Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/category/ideas-and-opinions/page/34/)
Access to courses is the first step toward meaningful educational opportunity for students who are removed from their homes and communities and placed in secure facilities. Under federal and state laws, students attending schools in juvenile justice facilities are entitled to educational opportunities comparable to those they would have if they were attending their neighborhood high schools.
Standing before a room packed with youth, juvenile justice advocates, system practitioners, law enforcement officials and judges last week, Caren Harp, Administrator of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), made an announcement: OJJDP would be “simplifying” the implementation and compliance of the core protections of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA).
The weapon of incarceration that terrorizes black families has been turned against people from South and Central America who are fleeing unspeakable violence. Racism — the lifeblood of the Trump presidency — fuels and sustains both systems.
It’s about time someone wrote a book that informs readers about the unadulterated truth of how we treat kids in America. It isn’t flattering, and worse, the future doesn’t look promising despite reform movements peppered across our nation.
While we have made enormous progress in many states in reducing detention numbers and closing prisons, too many youth are still spending the night behind bars. Surprisingly, New Zealand provides the United States with a helpful model for effective ways to right size our system by limiting arrests.
Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican, signed into law a criminal justice reform package representing significant progress for our state, including many progressive youth justice reforms, in April. Here’s how we helped engineer that.
The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) is taking a new approach to Title II (the portion of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act authorizing states to innovate efforts to improve juvenile justice systems and ensure the fair treatment of youth) that will facilitate better communication and increase trust between OJJDP and the states. This will give OJJDP more time to focus on compliance and programming assistance, and it will allow states to redirect resources toward reducing disproportionate minority contact (DMC), while at the same time maintaining public safety, holding youth accountable for their conduct and empowering them to live crime-free.
“Animals.” “Menace.” “Blood-stained killing fields.” These are all terms President Donald Trump used in a one-week period to describe undocumented immigrants, alleged members of MS-13 and the purported harm they are causing our country. The White House doubled down on these assertions by releasing an official statement titled, “What You Need to Know About the Violent Animals of MS-13.”
Last Wednesday, we ran a story that began, “Mariah Charles woke up on Tuesday faced with a difficult decision. Does she take a plea to a crime she didn’t commit or go to trial — face the two officers who slammed her to the ground, arresting her on her way to school — and risk losing.”
Uncertainty is an unsung hero. It’s one thing we all share in different degrees. As a culture we don’t cherish uncertainty. We’re a culture that markets to fear about uncertainty.