MIAMI –  An officer at a Florida juvenile detention center was arrested Monday on federal civil rights charges after a 17-year-old died in a beating by other inmates that was allegedly encouraged by the officer using a bounty and reward system.

By: Jeree Thomas (Richmond, VA) | April 25, 2018

“I am smarter than you think…
I am not a criminal
I am not an animal
I am powerful.”

State prosecutors have determined that a guard at the Broward Regional Juvenile Detention Factility will not face battery charges after throwing a 14-year-old boy to the ground and punching him.

SABILLASVILLE, Md. - Eight people have been charged following a riot at a Maryland juvenile detention facility that left eight staff members hurt.

AUSTIN — The number of Texas teens behind bars has dropped to its lowest point in decades, as the state yet again rethinks how to incarcerate its underage felons.

About half of the threats made in the days since the Parkland shooting have come from online, based on one estimate. Educators and law enforcement are faced with balancing school safety and justice – including First Amendment rights – when they investigate.

The Connecticut Juvenile Training School — the product of bid-rigging, outdated thinking and poor execution by the administration of Gov. John G. Rowland — closed Thursday as the last three young occupants left the sprawling detention center for home or private residential facilities.

A controversial new method for addressing juvenile crime stalled after a murder charge for one participant. But instead of backing off, prosecutors are doubling down.

King County wants to see all youth in our community happy, healthy, safe and thriving. Juvenile detention is a road block to this goal and generates urgency for us to do everything we can to build a holistic, trauma-informed juvenile justice system and work towards Zero Youth Detention.

Recognizing social media’s power to amplify gang disputes and relying on longstanding Illinois law that allows restricting the associations of those under court supervision, Cook County judges are clamping down on teen defendants’ social media postings.

A long-awaited, 72-bed home for youthful offenders convicted of serious crimes is complete and ready to open in Avoyelles Parish. A key feature of Louisiana's 15-year-old effort to overhaul its juvenile justice system, the Acadiana Center for Youth is intended to provide a therapeutic environment for kids in southwest Louisiana. 

For the foreseeable future, though, the center is more likely to be used as an emergency shelter in a disaster, if anything at all, according to a spokesman for the Division of Administration. 

Much of the legislative action is a response to Fight Club, published by the Times/Herald last year. The six-part series examined pervasive violence within juvenile lockups and residential programs — some of it instigated by workers and rewarded with treats — widespread sexual misconduct, medical neglect and lax personnel practices that encouraged the hiring of unqualified workers with unsavory pasts.

SEATTLE - For more than seven hours Monday protesters opposed to King County’s new juvenile courthouse and jail chained themselves together outside the construction site and blocked the heavy equipment from coming and going.

They yelled, chanted and held up signs. It marked the second time in weeks that protesters have blocked traffic in an effort to stop the nearly $200 million facility from being built. The protest is in its sixth year.

Alabama lawmakers are one step closer to overhauling the state’s juvenile justice system after the House passed a bill aimed at keeping low-level offenders out of detention. Thursday’s vote was 69-20 after more than three hours of heated debate and multiple amendments.