Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/)
TUCSON, Arizona — Adriana Grijalva was getting ready to head to class at the University of Arizona in the fall of 2022 when she got a text message from her cousin telling her to stay put. The cousin, who works in maintenance at the university, had watched law enforcement descend on campus and reached out to make sure she was safe. A former student had just shot a professor 11 times, killing him.
Grijalva, who was just a few weeks into her first year of college, immediately thought of her sister, who also attended the university. Her stepdad, a music teacher, and her little brother were at a school not far from campus. Her mom must have been out running errands, she thought at the time. Text messages started to fly among members of this close-knit Latinx family as Grijalva tried to make sure everyone was safe and make sense of what was going on.
The deadly shooting left a profound mark on Grijalva personally and politically, moving her from passivity to advocacy. The threat of gun violence and the policies that could help stanch what she sees as a safety crisis in the United States are now her top issue heading into the 2024 election.
Four years ago, Grijalva wasn’t old enough to vote and her views on politics were loosely formed. This November, she’ll be among the estimated 4 million Latinx Americans who can vote for the first time. They’ll account for half of the growth in new eligible voters since the 2020 election.
Nationwide, Latinos make up about 15 percent of all eligible voters. But in Arizona — which helped deliver President Joe Biden’s victory in 2020 after former President Donald Trump won the state in 2016 — Latinx voters like Grijalva make up a quarter of all eligible voters, the highest share of any battleground state.
>>>Click headline to read full story
Equal Justice USA (EJUSA) announced October 8 that it will partner with four new communities to build new restorative youth justice diversion programs. Restorative justice includes an accountability process that identifies root causes of youth criminal actions, while providing an opportunity for healing both for the person harmed and the person who has caused harm.
Louisiana is the only state to pass and then reverse Raise the Age legislation. Louisiana’s criminal justice system now treats all 17-year-olds as adults. Is reversing Raise the Age making a difference in the number of violent crimes by 18-year-olds?
Proponents say hiring 18 year-olds is a win-win: Recent graduates fill a critical staffing need and jump-start their career right out of high school. Critics say teenagers lack the emotional maturity needed to work with inmates. Who is correct?
On Tuesday, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine announced that the state will try to shut down its three large youth correctional facilities in favor of building smaller and less centralized units. The decision came at the urging of a working group assembled by the governor that also recommended the state stop incarcerating teenagers convicted for the first time of non-violent crimes and children under 14 in state youth prisons.
Just months after an unprecedented parental conviction in Michigan, Georgia prosecutors allege a father’s actions led to a mass school shooting. Colin Gray never pulled a trigger at Apalachee High School — where a mass shooting this week left two 14-year-old students and two math teachers dead — but he could still spend the rest of his life behind bars for murder.
Most school shootings don’t just happen out of nowhere – there are typically warning signs. This past September 4, a 14-year-old boy was arrested for allegedly opening fire in his Georgia high school math class – killing two teachers and two students. Only a year ago, authorities visited his home to investigate several anonymous tips about online threats to commit a school shooting. What went wrong in Georgia and how can we prevent this from happening in the future?
Felix Rosado recently joined the Chestnut Hill College community as an inspiring and unconventional adjunct professor. Just two years ago he was serving a sentence of death by incarceration -- more commonly known as life without parole. He was freed via governor clemency after 27 years. Students say the class takeaways are improvements in their personal and professional lives -- worth the class time.
In 2023, Equal Measure conducted a series of surveys with Learn and Earn to Achieve Potential partners to analyze their efforts in tackling the root causes of disconnection from education and careers with systems-involved youth. This report shares findings from that evaluation.
A new state law lets teachers carry a gun at school. James Arrowood, who’s had a handgun permit for 15 years, is open to doing so if it can provide an extra layer of security against a school shooting. But between concerns about his personal liability and ambivalence about the new law from local school leaders, many teachers won’t be carrying guns to class this school year.
Police video, audio, texts and emails released Saturday by Uvalde, Texas, city officials offer new details about the Robb Elementary school shooting while also largely reaffirming reporting about law enforcement’s failure to engage a gunman who killed 19 children and two teachers.
The release comes after a yearslong legal battle involving nearly two dozen news outlets.
When they voted earlier this year to let police officers use a dangerous form of restraint on students in schools, Minnesota Democratic lawmakers said they did so because they had brokered a compromise. A task force made up of law enforcement agencies, disability advocates and others would create a model policy aimed at minimizing the use of prone restraint — the face-down hold Minneapolis police officers used to immobilize George Floyd as he suffocated.