Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/author/ryan-schill/)
Violent protests and looting erupted Sunday night in a St. Louis suburb following a candlelight vigil honoring an unarmed black teenager who was shot and killed Saturday by a police officer.
Two first-term senators from opposite sides of the aisle introduced legislation Tuesday banning the use of juvenile solitary confinement.
Every isolation cell in every juvenile detention center in the United States could be redesigned with calm muted paint colors, cushioned mattresses with soft sheets and blankets, and luxurious, private bathrooms but it wouldn’t matter. Their purpose would remain to isolate the youth from contact with others.
A measure restricting access to juvenile records passed the Washington state Legislature Wednesday.
A federal judge on Tuesday ordered that the 350 Michigan prisoners serving life sentences for crimes committed as juveniles should be given a chance at parole. The ruling comes nearly a year and half after the landmark June 2012 Supreme Court decision that mandatory life without parole sentences for juveniles are unconstitutional. Yesterday’s ruling by U.S. District Judge John O’Meara gives Michigan until Jan 31, 2014, a little more than two months, to decide on a plan for giving the state’s juvenile lifers a "fair, meaningful and realistic" opportunity for parole. Children’s advocates welcomed the ruling, but Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette said parole hearings would only hurt the families of the victims.
“In every case where a juvenile is sentenced to life in prison, a victim was already sentenced to death — forever,” Schuette said through a spokesperson. The ruling, he added, would “re-victimizing these families through unnecessary hearings.”
Beautiful. Ugly. Scary. Safe. Unsafe. Adjectives to map your neighborhood by—which is just what young people living in the City Heights neighborhood of San Diego did recently with the AjA project.
Look: stunning portraits of diverse Portland families taken by local youth.
Is the Illinois DJJ providing adequate & required mental health and education services? Some are saying no.
Jaime has spent a year behind bars at Kewanee, where, at 14, he is the youngest inmate, and he has yet to be assessed by the prison, his mother says. Without an assessment he cannot receive more than the most basic therapy, and according to his mother, Jaime is not doing well.
A portrait of a troubled young man with a history of violent outbursts, trouble with the law, and mental illness that received, at best, sporadic treatment.