NEWSBYELIZABETH RENTER

Grand jury proceedings examining the death of Pace University student Danroy "DJ" Henry concluded Monday, with jurors announcing that they believed the officer responsible for Henry’s death did not commit a crime. Though the Henry family and supporters held out hope they would hear otherwise, the decision ultimately came as no surprise.

“Our faith was never in DiFiore (the local District Attorney), it was in God," Mr. Henry said at a press conference. "But we were hoping she would surprise us.”

The overwhelming lack of surprise was based on the knowledge that the closed-door proceedings that had been going on for the past few weeks were tainted by close, interdependent professional relationships and couldn’t possibly result in an unbiased outcome. Mr. Henry compared it to a family investigating the guilt of their own brother, not likely to end with an indictment.

Ask a supporter of “Scared Straight” tactics how they know the approach is effective in reforming troubled youth and they’ll likely give you a “it would have worked for me” sort of answer. Ask anyone educated in the field of juvenile justice how they know it doesn’t work and they will point to a body of research. Which do you think is more convincing?

Sure, a gut feeling tells us scaring kids away from crime might work -- after all, parents threaten and yell at their kids every single day. But study after study has shown the tactics being used in A&E’s Beyond Scared Straight television series to not only be ineffective, but potentially harmful to the kids involved.

In an argument that’s been going back and forth for years now, one side in New Orleans fought for a smaller prison, something that would have the potential to change the city’s notoriety as a hub of incarceration. The other side, mainly led by the local sheriff, Marlin Gusman, held onto the jail-culture, requesting sometimes a larger prison and other times, to keep the old one open.

The argument was finally resolved last week when the New Orleans City Council voted to approve a new facility, one that’s only a fraction of the size of the crumbling leviathan that it's to replace.

At one point in recent history, Orleans Parish Prison (OPP) used to hold inmates at both the local and state level, contained one bed for every 65 Orleans’ residents. The current institution has 3,500 beds and has served to make the city not just the most incarcerated in the United States, but the entire world.

It has been seven months since Zac Champommier was shot and killed by plain clothes police. His mother still hasn’t received an official report on the events of that fateful night, nor has she been told the name of the person who pulled the trigger. In a case where there seems to be a lot of finger pointing and little real accountability, another promising young man is gone and another mother is in mourning, asking why.

Zac Champommier was 18, an honor student and a self-proclaimed “band geek." He had recently graduated high school and was preparing to enter college in a few months. On the night of June 24, he went to meet a new friend and see a movie. They were to meet in a Studio City parking lot, behind a Chipotle. But when Zac showed up, he saw his friend being rushed by a group of seemingly-aggressive men.

Some have surmised Zac became scared and attempted to leave the lot; others say he drove toward the group as if to intervene. But in the end, one man would be hit by Zac’s car and Zac would be shot dead.

What Zac didn’t know at the time was the group of men confronting his friend, Douglas Ryan Oeters, were all law enforcement. The officers, including members of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), DEA and LA County Sheriff’s Department had just executed a search warrant and were hanging out in the parking lot “debriefing." According to the officers, they saw Oeters walking around the lot, looking in cars, and believed he was casing them for theft. Oeters contends he did look in a white car because he thought Zac had beat him to the lot.

Officials in Santa Clara County, California, are coming together to potentially make some pretty significant changes to the juvenile justice system there -- changes that could signal a recognition by local officials that juveniles are “not just short people," as Juvenile Court Judge Patrick Tondreau has said, but a unique population with a unique set of needs best served by a cooperative effort focused on treatment and prevention, rather than punishment.

At the recent State of the County address, Santa Clara County Supervisor Dave Cortese said he would like to see 2011 be “The Year of the Child." He went on to add that his ultimate goal would be to put the local juvenile hall “out of business.”

Among the changes he’s suggesting is raising the age at which children are sent to lock-up. Currently, policy recommends against jailing anyone under the age of 13. As if that wasn’t low enough, reports of kids as young as 10 being locked up in the juvenile hall have circulated. “Eventually," he says, he would like to see that age raised to 16. While it’s unclear just how soon “eventually” is, we’re calling on him to get it done now.

It was bound to happen: a fiscally responsible recommendation that promotes more judicial discretion and less incarceration has been labeled “soft on crime” by the Association of Indiana Prosecuting Attorneys.

The proposed legislation stands to save the state of Indiana over $1 billion in the coming years by encouraging alternatives to incarceration that actually promote rehabilitation and lower recidivism. But in taking plays from a tired and unsuccessful playbook, county prosecutors in the state have voted to oppose the measure.

Proposed changes were first recommended in a state commissioned report from the Pew Center on the States and the Council of State Governments Justice Center. Soon after the report was released, I reported that Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) was supporting the recommended changes, which include more judicial discretion in the least serious of offenses, bolstering incarceration alternatives like mental health and drug treatment centers, and tightening the reins on high risk offenders under community supervision -- all aimed at reducing the prison population, preventing recidivism and saving bundles of taxpayer money.

But rather than objectively evaluating the proposed changes and their benefits to the state, prosecutors have spoken out in opposition, claiming the recommendations would put the people of Indiana at risk -- and using the term we’ve all grown to hate: “soft on crime." They must have missed the part of the report that stated 55 percent of new incarcerations in the state are for nonviolent thefts and low-level drug offenses. Maybe they also overlooked the part showing Indiana’s incarceration rate is about three times higher than other states in the region.

The cable network A&E shattered their previously held records last week when their Beyond Scared Straight series premiered to 3.7 million viewers, all interested in seeing at-risk youth berated by grown inmates in hopes of setting them on a path to productive adulthood. What the series’ producers failed to tell that audience, however, is the Scared Straight approach rarely works and may even increase a child’s chances of future criminality.

The show is an extension of a program that began decades ago, a method of juvenile crime prevention showcased in a 1978 Oscar- and Emmy-winning documentary by the same name. Scared Straight! was directed by Arnold Shapiro, who's also the prodcuer of the new A&E series. The philosophy goes something like this: take kids with attitude problems or already existing criminal histories into the adult prison system and show them what it really means to be a big, bad criminal. Let the inmates call them names, threaten them and generally bully them into reconsidering their delinquent ways.

While the thought of taking a troubled kid and “letting them have it” seems like it might have some worth on a purely disciplinary level, the Scared Straight approach has repeatedly been shown to do more harm than good. In a study by the Washington State Institute for Public Policy, Scared Straight was the only one of 29 juvenile programs that was shown to actually increase the chances that a child would have future interactions with the justice system. The study is just one of many that have had similar findings: that Scared Straight can have lasting negative effects on the kids that participate in it.

He was their “golden child” says Angella Henry, mother of slain Pace University student Danroy “DJ” Henry Jr. He was the child that did everything right, from his academics, his devotion to family, his health, sports, and church, there was nothing that could have foretold his demise. He always made the right choices and even the night of his death, he chose Finnegan’s to hang out because he knew it was a “safe” crowd.

When I spoke with Mrs. Henry, she said she knows it could have been anyone’s child. But it wasn’t. It was hers.

The grand jury began viewing evidence last week behind closed doors. She says that’s one of the hardest things, being kept in the dark. Though Danroy, DJ’s father, will testify, that is the only time a family member or even their attorney will be present during the grand jury. This fact paired with the knowledge that the same police department under investigation took part in gathering evidence for the investigation has the Henry family and supporters questioning just how fair the proceedings will be.

Mrs. Henry wants people to know what they’ve been through, expecting truth and transparency, and then realizing it wouldn’t come easy. She wants them to know that the police didn’t call to tell her DJ had been shot; it was a nurse, and only after specifically being asked did she tell them it was a police officer on the other end of the gun. When they arrived at the hospital, no department official was there to greet them or discuss what happened. In fact, Danroy had to call the police himself and ask to be seen. The police department was actually planning a press conference about the shooting before anyone had even spoken to the family.

“We live in this country. We pay taxes," Angella says, trying to convey to me the utter disbelief they continue to struggle with in regards to the handling of their son’s death.

What are the chances that a suspect could be accused of armed rape and even possibly false imprisonment, found to have left DNA on the victim, and get off with a misdemeanor charge? Well they are pretty good if that suspect is a police officer in San Antonio.

Former San Antonio Officer Craig Nash will be spending a year in jail, a far cry from the sentence he could have faced if rape charges were filed. But in another case of special privilege behind the badge, Nash was offered a chance that most “regular folks” don’t get in similar circumstances.

Early last year a transgendered prostitute came into a police station stating she had just been raped in the back of a police car. She had been picked up by Officer Nash, cuffed in the squad car, and told to lie down in the back seat as he drove to a remote location. Once there she was forced to commit sexual acts on Nash before he took her back into town and dropped her off near a school. She immediately caught a bus to the police station. A rape kit would later show Nash’s DNA present on the victim.

Although prosecutor Trey Banack stated that a "police officer who is a criminal does not deserve mercy from the system he protects," it was his office that negotiated a extremely merciful plea agreement with Nash, wherein the corrupt cop agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of official oppression and the prosecutor agreed to not pursue a felony charge. Oh, and they agreed not to pursue charges in another case where Nash was accused of raping a citizen back in 2008.

Another police raid and yet another innocent family caught up in a failed war that sends heavily armed, masked and hyped up cops in search of largely nonviolent offenders. This time the raid happened in Spring Valley, New York, and left a 13-year-old child vomiting and gasping for air in an asthma attack triggered by the over-the-top and misdirected actions of police and DEA agents.

Several agencies executed numerous search warrants before dawn early in January. But when the SWAT team, complete with guns drawn, forced their way into the home at 36 Sharon Drive, they didn’t find the “Michael” they kept screaming for. It wasn’t because Michael was hiding or even out for the night -- it was because Michael lived down the street at 46 Sharon Drive.

The McKay family, including husband David, wife, 13-year-old daughter, and brother-in-law, were all roused from their sleep and rounded up by masked law enforcement agents. The child was pulled from her bed and “drug” down the stairs. She would later be taken to the emergency room for the resulting asthma attack, vomiting, and fainting episode. The entire family was led outside while officers searched inside for Michael, with the father in his underwear on the front lawn desperately trying to explain that no such person lived there.