More than half of suicides at juvenile detention centers occurred within six days of a juvenile's commitment to the facility, and only 35 percent in detention centers had been provided a mental health assessment before the suicide.

Because the issue was so important, Hayes said, OJJDP allowed NCIA to post an unofficial version of the study on its website. Shortly thereafter, he met with OJJDP Administrator J. Robert Flores.

"He said they were going to make it a bulletin, publish the full report and fast track it," Hayes said. "But then, [the report] just sat there."

Hayes said he called regularly to check on the report and was not called back, and ultimately "moved on to other things."

But Hayes's frustration grew, as recent consulting jobs with juvenile facilities made him realize how preventable many suicides were. He became "so infuriated" with Flores, he said, that in summer of 2008, "I wrote a fairly nasty letter to him."

A day or two later, Hayes got an email from OJJDP staff saying the study had been approved and was in the publication stage, with an expected release date of 2008.

Then last December, Hayes said, he got an e-mail saying the study was no longer approved. But in January, after Flores left the agency, he was told by OJJDP that the publication would be released, five years after its submission.

"I have a sense that Flores' hands were all over this," Hayes said, and that "senior staff were supportive of what I was doing."

I found Hayes' 2006 report [Click here]. Mr. Flores clearly ignored Hayes' study. It read:

May 1, 2006
Further Information
Juvenile Suicide in Confinement: A National Survey will appear as an OJJDP publication in the near future. The full report, however, can be be accessed through the NCIA website:
http://www.ncianet.org/cjjsl.cfm


The House committee need to probe this matter as Flores is still under investigation into the grant decision making process, illegal hiring of a contractor, and questionable business expenses. Now, Flores knowingly and willingly ignored a key study which he chose to not disclose this to juvenile detention centers to rehabilitate the youth.

More importantly, Flores lied to the House committee on his leadership role as the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) Administrator and violated the mission statement the agency.

If I were the Senate committee, I would comb through Flores' 2007 testimony to the committee to see if Flores committed perjury given the light of this new scandal.

JJDPA bill is stalled.

Youth Today:

Movement of a bill to reauthorize the Juvenile Justice Delinquency and Prevention Act was stalled by partisan tension over judicial nominees.

The Senate Judiciary Committee was scheduled to consider amendments to the bill, which finances most operations of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and six other bills. But committee chair Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) called the meeting to recess because only one Republican, Arlen Specter (Pa.), was present.

Eight committee members must attend a meeting to conduct business, and two must be members of the minority party.

Other Republican members did not attend the meeting because federal district and appeals court nominees have not been placed on the agenda for committee meetings.

"The Republicans have decided not to show up," Leahy announced to a committee room teeming with juvenile justice advocates. He said he believed the decision was "not responsible, but it is their prerogative."

Among the amendments the campaign opposed: Sen. Jeff Sessions' (R-Ala.) proposal to remove incentive grants, and those by Sens. Sessions and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) that called for extensive evaluation of OJJDP by the Government Accountability Office.

The committee may revisit the bill next week or on July 31, but it is uncertain what will change if the fight over judicial nominees continues.

An email of thanks; Open thread!

I received this email yesterday from Youth Today expressing their gratitude of linking the article of former DOJ official Michele DeKonty being fired in the growing OJJDP scandal. Former OJJDP employee and whistleblower Scott Peterson notified me that he sent over 3,000 email to individuals linking them to the article. On Thursday alone, there was so much traffic to the blog according to the sitemeter. I received more than 100+ individuals ranging from the DOJ, Congress, and so on that visited this site and read that article. Thanks to you all for visiting. Here is the email from the editor of Youth Today newspaper. Youth Today were the ones who uncovered this scandal and brought this to Henry Waxman's attention:


from Patrick Boyle
reply-to pboyle@youthtoday.org
to spbiloxi00@gmail.com
date Jun 27, 2008 7:22 AM
subject Thank you from Youth Today
mailed-by youthtoday.org

Hi, SP. Just wanted to thank you for the “hat tip” regarding the DeKonty story.

As a small nonprofit paper, we’ve been overlooked by many websites which have cited ABC, which has done good work but followed us by several months and aren’t not the ones who prompted the congressional probe. So I and my two full-time editorial staffers very much appreciate the credit.

All the best,

Patrick Boyle, Editor
Youth Today

OJJDP scandal: Ignoring others.

Major problems with Flores' tactics in the grant matching program.

From Youth Today:

Ignoring Others

* As for meeting with some of the grant applicants, Flores told the committee, "I try to meet with anyone" who might want help in applying for grants, "trying to provide technical assistance," including with the "nitty gritty" of applying on line.

* Cummings, the congressman from Maryland, shot back that Flores refused to meet with some applicants that he subsequently did not fund, like Parents Anonymous, and told his staff that he did not want to have such meetings. He produced an e-mail to Flores from one of his staffers that read:

"Per our understanding, these calls were to be handled by Program Managers and to protect you from folks beating down your door by saying you are not available. ... Open the door for one and others will follow."

Flores replied to Cummings, "We can't meet with everybody."

Differences with Staff

* All five current and former DOJ staffers and officials who spoke with the committee during its investigation said the process for selecting these grants was not fair and transparent, according to several of the committee members.

While Flores defended his actions, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the committee chairman, said, "It seems that you are the only person at the Department of Justice who thinks your process was fair, transparent and served the taxpayers."

* While his staff recommended 18 bids to be funded - recognizing that not all could be funded because of financial limitations - Flores chose only five of them, along with five that were not recommended.

And of course my personal favorite the first golf tee receipt that Flores was supposed to pay in 2006 but was paid one day before his testimony. Waxman presented this in the hearing:

First Tee Golf Fee Receipt

DOJ Official Awards $500,000 Grant to Golf Group.

My hats off to The Youth Today-- the trade newspaper of the youthwork field -- that first broke this story back in December 2006.

I saw this story last night on Nightline with Brian Ross. A key witness to this scandal will be a former employee of Flores' office, Scott Peterson [who was inteviewed on Nightline], who says the grants were awarded based more on politics than merit.

A senior Justice Department official says a $500,000 federal grant to the World Golf Foundation is an appropriate use of money designed to deal with juvenile crime in America.

"We need something really attractive to engage the gangs and the street kids, golf is the hook," said J. Robert Flores, the administrator of the Justice Department's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

The Justice Department, in a decision by Flores, gave the money to the World Golf Foundation's First Tee program, even though Justice Department staffers had rated the program 47th on a list of 104 applicants. The allegations were first reported earlier this year by the trade journal Youth Today.

"I don't know why people insist on denigrating it, it's a sound program," Flores told ABC News.

Current and former Justice Department employees allege that Flores ignored the staff rankings in favor of programs that had political, social or religious connections to the Bush White House.

Watch Nightline Join Youth Today’s OJJDP Coverage

More from The Youth Today:

From "Former Justice Official Says Juvenile Chief Misled Her" and "A Friend at Justice"

A memo that U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Administrator Robert Flores wrote to Regina Schofield last July, in which he explained how he chose 10 winning proposals from among more than 100 bids for the National Programs grants.

From "Juvenile Justice, A Panel of One"

Here are PDFs of the winning 2007 National Juvenile Justice Program bids.

Here is a detailed list of bidders for OJJDP's 2007 National Juvenile Justice Program grants (winners are highlighted).

Here is a spreadsheet of all OJJDP 2007 discretionary grants.