This year Senator Jim Webb of Virginia says he will seek legislation to launch a comprehensive review of the criminal justice system. He says the focus must be on making sharp distinctions between offenders of violent crimes and those incarcerated for non-violent crimes, drug abuse and mental illness so that we lock up the most dangerous people instead of diverting time and money to incarcerate the wrong people.

Children’s Express reports on this toolkit that helps child welfare courts define goals, collect data and measure their performance to improve child and family outcomes of safety, permanence, and well-being.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation has issued policy recommendations for reforming juvenile justice, reducing poverty, rebuilding the child welfare system and improving data. On juvenile justice, the Foundation says the federal Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act should be reauthorized with enhanced provisions to reduce racial disparities, strengthen core protections against confining status offenders and mingling juveniles with adult offenders.

Research published in this month's American Journal of Public Health finds that girls in the public mental health system were arrested at earlier ages more frequently and were charged with more serious offenses than girls in the general population. This provides strong evidence for the coordination between mental health and justice systems to provide rehabilitation.

The answer apparently is yes, according to this report published in Pediatrics. Data from a National Longitudinal Survey of Youth indicate that teens exposed to high levels of television sexual content were twice as likely to become pregnant within the next 3 years, compared with those with lower levels of exposure.

In 2007, 1.7 million children under age 18 had a parent in prison—an 82 percent increase 1991, disproportionately affecting children of color. Children of incarcerated parents are more likely to drop out of school, engage in delinquency, and subsequently be incarcerated themselves. This Sentencing Project brief evaluates Department of Justice data and offers policy recommendations to support parent/child relationships and minimize the harm to children.

Foundation for a Drug Free World is offering free The Truth About Drugs booklets to any teacher, parent, school, guidance counselor, government worker, etc. to read and distribute to their students/staff/organizations. Also, free The Truth About Drugs Campaign Folders can be ordered as well, all at www.drugfreeworld.org, which contains public service announcements on most drugs including marijuana, alcohol, cocaine, painkillers, Ecstasy, Heroin, Crack Cocaine, and more. To order these free materials, watch the public service announcements, and arrange for an event at your location, visit Connect for Kids and fill our your order/inquiry on the web. You can also email Meghan Fialkoff, New York Coordinator of Foundation for a Drug Free World, at dirprnyd@gmail.com.

The numbers are staggering in this year's UNICEF State of the World's Children report. More than half a million women die each year from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth. Women in the least developed countries face risks 300 times greater than those in the industrialized world.

Lisa Fitzhugh says Seattle should change its current plan-for-failure: increasing spending on prisons and cutting funding for schools. Schools need more funding to provide attention to individual needs and talents that help students succeed.

Findings in this new comprehensive report on youth and teen courts strongly suggest local youth and teen courts are not only the most replicated juvenile justice program in America -- but they are also among the leading youth service programs. More than 111,000 juvenile cases were handled in local youth and teen courts in a one year period, with 97,578 completing their peer-imposed sanction.