On Tuesday, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved a civilian oversight body for the the county’s Probation Department that can make unannounced visits and legally compel documents and witnesses.

As Massachusetts considers changing the way it handles young criminal offenders, it is looking at what's happening north — specifically, to Vermont.

Vermont is the first state to raise the age above 18 for when someone criminally charged goes to juvenile court, expanding what it's doing in hundreds of lower level criminal cases now.

Juvenile courts, long the link between youth offenders and treatment, are no longer the go-between for youngsters who are accused of minor offenses but need behavioral treatment. Lawmakers are exploring how to close the gap.

The recent arrests of two 6-year-old students in Orlando, which prompted outrage and the firing of the officer who restrained one child's hands with flex cuffs, mirrors a persistent problem confronting law enforcement and schools with thousands of children arrested annually and treated like "mini-adults," experts said.

ALBANY, N.Y. — Nearly a year after Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed Raise the Age legislation moving 16- and 17-year-olds out of the adult justice system, state government officials and youth advocates say conditions are significantly improving for teens in trouble with the law.

In September 2018, when the Cook County Board of Commissioners outlawed placing children younger than 13 in the county’s juvenile jail, advocates cheered the move. One group put out a press release in which Democratic Cook County Commissioner Larry Suffredin said the ordinance would “prevent young children from being scarred by confinement.”

But then, just about a month later, the county’s top juvenile judge made a decision to keep two 12-year-old boys in the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center. In the ruling Judge Michael Toomin said the county’s new law conflicted with state law and judges were not obligated to follow it.