Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/tag/public-safety/)
Parents whose children were killed in the Robb Elementary School massacre made sobbing pleads for stricter gun laws before legislators early Wednesday on languishing proposals that appeared headed to stall in the face of a Republican majority.
A bill that would allow people with concealed carry permits to bring firearms on West Virginia public college and university campuses is heading to the desk of Republican Gov. Jim Justice after passing the final hurdle in the GOP-dominated Legislature. The state House of Delegates voted overwhelmingly in favor of the legislation Tuesday. Justice has not said publicly whether he will sign the bill.
The backstories of Sakran and Pep couldn’t be more different. But their survivor stories drive their activism about the public health threat that gun violence poses and prove what some of the most alarming news headlines increasingly suggest: Almost anybody, almost anywhere, is a potential victim of gun violence.
Mayor LaToya Cantrell last year launched the Office of Gun Violence Prevention. That office funds and evaluates efforts to especially reduce gun violence among youth — 15- through 24-year-olds nationwide accounted for most of a prior decades’ surge in firearm-driven homicides — and has partnered in an effort largely lead by public health professionals who are tackling the problem as more than merely an issue of crime and punishment.
West Charlotte High School had let out only minutes earlier when, hearing gunfire, school officials ordered an immediate lockdown and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department officers swarmed the campus. That incident, the week before Christmas break 2021, was the ninth time a gun had been found at one of Charlotte-Mecklenburg’s most troubled public schools since the start of the school year.
For juvenile court judges, correctional facility administrators and community supervision agency leaders throughout the country, the progress juvenile justice systems have made in recent years is clear. Nationwide, juvenile arrest rates are at historic lows, and incarceration rates have plummeted by more than half.
Organizations that want to help the 94,000 kids in residential confinement within the juvenile justice system may be able to get the Second Chance Act Adult Mentoring Grant. The Second Chance Act of 2007 provides a response to kids being released from prison, jail and juvenile residential facilities to help them transition back into their communities. The goal for this act is to make sure the transition will be successful and helps to promote public safety.
The clock is ticking for supporters of Georgia’s long-awaited juvenile code rewrite. Crossover day — the critical mid-point in the legislative session, when Senate bills move over to the House of Representatives and House bills transition to the Senate — is now a little less than a week away. So far Senate Bill 127, also known as the Child Protection and Public Safety Act, has not yet made it out of the Senate Judiciary Committee (SJC) and if it does not do so before that critical deadline, it won’t be able to advance any further during this legislative session. That would be a major blow for supporters who have been involved in the rewrite process since 2004. The committee was scheduled to discuss the measure at a hearing Wednesday.