All in Juvenile Justice News
Even though the year began with strong bipartisan support for federal sentencing reform, no major changes to the criminal justice system have made it out of Congress thanks to a combination of legislative gridlock, election-year rhetoric about rising crime in some cities, and Republican reluctance to hand President Obama a major victory.
But on Thursday, the House of Representatives quietly — and overwhelmingly — passed what might be the most significant justice reform measure to reach Obama in his tenure.
Thirteen states have not imposed a minimum age for prosecuting a child as an adult, leaving eight-, nine-, and ten-year-old children vulnerable to extreme punishment, trauma, and abuse within adult jails and prisons.
The House education committee unanimously backed a bill to change policies and practices governing juvenile-justice and at-risk youth and reported it favorably to the full House of Representatives for consideration.
NEW YORK — As Gynnya McMillen coughed and gasped for air, shaking in a seizure while taking her final breaths, a Kentucky juvenile detention youth worker stood outside her isolation cell watching, according to a federal lawsuit filed by the 16-year-old’s estate.
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — When Dequan Jackson had his only brush with the law, at 13, he tried to do everything right.
Charged with battery for banging into a teacher while horsing around in a hallway, he pleaded guilty with the promise that after one year of successful probation, the conviction would be reduced to a misdemeanor.
Area officials mixed on juvenile justice changes
Juvenile justice reform advocates can spread their message further if they carefully guide their audience to an understanding of adolescent development and the justice system, researchers say.
Prosecutors across Michigan are fighting to uphold sentences for most of the 350-plus prison inmates now serving mandatory life terms for crimes they committed as juveniles. Their stance is in apparent defiance of a U.S. Supreme Court directive this year that courts across the nation are supposed to reduce life sentences for young offenders except in only “rare” cases.
There are an estimated 57,000 youth in juvenile detention and correctional facilities on any given day, with hundreds of thousands more on probation. The Williams Institute estimates that half of LGBTQ youth in the United States are “at risk” of being arrested or entering juvenile and criminal justice systems.
There are questions about how the South Bend, Indiana Juvenile Justice Center is being maintained. This comes as county leaders are working on next year’s budget.
Departments have been asked to cut their budgets by 3 percent, but the judge in charge of the JJC says there are too many unfunded maintenance issues in his building that need to be addressed.
A class-action lawsuit has been filed against Fox and the hit show “Empire.”
Two unnamed former residents of the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center (JTDC) claim 2015 production at the facility caused “psychological and emotional traumas” to the residents. The two leading plaintiffs are now represented by their guardians in the suit.
Gov. Bruce Rauner signed a series of bills the week of Aug. 21 aimed at increasing opportunities and reducing recidivism among adult ex-offenders.
But on Aug. 23, Rauner also signed two juvenile-justice-reform bills that will help ensure fewer Illinoisans become trapped in a cycle of incarceration in the first place.
Months-long delays on Child Care Fund reimbursements to a number of counties have prompted an ongoing series of meetings between MAC and top state officials to resolve the problem.
Australia must establish independent bodies to investigate child abuse in its detention facilities across the country, Amnesty International said today after it obtained more than 1,000 pages of government documents revealing abuses in two more centres.
The Justice Department last week published proposed new rules related to the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA) that will require most states to make significant improvements or face the loss of federal funds at a time when the appropriation has dropped significantly.
The changes to the central mechanism for federal juvenile justice funding come amidst uncertainty about reauthorization of the bill, and after a decline in federal funding for the act.
Every state but Wyoming participates in the JJPDA...
Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors are investigating the Juvenile Justice system after allegations of abuse at county juvenile halls.
In two decisions released Wednesday, a Wisconsin appeals court upheld a decision to try the girls in the "Slender Man" case as adults. The two girls admitted as 12-year-olds in 2014 to having stabbed their friend in order to please "Slender Man," an Internet horror meme. (The victim luckily crawled to safety and survived.) The decision to try two children as adults – two children immature and mentally ill enough to believe in the literal existence of a fictional character – may seem inappropriate, to put it mildly. But legally it's a viable one – thanks to a terrible Wisconsin law with analogues in many other states.
(CNN)Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has called for a national investigation into allegations of abuse and torture at a juvenile detention center.
The allegations, which appeared on Australian Broadcasting Corp.'s "Four Corners" investigative program, showed children as young as 10 being stripped naked, assaulted, tear-gassed and kept in solitary confinement.
Youth of color experience the worst outcomes in every youth-serving system, including law enforcement, child welfare and education, the data show conclusively. This is due in part to unconscious or implicit biases that affect our understanding of individuals, based on their race and ethnicity, and cause us to alter our decision-making accordingly.
