Judicial Action on Underage Drinking:

Judicial E-News header September 2011 Judicial Action on Underage Drinking:

Judicial & Probation Outreach Project:

OJJDP logo

On behalf of the Judicial and Probation Outreach Project team, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) would like to thank you for your interest in underage drinking-related issues and best and promising practices to create safer and healthier environments for our nation’s youth; and encourage you to engage in discussions about the topic to identify promising court practices and community engagement that will not only impact the individual youth, but will have long lasting effects in changing community norms and responses to this complex public health and safety issue.

Jeff Slowikowski

Office of the Administration

Acting Administrator

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

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Inside this Issue

Judicial Action on Underage Drinking

Court Spotlight on Underage Drinking

Electronic Seminars

Connecting to the News

Did You Know? Useful Data and/or Legal References on Underage Drinking

Feedback

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Please visit our enhanced website at www.udetc.org for the latest information on underage drinking and judicial resources.

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13th Annual Enforcing Underage Drinking Laws (EUDL) National Leadership Conference (NLC)– A Success!

NLC 2011 PRogram coverThe 13th Annual EUDL NLC was held on August 10-12, 2011, at the Rosen Center Hotel in Orlando, Florida. This year’s NLC theme was “Spotlighting Community Solutions to Underage Drinking”. Nearly 1,800 energized and motivated community leaders attended this conference, including strong representation from the justice community – judges, prosecutors, probation officers, and others serving their community District, Municipal, and Teen Courts added invaluable support for the nation’s premier underage drinking prevention conference. This year’s conference included plenary and workshop sessions focusing on the critical need for strong judicial and probation leadership in prevention efforts to reduce underage drinking. Below is a recap of legal-related programs spotlighted during this year’s NLC.

  • Plenary Session #4—Voices of Effective Leadership
  • Featured Dialogue #2—Working with the Justice Community on Underage Drinking: The Power of Full Engagement
  • Preconference Workshop Session Basic 11—Legal Issues in Lay Language: Enforcing Underage Drinking Laws
  • Workshop Session A11—Macon County, IL Youth Courts: Teen Court and Truancy Court
  • Workshop Session B4—Underage Drinking: Prevention and Intervention Principles for Community Corrections
  • Workshop Session C3—Reducing Sales to Minors by Impacting the Bottom Line
  • Workshop Session C8—Promoting Effective Justice Alternatives for Teens: Creating and Sustaining
  • Workshop Session F2—Juvenile Drug Courts in West Virginia

Plenary session recordings and presentation materials from workshop sessions will be available within the next 30 to 60 days on the Underage Drinking Enforcement Training Center’s (UDETC) website at www.udetc.org/conference2011.

Court Spotlight on Underage Drinking:

Judge Says Nebraska Must Tax ‘Alcopops’ as Liquor (Published February 17, 2011, NE)

LINCOLN, Neb. — LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) – A judge has decided that Nebraska should be taxing so-called alcopops at a much-higher hard liquor rate, meaning the price could jump for drinks such as Mike’s Hard Lemonade, Smirnoff Ice and Bacardi Breezers. The difference between the beer and hard liquor rates is more than $3 a gallon, so the price of these beverages is likely to increase if the ruling stands.

The products start out as brewed malt beverages but are flavored with distilled spirits. Lancaster County District Judge John Coburn ruled Monday that state law dictates that a drink containing any distilled alcohol should be taxed as hard liquor.

A mother and three Nebraska groups that fight underage drinking filed the lawsuit in 2009. It challenged the state Liquor Control Commission’s decision to let alcopops be classified as beer instead of hard liquor.

To read more, click on https://www.udetc.org/documents/judicial/201109eNews/Nebraska.pdf or copy and paste the link to your internet browser.

Electronic Seminars:

communityIntervention Principles and Practice Guidelines for Community Corrections on Underage Drinking

Date: Thursday, September 29, 2011

Time: 3:00-4:15 p.m. Eastern

Description: This program is the eleventh in a series of audio-teleconference presentations produced by the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation (PIRE) in association with the Underage Drinking Enforcement Training Center (UDETC) and the American Probation and Parole Association (APPA) in cooperation with the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) with a focus on the relationship of the judicial and probation communities and the issues related to underage alcohol abuse.

September brings the release of a new publication on the response of community corrections to the issue of underage drinking. The American Probation and Parole Association (APPA), in cooperation with the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation (PIRE), has developed a comprehensive document that explores the scope of this multi-faceted problems associated with alcohol use among youth. Undoubtedly, this is an issue that is one of the most significant public health and safety issues facing our nation’s youth. The document outlines a series of practice guidelines and guiding principles for the community corrections field with the intent to implement more effective responses to underage drinking youth who become involved in the justice system. In this seminar, the speakers will deliver a valuable summary of the document and discuss its resource value to all segments of the justice community. Participants will learn information in which they can use to implement practices that have been found to be effective in addressing the issues faced by working with underage drinking youth.

Presenters:

Susan Burke

Director

Utah Division of Juvenile Justice Services

Salt Lake City, Utah

Tracy Mullins

Deputy Director

American Probation and Parole Association

Lexington, Kentucky

Nathan Lowe

Research Associate

American Probation and Parole Association

Lexington, Kentucky

*Visit https://www.udetc.org/audioconf_judicialregistration.asp to register for this free program and see a schedule of upcoming audio conferences. Course objectives, outline and CLE certificate provided upon request. Visit our website to listen to past programs that may be of interest to you.* You may also email future topic recommendations to Aidan Moore at [email protected]. Thank you for your interest in our electronic seminar series.

Connecting to the News:

binge drinkingUnderage binge drinking has the potential to cause long term brain injury, according to a study (Published April 5, 2011, UK)

https://www.udetc.org/documents/judicial/

201109eNews/binge.pdf

Four Loko Producers Subpoenaed by NY Senator Klein (Published June 2, 2011, NY)

https://www.udetc.org/documents/judicial/201109eNews/four.pdf

Virginia Aims to Lessen Underage Drinking and Driving (Published June 20, 2011, VA)

https://www.udetc.org/documents/judicial/201109eNews/Virginia.pdf

Did You Know? Useful Data and/or Legal References on Underage Drinking:

jet fightersOJJDP Releases Bulletin on Reducing Underage Drinking in the Air Force (Published August 2011)

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) has released, “Reducing Drinking Among Underage Air Force Members in Five Communities

The bulletin describes the early findings of an evaluation of OJJDP’s Enforcing Underage Drinking Laws (EUDL) initiative in five Air Force communities. Authors compare rates of drinking in the five communities to comparison groups and to the Air Force overall.

The bulletin is the first in a series OJJDP is producing on underage drinking, which will highlight the dangers of underage drinking and provide guidelines for policy and practice.

Resources: “Reducing Drinking Among Underage Air Force Members in Five Communities” (NCJ 232616) is available at http://www.ojjdp.gov/publications/PubAbstract.asp?pubi=254704.

Print copies can be ordered online from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service.

brainFacts about Alcohol and Adolescent Health

We now recognize that underage drinking must be addressed, not as an isolated phenomenon, but as one fully embedded in the context of child and adolescent development. From birth through adolescence, a complex cascade of biological, psychological and social development interacts with dynamic environmental influences, leading to behavior that may either move individuals toward or away from underage drinking.

To learn more about this document produced by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, click on https://www.udetc.org/documents/judicial/201109eNews/facts.pdf or copy and paste this link to your internet browser in order to locate the information.

We Want to Hear from You:
We recognize that judges play a vital role in educating underage youth and adults who appear before them, and heavily influence community norms around the complex issues of underage drinking. Our project seeks out judges, courts, and judicial initiatives that can be held up as models for the rest of the country, and research that would be useful to the Courts when addressing these cases. We are looking for examples to highlight in our “Judicial Action on Underage Drinking” section to document how a judge, court, or judicial initiative has developed and implemented successful strategies on the complex issues around underage alcohol problems. We are also looking for media features about court responses to underage drinking that can be placed in future Judicial E-News communications and posted to our website as a resource for others in the field who may find the information of interest. If you would like to share your successes with us, please contact Aidan Moore at [email protected], or Holly Torske at [email protected]. We look forward to working with you and expanding our outreach to the judicial and probation communities about best and promising court practices on underage drinking-related issues.
The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent the views of the Office of Juvenile Justice for Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) or the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation (PIRE) and are solely those of the author/source.