THE FAMILY COURT PROJECT HAS COME TO A CLOSE.
Effective 6/1/08, Family Court Chronicles has become inactive (announcement), and
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Some say this is all part of a predictable economic cycle. Las Vegas has survived slowdowns before. Any city and nation goes through its ups and downs, and when times get tough you just got to hunker down and wait for them to get better.
But maybe they won’t get better. Vegas defied all the laws of moderation in its spectacular rise; maybe it will also defy them on its fall.
In the history of mankind, no city has grown so huge based on such a flimsy economic premise. Gambling has always existed on the periphery of society, but no one has tried to build a major city upon it until now. Ours is a brave experiment that’s never been tried before, so we can’t count on “cycles” to get us through. Maybe there’s only one cycle: a boom followed by a bust.
But Voy really wishes he had someplace else for the girls. Someplace safe but not institutional. Someplace homey but with doors that lock from the outside.
"They need a secure, safe environment," he says. "We need to get them out of the detention center, need time to assess their needs and figure out something that will work for each individual kid."
That's why he's been working for years with others in the juvenile justice world on a "safe house" idea for girls caught up in prostitution.
Voy managed to get an architectural firm to create pro bono renderings and blueprints for a 7,500-square-foot home, which he shows off in his office.
Voy says he's already been pledged a five-acre parcel of Bureau of Land Management land on which to build the home.
Now he needs to figure out how to staff and fund such a facility, how to persuade area municipalities to support it.
Comments from the Webmaster
This story got big play on the front page of the newspaper, using
one of the biggest headlines we've seen in the Rebuke-Urinal™.
This hardly represents original reporting, however. It seems more like
a re-write of a story the Sun did over a year ago.
A meeting was held Saturday by the non-profit national organization Students Against Violence Everywhere, also known as S.A.V.E. The meeting kicked off the National Youth Violence Prevention Week.
People who came out, talked about what needs to be done to stop violence from breaking out in schools.
Five local chapters of Students Against Violence Everywhere will be starting up here in the valley by the next school year.
CARSON CITY -- Unless preventive steps are taken, it is only a matter of time before a Nevada public school or college is the scene of a horrific killing spree like those at Columbine High School and Virginia Tech, Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto said Thursday.
Clark County School District students tested in January on their grasp of first semester material in high school algebra and geometry didn't just fall short of the mark.
The preliminary report on end of semester exams shows they missed it in a spectacular way.
Across the valley, 90.5 percent of 17,586 students who took the new end of semester exams for Algebra 1 failed, scoring at 59 percent or lower.
In Geometry, 87.8 percent of 18,792 students earned the equivalent of an F.
The 10,032 students in Algebra 2 also made a dismal showing, with 86.6 percent unable to achieve a passing grade.
Gerald Hardcastle, one of the six original judges in Clark County Family Court, has informed Gov. Jim Gibbons that he will resign on July 1 after 15 years in the position.
Hardcastle notified the governor in a letter dated March 17. The judge could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
"He turns 62 on June 1, and he's ready to do something else," said Chief District Judge Kathy Hardcastle, his ex-wife. She said her ex-husband's immediate plans involve taking sailing lessons off the coast of California.
"He just wants to decompress for a while," she said. "He'll be coming back as a senior judge at some point." ...
Gibbons will appoint a replacement for Gerald Hardcastle, whose term ends in 2010, after receiving the names of three nominees from the Commission on Judicial Selection.
Comments from the Webmaster
This resignation does not come as a surprise. He's been winding down.
By quitting now rather than at the end of his term, Hardcastle assures
that a reasonably qualified candidate will replace him (chosen by the
judicial commission) rather than an incompetent one chosen by the voters.
"Obviously we've got tight credit and qualifying requirements," the president of Home Builders Research said. "Those are factors, too. I could go on and on. I think we're close to the bottom, but it's going to be an extended bottom."
Any recovery won't be in the shape of a "V" but a flat-bottom "U," Smith told about 7 00 builders, developers, mortgage brokers and real estate agents at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
He predicted that median new-home prices will finish the year at $274,000, about $1,000 more than February's median, though it will dip further between now and then. He thinks 2009 will show a 2.2 percent increase to $280,000 and 2010 will be about the same, with prices conservatively climbing to $286,000.
Comments from the Webmaster
Soothsayer rubbish! How can anyone know what the housing
market will do?
Police have arrested five teenage suspects in a three-day crime spree that damaged cars, homes and other property last week in southwest Las Vegas.
One adult, identified by police as Randall McCall, and four high school age juveniles, whose names have not been released, are suspected to have been involved in at least 43 reported incidents of vandalism -- 15 on Thursday, 14 on Friday and 14 on Saturday.
The report cites the "high-risk conditions of Las Vegas," including easy access to alcohol and drugs, nonstop gaming and the "hyper-sexualized entertainment industry" as contributing to the local problem.
There is no local safe house specifically used for sexually trafficked children, Smith said.
A program to provide counseling and treatment for teen prostitutes at WestCare recently closed.
Another problem in Las Vegas and elsewhere is that trafficked children are treated like delinquents instead of victims and often are punished more harshly by the justice system than are their pimps, Smith said.
Child prostitutes are arrested every month in Las Vegas. It's big business done in the shadows -- back rooms and in the hotels. Now, a new report confirms the prostitution of minors is a major problem in Las Vegas.
There is no way to put exact numbers on how many children are involved, but the women's crisis group, Shared Hope, tried to shed light on the extent of the sex trafficking of minors. The organization provided these interviews with child prostitutes as well as traffickers to highlight the problem. ...
Nationwide, 100,000 to 300,000 children are at risk for sexual exploitation. The average age for children to be sold into prostitution is 12 to 14. Here in Clark County, 30-percent of victims were sold for sex by family members.
Our county also has the highest number of juvenile prostitution cases in the U.S. The study found that one third of the minors trapped into prostitution in Las Vegas are from here. Two thirds are from 40 different states and brought here to be bought.
Nearly every kid in the juvenile
justice system is a victim in one way or
another. Nearly every repeat offender
has been abused or neglected. Why are
we giving special treatment to this
particular class of juvenile delinquent?
A new federal study shows that depression among adults is dropping slightly across the country but here in Nevada, the rate is going up. New numbers show our state has the highest reported cases of depression in the nation.
Crimes of opportunity have helped to make Nevada the most dangerous place to be in the nation. Nowhere else in the country are there more robberies or cars stolen. But one of the main reasons we are the most dangerous state is our third place ranking for murders. ...
The newest report by Congressional Quarterly claims Nevada is the most dangerous state to live in -- a claim some living here would agree with as they find themselves victims of crimes.
Comments from the Webmaster
This can't be good for real estate values. Who wants to move to the
most dangerous state in the union?
What message does it send to kids
when they have to pass through airport
security every day or are subject to
random wanding?
“We don’t trust you.”
Apart from the cost of purchasing
and operating the equipment—which
must be diverted from actual teaching—
this kind of security would be just one
more step in the transformation of our
educational system into a prison system.
Is this generation of teens experiencing more despair, that is, less access to meaning? I'm leaning toward a big yes! I often wonder if our current culture is without precedent in marginalizing and disrespecting adolescents, mostly by expecting so little from them. Drug/alcohol use, empty, precocious sexuality, apathy toward education/vocation, defiance in principle to authority -- these behaviors speak to me of despair.
Miller runs Living Grace Home, a transitional group home for pregnant girls and young women who don't want to have an abortion and have no place else to go.
In the year since it opened in a quiet residential neighborhood near Sunset Road and Valle Verde Drive in Henderson, the facility has housed 20 such girls and women. ...
Miller said she was inspired to start Living Grace after seeing "a real lack of services" for pregnant teens. The home operates on a $225,000 yearly budget, most of it from private donations.
The home's mission statement says Living Grace is "a nondenominational home run under Christian principles" and "an alternative to abortion."
Comments from the Webmaster
This facility is obviously funded by evangelical sources in support
of an anti-abortion position.
The big question is what happens to the baby and mother after the
child is born. It would be interesting to see what kind of life they
lead after leaving this "transitional home."
The news spread quickly at Kathy and Tim Harney Middle School that a sixth grader had been killed Wednesday in a violent attack.
And just as quickly, Clark County School District’s crisis team sprang into action. ...
Counselors were deployed to the South Hollywood Boulevard campus to talk with students and staff. District administrators also visited to offer support.
Comments from the Webmaster
We've always been a little suspicious of the whole "crisis counseling"
profession. Could it sometimes cause more damage than the crisis itself?
By being so damn open and caring, does
it elevate small, local crises into big, widespread ones?
Interestingly, the size of the school is going to affect the extent of the
trauma. If a school has 100 students, only 100 will be traumatized. A school
with 1000 kids is going to have 1000 traumatized. That's just one of the costs of educational mass-production.
By going into each classroom with a crisis SWAT team, are we maybe
spreading the trauma further than it needs to be?
Crisis counseling is essentially media spin control, since none of the
schoolkids would know about the killing without being told about it on
TV. Crisis counseling is apparently needed to undo the damage done
by news reports.
The best way for children to handle the death of a classmate is probably
just to be told that she died, not all the grisly details.
A local divorce attorney has been suspended. The Southern Nevada Disciplinary Board temporarily suspended Jeanne Winkler pending formal disciplinary proceedings against her.
According to court documents, Winkler may have misappropriated over $200,000 from clients and third party lien holders.
The board concluded that Winkler poses a substantial threat of serious harm to the public.
Parents and students gathered Wednesday night for a Town Hall meeting. Their goal was to find solutions to stop the violence that is plaguing schools and students. One of the more recent cases, which is still very fresh in the minds of students, was the shooting of 15-year-old Palo Verde student Chris Privett.
Consultants Gary Avery and Ralph Griffith, the vice president of field operations for the national group, recommended against the use of fixed metal detectors stationed at a school's entry, saying the practice does not work and can lead to complacency and inconsistencies in application.
Instead, the report suggests the district purchase small hand-held detectors that can be used discreetly in school hallways. Advances in technology mean that the latest generation of detectors, available for $100 to $150, are better at discerning what is and isn't a threat without causing embarrassment to students.
At Wednesday night's meeting, the school district will discuss a new report on school safety. That report says the Clark County School District should get metal detectors but that they'll only work as part of a larger school safety program.
The judicial commission is responsible for punishing judges and often makes its findings public. But there are cases in which it has reprimanded judges or resolved complaints behind closed doors.
That means the public in some instances may never learn if a judge is punished or even if a judge is accused of wrongdoing.
I feel comfortable saying aloud what
the complaint only hints at. In the seven
years he has been on the bench, many or
most of his rulings were deeply prejudiced.
They were based not on the merits
of the case or the interests of children
but on his own petty emotional needs.
"The poor are more on their own here," says University of Nevada, Las Vegas professor Tom Carroll, who teaches a class called The Economics of Inequality, Poverty and Discrimination.
"The problem is that we have such a weak safety net: lack of child care and social services, and the problems with the health care system," Carroll says. "So I think it takes them longer to dig their way out."
Comments from the Webmaster
A rare R-J article on social conditions in Las Vegas, written by the
last reporter we would expect — the does-people's-jobs guy.
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3/31/08:
Las Vegas Economy: The Perfect Storm
(Family Court Chronicles/Glenn Campbell)
Entities:
The Great Las Vegas Crash (subject) 
3/30/08:
Teen prostitutes have friend: Judge working to find ways to keep girls out of detention, off streets
(Las Vegas Review-Journal/Lynnette Curtis)
Entities:
William Voy (subject),
Juvenile Prostitution (subject),
S.A.F.E. House (subject) 
3/27/08:
HOUSING: Analyst senses slump's bottom: Resale prices will rebound by 2009, observer says
(Las Vegas Review-Journal/Hubble Smith)
Entities:
The Great Las Vegas Crash (subject) 
3/25/08:
Five nabbed in vandalism spree: At least 43 incidents reported over three-day period
(Las Vegas Review-Journal/Scott Spjut)
3/25/08:
Las Vegas Named Major Destination For Sex Trafficking of Minors
(KLAS-TV/Edward Lawrence)
Includes a link to a 175-page report from Shared Hope International. Entities:
Juvenile Prostitution (subject) 
3/24/08:
Safe House Seduction: There’s no doubt teen prostitutes are victims. The question is, should they be treated that way?
(Family Court Chronicles/Glenn Campbell)
Newsletter #38 Entities:
Juvenile Prostitution (subject) 
3/17/08:
THEY'RE KILLING US WITH SAFETY! Installing metal detectors in schools could increase violence, not deter it.
(Family Court Chronicles/Glenn Campbell)
Family court newsletter #37 Entities:
School Shootings (response to),
Clark County School District (subject) 
3/16/08:
HUMAN MATTERS: Are today's violent teens different from teens of the past?
(Las Vegas Review-Journal/Steven Kalas)
Entities:
School Shootings (response to) 
3/16/08:
'They don't come to us from finishing school': Pregnant girls and women who don't want abortions find refuge in Living Grace Home
(Las Vegas Review-Journal/Lynnette Curtis)
Entities:
teenpregnancy (subject) 
3/15/08:
Student shot in foot near school: Police find at least seven shell cases
(Las Vegas Review-Journal/Scott Spjut)
Entities:
School Shootings (incident) 
3/13/08:
School Violence Takes Center Stage at Community Meeting
(KLAS-TV/Amanda Hernandez)
Entities:
School Shootings (response to) 
3/12/08:
Report Recommends Metal Detectors at Schools
(KLAS-TV/Adrienne Augustus)
Entities:
School Shootings (response to) 
3/10/08:
THE REAL DEL VECCHIO DAMAGE: Abuse of his Litigants
(Family Court Chronicles/Glenn Campbell)
Family court newsletter #36 Entities:
Nicholas Del Vecchio (subject) 
