The Michigan Juvenile Detention Association will continue to be a national leader in promoting and sustaining of exemplary juvenile detention, residential treatment, and community based services for youth and their families.
The Michigan Juvenile Detention Association is committed to the highest standard of professional ethics, overall excellence in the care and custody of youth, and the provision of services to their families.
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.
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.
“I don’t remember everything that happened when I was 3, but I can recall one certain night.My mother was sprawled out in the middle of the floor and coated with blood, and my father had dozens of beer bottles. He was breaking the beer bottles and using the sharp parts of the broken glass to cut into her. He had a belt and was whacking her with it over and over. I will never forget that night. Every time I wake up, I see that memory in my head. It’s a never-ending nightmare.”
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.
Convicted of a Macomb County murder in 1992, Bosie Smith, now 41, has earned consistent praise for his leadership from prison staff and even a former warden.
Nelson Mandela once said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” In my case, education fundamentally saved my life. At age 16, I was sentenced to serve six years at a secure juvenile detention facility in upstate New York for the crime of attempted murder.
I committed the offense when I was 15 years and 363 days old. If I been 16 at the time of the offense, I would have been charged as an adult and would have received a much longer sentence than six years.
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.
Why is Arkansas apparently moving backwards when many of its peers, including several deep red Southern states, have turned a corner by embracing more humane and proven approaches to juvenile justice?
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.
Juvenile justice professionals are evolving to better understand the impact of trauma on youth. In 2012 the U.S. Attorney General’s National Task Force on Children Exposed to Violence called for organizations to provide trauma-informed care and develop trauma-informed policies.
Trauma care of youth, those who are justice-involved and those who are not, begins first with good employee self-care, which is intertwined with good team care.
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...
The 2016 MJDA Higgins Lake Conference kicked off with a scavenger hunt and team building activity facilitated by Doug Murch from Jackson County. On Thursday, attendees spent time in training sessions including: practice with LGBTQ youth presented by Patrick Gaulier, Chardae Korhonen, and Victoria Boss of Ozone House, Michigan's Youth Behind Bars presented by Kristen Staley from the Michigan Council on Crime and Delinquency, and Motivational Interviewing presented by Mike Clark of Build Motivation. Thursday wrapped up with the annual Child Care Worker of the Year Awards Ceremony and on Friday morning, Payge Hodapp of Brain Gym, gave attendees tools for activating the human brain to energize the learning and therapeutic processes.
While state public schools have banned staff from using Aikido-style physical restraints on students, Kentucky’s Department of Juvenile Justice continues to use the method.
This week, the Kentucky Department of Education ordered all public schools to stop using “Aikido Control Training” restraints amid questions over the method’s safety.
Members of a state oversight panel on child abuse recently raised concern that Aikido-style restraints can result in injuries, according to The Courier-Journal, which first reported the school ban.
A decade ago, the Youth Study Center -- New Orleans’ troubled juvenile detention facility -- would have been unlikely to attract an educational trailblazer.
The roughly 40 teenagers held in the flood-damaged center rarely made it to classes because they were often on lockdown 23 hours a day. The staff had a reputation for incompetence. The building was plagued with bugs and mold.
But this summer, the Orleans Parish School Board turned over operation of the school to the national nonprofit Center for Educational Excellence in Alternative Settings, which is known for its work tackling the academic deficits faced by juvenile delinquents.
Students at Sexton Community Center learn about how to interact with police as part of Know Your Rights Theatre, a program of the Mid-South Peace and Justice Center.
