All in Ideas and Opinions
Limiting the number of children locked up and helping children return home are just some of the suggestions.
A recent University of California study offers a powerful rationale for shielding children 11 years old and younger from prosecution and incarceration in the state’s juvenile justice system.
Poverty tends to dampen test scores, but new research suggests people with hard upbringings can sometimes outperform their more-privileged peers.
Internet access brings all sorts of benefits: Education, jobs, and connection to friends and family. But youth in the criminal justice and foster care systems often don't have access to it. That's why some lawmakers in California want to make it their right.
WASHINGTON — Data from growing research have stormed into the juvenile justice and child welfare fields over the past two decades, providing more raw material to help troubled teens than ever before. But turning that information wave into better outcomes for children — and convincing practitioners within established systems to adopt new approaches — still requires some prodding and commitment to adopting these findings, according to judges, case workers, academics and advocates for children.
Orange County has the highest number of juvenile arrests in Florida, and black boys make up the majority of those arrests for crimes charged as felonies. As part of the final installment of Young & Arrested, 90.7’s Renata Sago discusses what’s next for juvenile justice in Orange County and what we can take away from the voices in the series.
Meting out justice to juvenile defendants is complex, with brain science and recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings propelling the criminal-justice system into a more nuanced approach that recognizes young people can be impetuous and prone to take risks.
CHAMBERSBURG, PA - The concept of being judged by a jury of your peers was taken to a new level Wednesday, as the county's first official Youth Court was held at Chambersburg Area Senior High School.
According to Florida’s Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ), one sliver of Pine Hills has Florida’s highest volume of juvenile arrests. Though agency data show that juvenile arrests statewide are at a forty-year low, Orange County has maintained the highest number of juvenile arrests in Florida for the past three consecutive years. The majority of those arrests are for crimes charged as felonies. Demographically speaking, black boys between ages twelve and sixteen comprise the majority of those arrests.
Lawmakers in New York, North Carolina, Missouri, and Texas are currently debating proposals that would move 16-or-17-year-olds (or both) out of the adult criminal justice system and into the juvenile court.
There continues to be a barrage of bad news coming out about juvenile justice systems in Australia and the US. But rather than temporary crackdowns or cosmetic fixes, officials in both countries should enact permanent solutions that replace large and ineffective youth prisons with a safer, more decent alternative.
California should start treating juvenile offenders more like children, state lawmakers said Monday as they promoted bills that they said reflect research showing that children's brains are different from adults.
African American teenagers mingle with cops in a series of forums designed to humanize each to the other. It’s not the answer to all their problems—but it’s one step forward.
Each child who walks into my courtroom is unique, but most of them have a lot in common. Many have been scarred by childhood neglect and extreme trauma.
Software that helps judges decide whether to jail a defendant while they await trial could cut crime and reduce racial disparities amongst prisoners.
Plenty of fashions adopted by young people get under the skin of adults, but the opposition to sagging often has the feel of a moral panic.
In Iceland, teenage smoking, drinking and drug use have been radically cut in the past 20 years. Emma Young finds out how they did it, and why other countries won’t follow suit.
Over the past several years, there has been a great deal of research detailing how fines and fees in the adult criminal-justice system drive already impoverished people into debt, increase rates of recidivism, and lead to the incarceration of people simply because they can’t pay their court bills. In March, 2016, lawyers within the civil-rights division of the Department of Justice wrote a scathing letter to their colleagues detailing how monetary punishments caused thousands of people to “face repeated, unnecessary incarceration for nonpayment despite posing no danger to the community.” This past spring, the Vera Institute of Justice launched a new initiative that will examine how fines and fees lead to an “overreliance on local incarceration that exacts significant unnecessary costs on individuals.”
More than 100 years ago, Illinois became the first state to create a separate court for juveniles. Now, Illinois is once again changing the way it treats young offenders. Read the three part series here.
“Youth prisons are failing our children in this state, but particularly our children of color,” explained Andrea McChristian from the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice.
If you take a look inside New Jersey’s juvenile justice system you’ll see the racial disparities laid bare. Seventy-five percent of incarcerated kids are black. That gap among races is the third-highest in the country.
