Officials in northern Ohio are seeing what they describe as an epidemic of drug use and offenses by juveniles. In Geauga County, in northeast Ohio, drug charges increased by 38.8 percent, and felony drug charges increased by 180 percent, according to the local juvenile court’s 2010 annual report. The main drug being used is marijuana,…

Editor’s Note: The following story contains graphic language and images. It may not be suitable for all readers. One day, long before he found himself wanting to die in a cheap motel, Chris Blum got caught shooting up heroin at work. Needless to say, he lost his job. “That’s when I started going sort of…

Sunday’s Atlanta Journal Constitution has a story about 17-year-old Jonathan Bun, the youth who stands accused of the recent shooting death of a Clayton County, Ga., sheriff’s deputy. The story quotes Judge Steven Teske, a frequent contributor to the JJIE, as saying that he and other authorities in the state’s system recognized Bun as hardened…

STEMester of Service Grants support middle school teachers in engaging kids in a semester of service. This grant helps kids build a framework for service learning, addressing critical environmental and disaster preparedness needs, and connecting them to science, technology, engineering and math. This is to help increase the students’ academic achievement. The STEM Schools must…

Editor’s Note: The following story contains graphic language and images. It may not be suitable for all readers. Chris Blum is laughing again, each breath a small wheeze followed by a noise that cuts through the surrounding sounds of the coffee shop patio. It’s full and rich, staccato and guttural; four beats long, the laugh…

I have seven boys, and all of them struggled in high school. None were star athletes or straight-A students. They just wanted to get by, so they could grab their diplomas. They tended to do well in interesting subjects, but in others they just drifted along. My middle son, Josh, struggled with the transition between…

A Riverdale Ga. teen charged in the shooting death of a Clayton County sheriff’s deputy has appeared in Clayton County Superior Court. Investigators say Jonathan Bun has already confessed to killing Clayton County Sheriff’s Deputy Rick Daly. Daly, 55, was shot and killed after he pulled over a Honda Civic that Bun was riding in….

Drugs in this country come in and out of style. Some of them leave the scene pretty quickly, thank goodness. Then there are the ones that always seem to linger unwelcomed, sometimes quiet in the background, sometimes bursting into the open. That’s heroin. Like a drunk at an otherwise pleasant gathering, it’s there around the…

“Some persons will shun crime even if we do nothing to deter them, while others will seek it out even if we do everything to reform them. Wicked people exist. Nothing avails except to set them apart from innocent people.” — James Q. Wilson, Harvard Professor and Crime Expert My youngest sister was the joy…

NEW YORK –There are advantages and difficulties, including legal barriers, to converting prostitution charges into an opportunity to provide services to girls on the street. That was the conclusion of a panel of experts assembled at the 74th annual conference of the National Association of Juvenile and Family Court Judges recently. “There is a conflict…