Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/author/nickolasbagley/)
After decades of neglect, the youth justice field is awakening to the importance of diversion in lieu of arrest and formal court processing for many or most youth accused of delinquent behavior.
Parents in Boone County, Kentucky, were outraged this past January when a ninth grader who had been suspended a year earlier for threatening violence against his fellow students returned to class as soon as his punishment time was up.
“The kid had a ‘kill list’ which named students — friends he was going to kill,” said Republican state Rep. Steve Rawlings.
When a student opened fire at her Detroit high school in November 2021, killing four students and injuring seven others, Rebekah Schuler let go of the idea of ever feeling truly safe in school again.
At the heart of this issue is whether it is appropriate to sentence children to die in prison, with no chance of being considered for release. Half a century ago, offenders in the U.S. of any age were rarely sentenced to life without parole, and it was not until 1978 that states began trying youths as adults. Between 1985 and 2001, however, youths convicted of murder were actually more likely to enter prison with a life sentence than adults convicted of the same crime.
The graduates lined up, brushing off their gowns and adjusting classmates' tassels and stoles. As the graduation march played, the 85 men appeared to hoots and cheers from their families. They marched to the stage – one surrounded by barbed wire fence and constructed by fellow prisoners
WASHINGTON (AP) — When researchers at a nonprofit that studies social media wanted to understand the connection between YouTube videos and gun violence, they set up accounts on the platform that mimicked the behavior of typical boys living in the U.S. They simulated two nine-year-olds who both liked video games.
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.
The murders would not have happened if the parents hadn't purchased a gun for Ethan Crumbley or if they had taken him home from Oxford High School on the day of the shooting, when staff became alarmed about his extreme drawings, the appeals court said, in a groundbreaking case of criminal responsibility for the acts of a child.
A 17-year-old student was found dead in the Colorado woods after being accused of shooting and wounding two administrators at his Denver high school where students and parents were already fed up over recent violence and a lack of action by officials, authorities.
“How would you want your kids, if they were in these facilities, to be treated?”
That question was raised by formerly incarcerated youth and current juvenile justice advocate James Martinez at a meeting of California’s Board of State and Community Corrections. The BSCC is a state agency tasked with overseeing jails and county-level juvenile facilities in California. In early November 2022, the board’s Executive Steering Committee, met to begin rewriting critically important rules governing juvenile camps, ranches and halls.