Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/author/kgray/page/2/)
Their nightmare started with a note the coroner left on the front door of their home while Sharmaine Brown and her husband, James, were away from home: “Call the medical examiner’s office regarding the following case number … ” Over a $30 dispute that didn’t involve him, their 23-year-old son had been killed when a gunman sprayed bullets at a weekend cookout.
“A lot of people think when you get shot you go to the hospital, they fix you up, you go home and you’re OK,” she said. “That’s really not the case. Trauma is a roller coaster.” There’s the immediate physical injury and mental and emotional trauma of being shot. But also there are long-haul effects.
A judge on Wednesday reduced from 55 years to 30 years the prison sentence of a 24-year-old Alabaman, arrested at 15 and convicted at 19 for his involvement in a 2015 burglary resulting in police fatally shooting a 16-year-old participant in that home break-in.
Charged with possession and use of marijuana and cocaine, destruction of property, disorderly conduct and assaulting a police officer, John stood before a juvenile court judge imagining that he’d be sentenced to years of incarceration. Instead, the judge sent him to drug court, a 15-month program providing medical treatment for substance abuse; psychological counseling; mediation and relationship-building services for substance abusers’ families; and assistance seeking education and employment.
In a hearing set for Monday, an Alabama man, convicted when he was 15 for his part in a burglary resulting in one of his teen accomplices being fatally shot by police, will ask for his prison term to be significantly reduced.
Bullied at his Philadelphia high school, Earl Morris’ son started defying his teachers and his father and allegedly stole from a convenience store. Those charges against the then 15-year-old, who’d been diagnosed with disabilities including anxiety and depression, were dismissed when a witness failed to appear in court, his father said, recalling what happened five years ago.
The Tennessee Supreme Court has ruled that mandatory life sentences for youth are cruel and unusual punishment. According to that 3-to-2 vote by the court late last year, those convicted of murder as minors must be allowed a chance at parole after a minimum of 25 years in prison.
Originally, registries were conceived as a way to inform communities about convicted sexual predators living in their neighborhoods. But researchers, conducting several different studies over the years, have largely determined that putting minors on registries does not enhance community safety and reflects a miscarriage of justice that runs afoul of the juvenile justice system’s promise to help rehabilitate youth.
Connecticut has turned its troubled juvenile facilities into what federal officials have cited as exemplary national models. Staffing is up dramatically, in part because directors talked to employees about their worries and took steps to solve them. The strategy helped reduce confrontations and brought the Hartford center national recognition this year from Performance-based Standards, which works to improve juvenile justice outcomes and equity.
After 17 students and teachers were shot dead at a Florida school 23 miles away from her hometown, Ashley Freeland was afraid to step back inside her own classrooms.
“I was terrified to go to school the next day,” Freeland said, of that 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland. “And my parents were, like, ‘Ashley, you’ll be fine, you’ll be safe, just go to school.’ And I did. But I was scared to go and I know a lot of my friends were scared to go. “You don’t know where it’s going to happen next. And you don’t know who it’s going to happen to.”
Persuaded by that reality, Freeland raised $15,000 to outfit every class at 4,800-student Cypress Bay High School in Weston, Florida, with kits from the American College of Surgeons Stop the Bleed campaign.