Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/category/ideas-and-opinions/page/50/)
Screaming and banging. Shouting and crying. Cussing and fighting. Gang signs and threats. Suicide watches and solitary. Broken hearts and smashed souls. Lost and betrayed childhoods.
What is right will always overcome wrong, even when what is wrong is believed to be right.
Lawmakers in New York, North Carolina, Missouri and Texas are currently debating proposals that would move 16- or 17-year-olds (or both) out of the adult criminal justice system and into the juvenile court.
Attorneys often lack the training or tools to apply a trauma-informed and gender-specific approach to case investigation and sentencing advocacy for young female clients. As a result, courts may not receive critical information they need to make informed, and potentially mitigated, sentencing decisions.
I spent my 18th birthday incarcerated, and saw many of my peers do the same. Our formative years formed within the confines of a stagnant system. Jail was the first time I saw the issues of racism and classism in America. Slavery built us, and prisons create an underclass of black and brown color.
One of the most consistent recommendations to come out of report after report on fatal confrontations between youth and law enforcement has been the need for jobs.
There has been a revolution brewing among stakeholders of all juvenile justice walks for years, and I think it has arrived.
Our success has been unquestionable. There has been a steep decline in youth incarceration in America and there has even been some progress moving juvenile justice systems away from being punitive and deficit-based and toward positive youth development.
I remember a day not long ago sitting in my California prison cell doing what I'd done so many countless other times through the electric fence and razor wire, staring out my window.
Does anyone want the rest of their life defined by what they did at 14?
I don’t think so, and neither does our Supreme Court.