Blind Discretion: Girls of Color & Delinquency in the Juvenile Justice System

The juvenile justice system was designed to empower its decisionmakers with a wide grant of discretion in hopes of better addressing youth in a more individualistic and holistic, and therefore more effective, manner. Unfortunately for girls of color in the system, this discretionary charter given to police, probation officers, and especially judges has operated without sufficiently acknowledging and addressing their unique position. Indeed, the dearth of adequate gender/race intersectional analysis in the research and the stark absence of significant system tools directed at the specific characteristics of and circumstances faced by girls of color have tracked alarming trends such as the rising number of girls in the system and the relatively harsher punishment they receive compared to boys for similar offenses. This willful blindness must stop. This Article discusses the history and modern status of the juvenile justice system as it relates to girls of color, showing how it does not, in fact, relate to girls of color. There is hope, however. This Article concludes with policy recommendations, focusing on practical solutions and tools that will help decisionmakers exercise their considerable discretion to serve, rather than disserve, girls of color

The Construction and Criminalization of Disability in School Incarceration

This Article explores how race functions to ascribe and criminalize disability. It posits that for White students in wealthy schools, disabilities or perceived disabilities are often viewed as medical conditions and treated with care and resources. For students of color, however, the construction of disability (if it exists) may be a criminalized condition that is treated as warranting punishment and segregated classrooms, possibly leading to juvenile justice system involvement. Providing a review of the K-12 disability legal regimes, this Article maps how the process of identifying a student with a disability happens in a hypercriminalized school setting. The Article argues that the school itself contributes to the construction and criminalization of disability and that the attribution of disability is a product of the subjectivity built into the law, heavily surveilled school environments, and biases held by teachers and administrators. For students of color, instead of a designation that attracts more resources, disability is one of the mechanisms through which they are criminalized. This Article culminates with a call for scholars and practitioners to understand the web that exists in the construction and criminalization of disabilities for Black and Latinx children and the role that schools and school actors play in this process

Founding Journal Advisor’s Welcome Message

IMPORT OF THE RACE, GENDER, SEXUALITY, & SOCIAL JUSTICE LAW JOURNAL IN 2021 The launch of the Race, Gender, Sexuality and Social Justice Law Journal is no small feat and I applaud our student leaders for their fortitude in the middle of a year unlike any other. In 2020, our country underwent a national reckoning on race trigged by the unlawful death by police of several unarmed African American women and men while grappling with a global pandemic that halted life as we knew it. Our GGU law students, like all students everywhere, persevered – shifting to remote learning and remaining focused. Their longstanding goal to create a space at GGU Law to lift legal issues largely neglected by traditional legal scholarship remained remarkably steadfast. This Journal is a testament to their dedication to a project bigger than them and something that will outlive their time at GGU Law. I am deeply humbled to serve as their faculty advisor

Set Up To Fail: Youth Probation Conditions as a Driver of Incarceration

Youth probation is the most common form of punishment for youth in the United States criminal legal system, with nearly a quarter of a million youth currently under supervision. Yet the role youth probation conditions play in the incarceration of youth has not been the focus of legal scholarship. Youth probation is a court-imposed intervention where young people remain at home under the supervision of a youth probation officer and are required to adhere to probation conditions, rules, and court-ordered conditions. The orders rely on standardized terms on youth probation condition forms. This is the first scholarly Article to excavate original youth probation condition forms. It relies on data from 17 different urban and rural jurisdictions across the United States, including the five largest, and provides both a descriptive andperspective analysis of the problems with the design and execution of probation conditions. Based on my analysis of hundreds of youth probation conditions in these different jurisdictions, I argue that standard youth probation conditions are part of a youth probation system that is structurally flawed in its design and execution, and that probation conditions that lack an adolescent framework cause real harm to youth and their families—particularly those who are most vulnerable, especially youth of color. Simultaneously, youth probation systems concentrate power in probation officers, granting them inordinate discretionary power. Although youth probation is viewed as the ideal alternative to detention, I argue that youth probation in its current structure is a driver of incarceration—that should be viewed as part of a carceral state— in need of thoughtful re-imagination: perhaps even abolition

Web of Incarceration: School-Based Probation

Close to three quarters of a million cases flow through the United States’ juvenile justice system annually. Juvenile probation is the most commonly utilized form of sentencing, yet juvenile probation has not been the focus of sustained research or analysis. This Article focuses on School-Based Probation, a type of juvenile probation program that was created to enroll youth before a criminal charge has been filed. Described by its proponents as a “voluntarily probation” program, pre-delinquent, or “at-risk,” youth are identified by on-site school probation officers and enrolled in a supervised program. Deemed to be problematic by many jurisdictions, this Article critiques the School-Based Probation’s flaws in structure, design, and execution, suggesting such programs fail to serve their ostensible purpose of promoting youth safety and balancing risk. By examining how this kind of program operates, this Article provides a glimpse into the larger scheme of juvenile probation practices. Moreover, the Article reveals just how wide the carceral web has been woven. Beyond mere policing of youth in school spaces, this School-Based Probation ensnarls innocent children into a web of incarceration. Although juvenile probation is frequently invoked as positive alternative to juvenile incarceration, the Author argues that juvenile probation should instead be analyzed as part of the continuum of excessive penal control in America

Cutaneous chromoblastomycosis-unusual presentation: a case report

Chromoblastomycosis is a chronic, progressive, cutaneous and subcutaneous fungal infection following the traumatic implantation of certain dematiceous fungi. These are naturally pigmented fungi with two clinical forms viz. cutaneous and cerebral. We present a case of cutaneous chromoblastomycosis presenting as a swelling over right forearm in a 47-year-old lady farmer. Clinically cutaneous tuberculosis was suspected, however on histopathology, diagnostic ‘sclerotic cells or medlar bodies’ amidst the granulomatous inflammation and microabscesses were seen

Ectopic tubal pregnancy with partial mole: a rare case

Hydatidiform moles are abnormal gestations characterised by the presence of hydropic changes in the placental villi associated with circumferential trophoblastic proliferation. They arise due to abnormal fertilization. Molar gestation commonly develops within the uterus but presence of molar changes in ectopic pregnancy is extremely rare. Author present a rare case of ectopic molar pregnancy in fallopian tube in a 20 years old female patient to highlight its clinicopathological features. Ectopic molar pregnancy in a fallopian tube is very rare and histopathological study is the gold standard for the exact diagnosis and further management.

An unusual case of huge hamartoma of breast in a 23 year old female: a case report

Breast hamartoma is an underdiagnosed and poorly recognized rare benign lesion, accounting for approximately 4.8% of all benign breast lumps. There is lack of awareness of the characteristic clinical and histologic features of this entity in clinicians and pathologists. The pathogenesis of the development of breast hamartoma is still not fully understood. A 23-year-old female presented with a huge painless lump in right breast. The lump was present since last nine years. It was previously of the size of a bean, which rapidly increased to the present size during her pregnancy. FNAC revealed features of lipoma. However, on histopathological examination diagnosis of Hamartoma was rendered. A definitive diagnosis of hamartoma is hard to achieve on clinical examination, imaging studies and fine needle aspiration cytology. A correlation of histology, imaging findings with clinical impression is necessary

Polycystic ovary syndrome risk: efficacy of self-assessment test

Background: Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a growing morbidity in young women globally. This disease has an association with several exogenous factors like irregularity of menses, hirsutism and obesity. Very few standardized self-assessment tools based on easily observable factors are available for use in the Indian population, which can help them to assess their PCOS risk accurately.Methods: Undergraduate women of the age group 18-22 years enrolled in a university campus participated in the survey questionnaire. Nineteen questions with binary answers as “yes” or “no” were used for self-assessment test. Each “yes” was scored as one mark, and each “no” scored as zero, leading to the maximum score of 19. Scores of the women with irregular menses (test group) were compared to those of regular menses (control group). Welch’s corrected t-test was used to calculate the significance at 5% between the groups. The clinical assessment confirmed the presence or absence of PCOS condition.Results: One thousand and fifty-four women participated in the study. The study showed that 262 (24.8%) of young women reported irregular menstrual cycle. The average total score of the control group was 3.07±2.35, whereas that of the women with irregular menses was 5.93±2.86. 21 out of 28 participants, who scored high, were diagnosed with PCOS, on clinical assessment by Rotterdam criteria.Conclusions: The self-assessment test can assess the risk of PCOS. This test has 75% sensitivity and accuracy in predicting the presence of PCOS

Differential expression of prognostic proteomic markers in primary tumour, venous tumour thrombus and metastatic renal cell cancer tissue and correlation with patient outcome.

Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is the most deadly of urological malignancies. Metastatic disease affects one third of patients at diagnosis with a further third developing metastatic disease after extirpative surgery. Heterogeneity in the clinical course ensures predicting metastasis is notoriously difficult, despite the routine use of prognostic clinico-pathological parameters in risk stratification. With greater understanding of pathways involved in disease pathogenesis, a number of biomarkers have been shown to have prognostic significance, including Ki67, p53, vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 1 (VEGFR1) and ligand D (VEGFD), SNAIL and SLUG. Previous pathway analysis has been from study of the primary tumour, with little attention to the metastatic tumours which are the focus of targeted molecular therapies. As such, in this study a tissue microarray from 177 patients with primary renal tumour, renal vein tumour thrombus and/or RCC metastasis has been created and used with Automated Quantitative Analysis (AQUA) of immunofluorescence to study the prognostic significance of these markers in locally advanced and metastatic disease. Furthermore, this has allowed assessment of differential protein expression between the primary tumours, renal vein tumour thrombi and metastases. The results demonstrate that clinico-pathological parameters remain the most significant predictors of cancer specific survival; however, high VEGFR1 or VEGFD can predict poor cancer specific survival on univariate analysis for locally advanced and metastatic disease. There was significantly greater expression of Ki67, p53, VEGFR1, SLUG and SNAIL in the metastases compared with the primary tumours and renal vein tumour thrombi. With the exception of p53, these differences in protein expression have not been shown previously in RCC. This confirms the importance of proliferation, angiogenesis and epithelial to mesenchymal transition in the pathogenesis and metastasis of RCC. Importantly, this work highlights the need for further pathway analysis of metastatic tumours for overcoming drug resistance and developing new therapies