What happened after Minneapolis removed police officers from schools

By September 2020, 11 new unarmed public safety support specialists, many with law enforcement-related backgrounds, were in place and on the Minneapolis Public Schools payroll. Two years and one pandemic later, initial data and interviews with students and staff suggest that fewer Minneapolis students are being punished and, consequently, missing class for suspensions or other punishment.

Gang-banger reform: Closeup profile of Kennebrew - Black man in dark-framed glasses wearing multi-color geometric print mask

A gang-banger since 8th grade, former Blood sets a new course with a former prosecutor’s help

There is no recent official count of how many individuals have departed gang life. In 2012, the most recent year that the U.S. Department of Justice National Gang Center estimated the data, roughly 850,000 members were in some 30,700 youth gangs across the country. Those numbers decreased from 1996 through 2002, then increased steadily over the next decade. A 2014 study in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology found that 70% of gang members joined as adolescents and left before adulthood. 

Why do young people join, why do they leave and how do they stay away?

Juvenile detention medicale: White man in white lab coat stansds in dark roon reviewing a large wall lightbox with numerous x-rays on it

Upcoming study aims to gauge prevalence and impact of traumatic brain injury on juveniles in detention

Traumatic brain injury among juvenile offenders will be assessed as part of a three-year research project that’s slated to enroll the first of roughly 110 youth and young adult study participants in Florida as early as late January. Ultimately, the study aims to determine which TBI treatments might help keep those youth from cycling in and out of detention, complete their education and succeed at work.

Community probation, community service, crisis intervention and other services are listed on a sign outside a juvenile probation office.

Q&A: Long Island judge seeks collaboration among trauma-focused child welfare and juvenile agencies and youths’ families

Launched in summer 2021 as an expansion of the incarceration-diversion program, Long Island, N.Y.'s ConcepTS also stands for “collaboration, oversight, nurturing, community, engagement, participation and treatment services.” It’s the brainchild of Suffolk County Supreme Court Justice Fernando Camacho, who says he has a heart for young people and a love of the law. The Juvenile Justice Information Exchange’s Micah Danney interviewed Camacho about what diversion programs mean for juvenile offenders and the juvenile justice system he helps to oversee.

medical treatments for substance abuse in New York jails: woman holding "safe consumption now!" sign

Medical treatments for substance use disorders are slated for all New York jails and prisons

While jailed on drug charges at New York City’s Rikers Island in 1994, Marilyn Reyes received medical treatment to curb her heroin addiction. But once Reyes, then in her 20s, was convicted and transferred to an upstate prison, she stopped getting the medications prescribed to help her overcome what's since been labeled as opioid use disorder. “It was the most traumatizing, horrible experience I ever had,” said Reyes, now co-director of Peer Network of New York, which provides, among other services, needle exchanges to reduce some of the health hazards of using illegal drugs. 

Living Redemption Youth Opportunity Hub youth, including those in the juvenile justice system, boxed up food donations to distribute in in their Harlem neighborhood.

Millions in seized money expanded Harlem youth hub’s “credible messenger” anti-violence project

Headquartered in the upper rooms of a church on 124th Street, Living Redemption is one five such hubs that, in 2017, received $45.9 million of $250 million that the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office seized from a drug-money laundering European bank. Decade-old Living Redemption got $10.3 million. The windfall expanded the program — even providing providing a paycheck for those mentoring messengers.