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Juvenile Justice Information Exchange
Report: America’s growing movement to divert youth out of the justice system
"After decades of neglect, the youth justice field is awakening to the importance of diversion in lieu of arrest and formal court processing for many or most youth accused of delinquent behavior. Even amid rising concerns over youth crime nationwide, jurisdictions across the country are heeding the evidence by taking concerted action to address more cases of alleged lawbreaking behavior outside the formal justice system. This momentum to make diversion a centerpiece of juvenile justice reform is encouraging given powerful research showing that youth who are diverted from the justice system are far less likely to be arrested for subsequent offenses and far more likely to succeed in education and employment than comparable youth who are arrested and prosecuted in juvenile court. Greater use of diversion is also essential to reduce the persistent racial and ethnic disparities that pervade youth justice systems.
For a handful of lawyers in Cuyahoga County, juvenile cases are big business
The juvenile court system is supposed to ensure that young people accused of crimes have legal representation, even if their families can’t afford a lawyer. But in Cuyahoga County, some courtrooms resemble hiring halls for favored attorneys who get hundreds of assignments yearly, while others get none. In one...
When police encounters with autistic people turn fatal
This article was first published by The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system. Sign up for their newsletters, and follow them on Instagram, TikTok, Reddit and Facebook. Last Saturday, a San Bernardino sheriff’s deputy shot and killed Ryan Gainer, an autistic Black 15-year-old, outside...
6 tips: What families need to know about how to safely store firearms at home
For the past few years, guns have been identified as the leading cause of death for children in the United States. There were 2,571 children age 1 to 17 who died in shootings in the U.S. in 2021, 68% more than the 1,531 that occurred in 2000. To help reduce...
Is the National Guard a solution to school violence?
Every now and then, an elected official will suggest bringing in the National Guard to deal with violence that seems out of control. A city council member in Washington suggested doing so in 2023 to combat the city’s rising violence. So did a Pennsylvania representative concerned about violence in Philadelphia in 2022.
Q&A: Texas court ruling on a Black student wearing hair in long locs reflects history of racism in schools
A Texas judge ruled (video below) on Feb. 22, 2024, that the Barbers Hill School District didn’t violate the law when it punished Darryl George, a Black student, for wearing his hair in long locs. The Texas law in question – the CROWN Act – prohibits discrimination against hairstyles in schools and workplaces. The school district argued – and Judge Chap B. Cain III agreed – that the law doesn’t mention anything about hair length. In the following Q&A, Kenjus Watson, an education professor at American University who researches the psychological and social effects of racism, discusses how the decision upholds a long-standing legacy of cultural assimilation.
Schools are sending more kids to psychiatrists out of fears of campus violence, prompting concern from clinicians
This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news outlet focused on education. The 9-year-old had been drawing images of guns at school and pretending to point the weapons at other students. He’d become more withdrawn, and had stared angrily at a teacher. The principal suspended him for a week. Educators were unsure whether it was safe for him to return to school — and, if so, how best to support him.
Active shooter training: State-specific requirements for schools and law enforcement
After a teenage gunman killed 10 people at Santa Fe High School in 2018, Texas lawmakers mandated that all school police officers receive training to better prepare them for the possibility of confronting a mass shooter. The law, which required that such training occur only once, didn’t apply to thousands of state and local law enforcement officers who did not work in schools.
A history of holding parents responsible for their kids’ crimes
Just three days before her 15-year-old son carried out a mass shooting at his Michigan high school in 2021, Jennifer Crumbley was captured on security camera leaving a shooting range with the handgun in tow. She had just taken her son out to target practice in what she described on...
Here’s how I use my story to teach incarcerated kids that writing matters
Recently, at one of the writing workshops that I teach at three juvenile lockups in and around my hometown of St. Louis, one of my students posed a provocative question:. “Why should I write about changing the world when the world doesn’t care about me?”. The tall, lanky 16-year-old...
What one state accomplished during National Mentoring Month. What can you do next January?
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The Florida Department of Juvenile Justice, the Florida Department of Elder Affairs, the Statewide Guardian ad Litem Office, and the Florida Faith-Based and Community-Based Advisory Council hosted a Hope Florida roundtable highlighting Florida’s mentoring efforts during National Mentoring Month. Hosted at the Church of Eleven22...
21 bodycam videos caught the NYPD wrongly arresting black kids on Halloween. Why can’t the public see the footage?
ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox. I got my first real lesson in police accountability in 2019 on Halloween. My wife, Sara Pekow, and our daughter had watched an NYPD officer drive the wrong way up a Brooklyn street and hit a Black teenager. The police had been chasing him as a suspect in the theft of a cellphone. When the boy rolled off the car and ran away, the officers turned their attention to other nearby Black boys who seemed to be simply trick-or-treating. The police lined them against the wall of our neighborhood movie theater, cuffed them and took them away.
I lost a friend to gun violence when I was in high school. Now, I counsel Chicago students facing similar pain.
This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters here. In the spring of ninth grade, one of these murders changed my life. My cousin hosted a party at her Lawndale apartment to celebrate my good grades. Unfortunately, gang members who were denied entry to the party got mad and started shooting. My friend, who was a star athlete at Westinghouse High School, died in the crossfire. It saddens me to think of what he might have become had he lived.
Opinion: Trauma-informed ‘hubs’ reduce Chicago youth incarceration
A 65% reduction in youth incarceration between 2005 and 2021 and the closing of two youth prisons during that time are among the great strides of Redeploy Illinois, an innovative Cook County program allowing communities to tailor state-funded juvenile treatment services to meet their particular characteristics and needs. As part...
Louisiana ponders policy changes with juvenile facilities at full capacity
Rather than just build more jails, Louisiana juvenile justice system administrators urge officials to take a closer look at policies to address youth criminal trends, in addition to curbing persistent violence and escapes at state correctional centers. The state operates seven juvenile prisons around Louisiana, not including the recently remodeled...
Hundreds of Seclusions Were “Voluntary.” Some Kids Don’t See It That Way.
This story was originally published by ProPublica. Juvenile Injustice, Tennessee: Where Kids Meet the Rule of Law. Children in Rutherford County have been arrested and jailed at rates unparalleled in the state. We’re investigating how that happened — and other ways the justice system there singles out children.
95% of public schools conduct active shooter drills. Are students safer?
Lockdown drills aimed at preparing students to protect themselves from school shooters do more to stir kids’ anxiety than their sense of protection, argues Dr. Annie Andrews, a South Carolina mother, pediatrician and firearm injury researcher. “Our children do not benefit from participating in these drills,” said former congressional...
Juvenile detention fees cripple families financially, opponents say
After more than a year in a juvenile detention facility in Orange County, California, Maria Rivera’s son was released back in 2010. As he exited incarceration, the Orange County Probation Department handed Rivera a bill for $16,372, the fees officials charged for keeping him in custody. Rivera sold her...
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