MJDA

Education, National News

Children are being locked away, alone and terrified. Often, it’s against the law.

Nov 19

Nov 19 Racial Justice at the Core - A View from VA & NJ

In Youth First’s new brief, Racial Justice at the Core: Profiles of the Virginia & New Jersey campaigns to abolish youth prisons through a racial justice lens, Carmen Daugherty, Youth First's Policy Director; Valerie Slater, Executive Director of RISE for Youth; and Retha Onitiri, Campaign Director of the 150 Years Is Enough Campaign in New Jersey highlight strategies undertaken by the Virginia and New Jersey state campaigns to place racial justice at the center of the efforts to end youth incarceration.

Nov 19

Nov 19 Videos: Chaos, violence in Georgia’s youth prisons

At Georgia’s seven juvenile prisons, hundreds of surveillance cameras capture the daily violence and chaos that permeate the facilities. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution obtained videos of several incidents involving the use of force by corrections officers at the Sumter Youth Development Campus in Americus. The state Department of Juvenile Justice obscured the faces of juveniles in the videos.

Nov 14

Nov 14 Juvenile Justice Groups Say Felony Murder Charges Harm Children, Young Adults

Ideas and Opinions

More than 40 states currently have a felony murder law, which juvenile justice advocates believe unfairly impacts young people. Some lawmakers in states such as Illinois and California have sought to enact reform.

Nov 7

Nov 7 A Jail Increased Extreme Isolation to Stop Suicides. More People Killed Themselves.

Criminal Justice News, National News

The Kern County, CA Sheriff’s Office places hundreds of people into suicide watch each year. They’re held for days or weeks in rooms without mattresses and sometimes toilets. The state can’t stop it.

Nov 7

Nov 7 American youth don’t know much about the juvenile justice system

Young people in the U.S. who end up in the juvenile justice system often leave the system much worse than when they entered.

But American youth know little to nothing about the juvenile justice system that would determine their future if they were ever accused of committing a crime.

Nov 5

Nov 5 A progressive measure intended to keep preteens out of Cook County jails was effectively struck down by an appellate court

A Cook County ordinance that would keep children under 13 from being jailed cannot be enforced because an appeals court recently ruled the measure conflicts with state law.

Passed in September 2018, the ordinance was lauded by juvenile justice advocates as a progressive step toward reducing the number of incarcerated youth.

Nov 5

Nov 5 Roots Of Mass Incarceration: The Policies That Led To 2.2 Million People Behind Bars

More than 2 million people are currently imprisoned in the U.S. Although the country has just 4% of the world's population, it accounts for a quarter of the world's prison population.

So, how did the country get to this place? People point to different pieces of legislation as the main cause for mass incarceration. But researcher Reggie Jackson says it's the result of a complex web of laws and policy decisions that created this issue.

Nov 4

Nov 4 Michigan eyes reform to costly, confusing system of expunging criminal records

Local News

Research shows that expungement — which makes certain criminal offenses invisible to the public while remaining visible to police and prosecutors — improves access to higher wages and better jobs without threatening public safety. But the process can seem labyrinthian for people who can’t afford a lawyer, and criminal justice advocates argue far too few people qualify under existing law.

Nov 4

Nov 4 A year after pot became legal, Michigan still months away from retail sales

Local News

LANSING – Retail sales of recreational marijuana may still be months away and confined to select communities, even though Michigan began taking applications for businesses on Friday.

Nov 4

Nov 4 After 22 years, educating incarcerated youth still a challenge

Education, Juvenile Justice News, National News

In 1993, a lawyer at the Center for Children’s Advocacy brought a lawsuit challenging, among other things, the conditions of confinement at the state’s juvenile detention centers. Four years later, the court approved an agreement that resulted in the Emily J. Consent Decree, part of which required the state to retool its educational services for juvenile detainees.

Now, after years of studies showing the ways the justice system can affect young people’s education in Connecticut, officials are still grappling with how to improve educational services for kids in the justice system.

Nov 1

Nov 1 After Glen Mills, legal center warns Pa.: Juvenile programs do more harm than good

Juvenile Justice News, Local News

One of the organizations suing Pennsylvania officials over violence at the Glen Mills Schools will on Friday attempt to persuade state leaders to stop sending children to juvenile institutions like Glen Mills, saying these programs do more to harm youth than reform them.

Oct 31

Oct 31 Whitmer signs bills classifying 17-year-olds as youth in Michigan’s criminal justice system

Matt Devlin

Legislative efforts to raise the age of people automatically charged as adults in Michigan’s criminal justice system from 17 to 18 earned Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s signature Thursday, earning praise from advocates who said the change was long overdue.

Oct 30

Oct 30 Black students in Virginia are far more likely to face criminal charges for acting up in school

Criminal disorderly conduct charges for acting up in school are far more likely to be filed against black students in Virginia than whites, a new study by the Legal Aid Justice Center found.

Oct 30

Oct 30 Michigan bills to 'raise the age' for adult prosecution head to governor

Local News, Juvenile Justice News

Bipartisan legislation headed to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's desk would raise the age at which teenagers are automatically prosecuted as adults in Michigan.

Oct 30

Oct 30 DC sniper Lee Boyd Malvo to ask Supreme Court for resentencing in case over youth punishment

One of the men who terrorized the Washington area in a spree of killings in the fall of 2002, which became known as the “D.C. sniper attacks,” will have another day in court on Wednesday. Malvo, who was 17 at the time of the killings, is asking the court to allow him to be resentenced because a pair of Supreme Court cases in recent years held that courts must consider a minor’s age before sentencing him or her to life without parole.

Oct 30

Oct 30 Cuyahoga County Juvenile Justice Center needs more guards, psychiatric nurse to improve safety, judge says

CLEVELAND, Ohio — More money needs to be included in the county budget to hire detention officers, a psychiatric nurse and others to improve safety at the Cuyahoga County Juvenile Justice Center, the administrative judge told council this week.

Oct 30

Oct 30 A United Vision for a World Without Youth Prisons

Over two dozen youth leaders, many of whom are directly impacted by the youth justice system, have released their ideas for putting juvenile justice dollars toward the creation of a robust continuum of care in communities of color.

You can now read and share the recommendations of these youth leaders with A United Vision for a World Without Youth Prisons, a report from The Youth First Initiative and Cities United, highlighting nine actionable strategies for how cities should reinvest the millions of taxpayer dollars spent each year locking up young people.

Oct 8

Oct 8 Probation Must Be Reformed Nationwide By Focusing on Incentives