toll of his absence; women supporting prisoner Almeer Nance: older black woman looking at photo while younger woman looks off to the right

The toll of his absence: the women supporting prisoner Almeer Nance

When her father, Almeer Nance, was 16, he was sentenced to a minimum of 51 years and, after that, another 25 years for abetting a robbery of a Knoxville Radio Shack and being an accomplice to the murder of store employee Joseph Ridings, 21. The shooter, then-19-year-old Robert Vincent Manning, was sentenced to life without parole.

Too many locked doors report: young minority youth leaning sadly against chainlink fence

Report: The scope of youth confinement is vastly understated

"The United States incarcerates an alarming number of children and adolescents every year. Disproportionately, they are youth of color.

Given the short- and long-term damages stemming from youth out of home placement, it is vital to understand its true scope. In 2019, there were more than 240,000 instances of a young person detained, committed, or both in the juvenile justice system. However, youth incarceration is typically measured via a one-day count taken in late October. This metric vastly understates its footprint: at least 80% of incarcerated youth are excluded from the one-day count..."

Jacksonville, Florida's gun-murder capitol: bridge going over water in Jacksonville

In Jacksonville, Florida’s gun-murder capitol, locals assess the merits of crime prevention and punishment

Adrift after his father was shot and killed during an argument with a man at a Jacksonville, Fla. bar, then 14-year-old Robert LeCount spent several years burnishing his reputation as a drug-dealer and star athlete.

“We had football rivalry, we had basketball rivalry, we had baseball rivalry. That's how we dealt with a lot of things. Our energy was in the sports and in different activities.” said LeCount, now 63, a Disciples of Christ pastor whose son, then 22, was shot in their Florida hometown in 2003.

ABA Task Force Wants to Help Disrupt School-to-Prison Pipeline

The school-to-prison pipeline is one of our nation’s most pressing challenges, that all of us must help reverse. Not only do these outcomes ruin the lives of youth and their families, but they are also bad for our nation. There are affirmative steps that the American Bar Association is well positioned to take to help reverse these negative trends.

Growing Up to Be Stickup Kids

NEW YORK --By the early 1990s, the crack era that devoured New York City in the 1980s was on the decline and crime rates were similarly falling. But Randol Contreras saw something different on the streets in the South Bronx neighborhood where he grew up. His drug dealer friends, no longer making the same money selling crack, were turning to robbing drug dealers for an increasingly dwindling share of the market. One vice traded for another, more violent one. His book "Stickup Kids: Race, Drugs, Violence and the American Dream," published by the University of California Press last month, chronicles the downfall of the drug trade and the young Dominican men from his childhood neighborhood that tried to make an often dangerous living in it.