Lead Contacts     |     Issue Focus     |     Pilot Project Plan     |     Timeline     |     Progress Reports

 

 

Lead Contacts

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• Deanna Cooke, Director of Community-Based Research, Georgetown University's Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching and Service  | phone 202-687-8978
• Jennifer Woolard, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Georgetown University | profile | email  |  phone

 

 

Issue Focus

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•   Juvenile Justice

 

The District of Columbia Policy Options would be expanded gradually to include other local issues.  The basis of this expansion would rest on ongoing faculty research, community collaborations and research activities.  Starting with Juvenile Justice is particularly appealing because of the high level of research and teaching currently addressing this issue; and the extent to which faculty and students regularly work with local stakeholders on the issue.   Additional issue areas under consideration include affordable housing policy, and education reform.  

 

 

Progress Reports

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• Course Implementation Profile
• Semi-Annual Progress Reports
  • April 1, 2009 Progress Report
  • August 15, 2009 Progress Report
  • December 15, 2009 Progress Report
  • June 1, 2010 Progress Report

 

 

Pilot Project Plan

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1. Background 

 

“At Georgetown, I get to work with really smart students in the classroom and to put them in contact with kids who can use our help,” explains Dr. Woolard. “As practitioners in the field, we’re able to influence law and policy decisions. It’s a great experience for me and the students. We all get a lot out of learning about and helping these kids.”

 

The goal of Georgetown University's “District of Columbia Policy Options” program is to support and enhance current collaborations between faculty, students and community members who focus on the issues surrounding Juvenile Justice in Washington, DC.   The Policy Options approach offers several advantages for existing programming.

 

• Policy Options provides a structure for a consistent advancement of DC local issues that relate to what many perceive as a national crisis.
• PolicyOptions connects smoothly to ongoing activities both in terms of the philosophy of sharing knowledge about local social issues; supporting policy advancement on these issues; and training students to be engaged scholars who are able to see the connection between their academic work and real societal change and action.
• PolicyOptions establishes a formal collaborative mechanism between community members, non-profit organizations, and the academic community, each of which has their own discipline-specific network.

 

 

2. Student Engagement 

 

At Georgetown University the Department of Psychology and the Georgetown Public Policy Institute have a combined Ph.D./M.PP. Program in which students are engaged in policy oriented social issues.  One issue in particular is that of Juvenile Justice in Washington, DC and the broader metropolitan region. 

 

The PolicyOptions project would leverage existing coursework, community-based learning and research efforts, and policy analysis on the Georgetown campus with grassroots efforts of local organizations and strong attention from DC government.

 

 

3. Faculty Engagement

 

As part of ongoing activities through research labs and through courses being taught at the graduate and undergraduate levels, Georgetown University has a small but committed group of faculty teacher/scholars with policy and practice experience. Directed by assistant professor of psychology Dr. Jennifer Woolard, the Center for Research on Adolescents, Women, and the Law (CRAWL) currently engages approximately 6-8 undergraduates and 2-4 graduate students per term in direct empirical research on juvenile justice.  These students are learning about issues in juvenile justice, engaging in local and national level research and writing and presenting their work at local and national conferences.

 

 In addition to the laboratory activities, several courses are currently being taught that include or are exclusively oriented toward juvenile justice topics.  Through the laboratory work and courses, students at both the graduate level and the undergraduate level would populate the policy Options website on issues related to Juvenile Justice Policies in Washington, DC.  Faculty from the School of Law, Georgetown Institute of Public Policy, and the Main Campus all conduct research and policy analysis on juvenile justice.  

 

The time is ripe for a juvenile justice-oriented PolicyOptions initiative. Long under judicial scrutiny for problems, the DC juvenile justice system had undertaken a substantial number of reforms in the past 5 years.  The DC government has also made changes in the law enforcement and prosecution strategies in response to real and perceived changes in juvenile crime. Georgetown’s ongoing collaboration with these agencies as well as community non-profits establishes a dynamic environment in which undergraduate and graduate students could research current and upcoming policy issues and disseminate them to numerous stakeholders. 

 

Such dissemination would take the form of Issue Briefs that would be posted to PolicyOptions.org and sent as links to our partnering organization.  Our goal will be to utilize the briefs in collaboration with our community partners to support changes in local juvenile justice policies.  Further, these briefs would be used to share information about the current state of policies and the changes policy changes that are taking place in relationship to Juvenile Justice Policies.

 

Because the D.C. PolicyOptions.Org will begin as a collaborative between several offices at Georgetown University, the use of the wiki page will be particularly useful for the collaborating students and faculty.  Students, faculty and community members will be able to work in an “e-committee” to review and revise issue briefs before they are made public. 

 

 

4. Deliberative Democracy Forum

 

Part of the work of the research labs and courses has been to develop and host policy forums on juvenile justice issues relevant to the DC community.  Georgetown faculty members have hosted forums on the role of parents in juvenile justice process and the implications of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child for juvenile justice policy.  This project would allow those forums to continue and address ongoing issues of concern, which include the incarceration of youth in adult jail, policy-youth interaction, and effective prevention strategies. 

 

 

5. Editorial/Advisory Board 

 

Please describe how you would organize and who you would involve on your local PolicyOptions.org Editorial/Advisory Board?  What department or center will "house" your local PolicyOptions.org initiative? 

 

 

 

Timeline

 

Spring 2009:  Pilot course on Children, Families, and the Law taught by Jennifer Woolard.  Students completed a 10-12 page literature review on a topic of their choice.  Of the 18 students enrolled in the course, four selected juvenile justice-related topics and talked with a community partner to produce information on the following: 

 

• Sentencing Youth to Life without Parole (USA)
• The Status of Education in Youth Correctional Facilities (USA, Washington DC)
• Mental Health Needs of Youth in the Justice System and Mental Health Courts (USA)

 

Students make presentations on campus on April 22.

 

We've hired Talia Sandwick, Class of 2009, as a one-month summer intern. She will be responsible for initial editing and fact-checking the four juvenile justice briefs.

 

We've hired Sarah Vidal, psychology graduate student in Human Development and Public Policy, as our summer intern.  She will be responsible for editing the briefs and placing the information on the wiki. She will also work with several of our existing community partners to plan for full course implementation in Fall 2010.   

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