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.
All in Ideas and Opinions
If you follow the news, you may have heard that there's a bipartisan movement to stop locking up so many Americans. The New York Times recently wrote, “A bipartisan campaign to reduce mass incarceration has led to enormous declines in new inmates from big cities, cutting America’s prison population for the first time since the 1970s.”
Unfortunately for reform advocates, reports of progress towards ending mass incarceration have been greatly exaggerated.
At least 22 states make it a crime to disturb school in ways that teenagers are wired to do. Why did this happen?
Slavery technically ended over 150 years ago. But Ava DuVernay wants you to take another look at the amendment that abolished it.
Her documentary “13th” is a powerful look at how the modern-day prison labor system links to slavery. The film, which premieres on Netflix and in select theaters Friday, offers a timely and emotional message framed by the upcoming election and the Black Lives Matter movement.
THAT WE’RE IN the middle of a horrific opioid epidemic is no longer news. In bathrooms, bedrooms, and alleyways across the country, people are overdosing and dying every day. So we need to start talking about solutions. As Congress finally earmarks funding for public health initiatives, doctors, prosecutors, police, and local lawmakers are fighting to slow the death toll in their communities—with wildly different strategies.
Those who equate juvenile justice reform with better institutions should consider the California lesson. For the past 13 years, the state’s youth correctional system operated under court monitoring due to its failure to provide rehabilitative services or a safe environment.
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.
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.
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?
