Amy Jones, director of Madison County Juvenile Court, says that over the past few years, the court has seen children brought in for disciplinary issues rather than delinquent offenses.

'Every red flag should have gone up' in the case of a suicidal transgender teen, national experts say. So far, the state-run facility has shed no light.

When minors face criminal charges, their parents often face financial ones. That’s true throughout the country.

In some California Counties for instance, it can cost as much as $30 per-day for room and board for parents whose children are locked up inside juvenile hall. The bills don’t stop there. When kids are strapped with ankle monitors or assigned a probation officer, parents are often charged for that as well.

A year and a half after Gov. Dennis Daugaard (R - South Dakota) assigned a widely praised package of juvenile justice reforms, South Dakota school administrators say the law has left them with few options for addressing truancy, underage drinking and other smaller offenses by students.

Not many teenagers are convicted of sex offenses in Iowa's adult courts — Polk County had just one such conviction last year — but there’s a big debate over what should happen when that occurs.

New report documents urgent need to replace youth prisons with rehabilitation-focused alternatives

Juvenile justice advocates at this two-day conference call the statistics alarming. In New Jersey, African-Americans and Latinos make up 87 percent of the juveniles “waived up” or tried as adults for certain crimes if a county prosecutor requests it and a judge approves it. If convicted, those juveniles serve sentences in adult prisons.

“They can tell if you care or if you don’t.”