Iowa's Exective Order

A part of my research has included finding executive orders that are from other states for the purpose of reducing the number of minorities that are detained. There are some states that have initiatives to do so but Iowa has an actual executive order that was issued by the governor to help reduce the disparity of minorities being detained. Here is the link to the executive order http://publications.iowa.gov/5705/1/05-071030.pdf the executive is a model for one that is being developed to bring forward to the governor. I have been assigned to find as much information as I can on this and then help right up the executive order that will be given to the governor.

Environment of the Children, Youth and Family Department

One of the best things that I have seen here at my internship is the way that people help each other. There is a good environment and it seems that everybody sees the many goal of the division and they are willing to help other out when they need it. The people seem to work out any disagreements quickly and there very kind to each other.

An Example of the Minority Committe

There is an inspiring example of how someone changed the problems with the minority disparity in juvenile detention centers. In Washington there is a man who helped change the problem. The statistics showed that the there was a proper representation of each race in the juvenile detention centers. It seemed like a great success. But when we looked into it closer to see how they accomplished this we found that one man ran the juvenile detention and he himself changed which people were put into juvenile detention centers. This was interesting because in Maricopa county it is to complicated for this type of effort. So this is not viable for our situation.

State Minority

Some of the problems that are faced by this department is the incarceration of minorities. There is a committee committed to trying to reduce the number of minorities that are put in to detention. This committee is set up to reducing these problems throughout the state. One of my research projects is to see if there have been executive orders done that have to do with setting up a task force that would have authority to help change these problems throughout the state. There have been little done in the past about this problem. But there have been a push to change this throughout the country and there have been rising awareness of this problem throughout the United States.

Down Time

At this internship there has been a lot of down time. They have told me that this is slow time for the year. I have been doing a lot of research still for them, but I have come to dead end on a lot of it. So know I have gone around the office to try and find people that need help. I have been helping people move boxes and helping set up fundraiser for under privileged children.

Research

I have been doing a lot of research for the division for children. I have done research on what states have laws that determine the punishment for juveniles who have committed crimes. There were many solutions in states but most of them stated that they would have to be put in a juvenile detention for a judge determined amount of time. They then are placed on probation and will be assigned a probation officer. The reason for my research is that the governors office is looking to update the law and to see if there are other innovative practices around the nation.

Children's Welfare

I have been invited to a few meetings between the governors office and other departments. It has been interesting to see the complexity of some of the issues and the amount of effort that is put into the issues. One of the issues that they have discussed is children welfare. The questions that were brought up was how to help children that have parent who have been incarcerated. Some of the participants were from CPS and some from law enforcement. There were also some doctors there that worked with CPS. This is an ongoing issue that has taken a lot of effort. This meeting was missing some participants so they talked about the agenda for the next meeting. Which included how to give personal one on one attention to the children.