Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/page/116/)
In late September, Torri was driving down the highway with her 11-year-old son Junior in the back seat when her phone started ringing.
It was the Hamilton County Sheriff’s deputy who worked at Junior’s middle school in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Deputy Arthur Richardson asked Torri where she was. She told him she was on the way to a family birthday dinner at LongHorn Steakhouse.
“He said, ‘Is Junior with you?’” Torri recalled.
Earlier that day, Junior had been accused by other students of making a threat against the school. When Torri had come to pick him up, she’d spoken with Richardson and with administrators, who’d told her he was allowed to return to class the next day. The principal had said she would carry out an investigation then. ProPublica and WPLN are using a nickname for Junior and not including Torri’s last name at the family’s request, to prevent him from being identifiable.
When Richardson called her in the car, Torri immediately felt uneasy. He didn’t say much before hanging up, and she thought about turning around to go home. But she kept driving. When they walked into the restaurant, Torri watched as Junior happily greeted his family.
Soon her phone rang again. It was the deputy. He said he was outside in the strip mall’s parking lot and needed to talk to Junior. Torri called Junior’s stepdad, Kevin Boyer, for extra support, putting him on speaker as she went outside to talk to Richardson. She left Junior with the family, wanting to protect her son for as long as she could ...
TUCSON, Arizona — Adriana Grijalva was getting ready to head to class at the University of Arizona in the fall of 2022 when she got a text message from her cousin telling her to stay put. The cousin, who works in maintenance at the university, had watched law enforcement descend on campus and reached out to make sure she was safe. A former student had just shot a professor 11 times, killing him.
Equal Justice USA (EJUSA) announced October 8 that it will partner with four new communities to build new restorative youth justice diversion programs. Restorative justice includes an accountability process that identifies root causes of youth criminal actions, while providing an opportunity for healing both for the person harmed and the person who has caused harm.
Louisiana is the only state to pass and then reverse Raise the Age legislation. Louisiana’s criminal justice system now treats all 17-year-olds as adults. Is reversing Raise the Age making a difference in the number of violent crimes by 18-year-olds?
Tuesday is President Donald Trump’s first State of the Union address. As he prepares to address the nation and outline his priorities for the year, we thought it fruitful to write our own State of Youth Justice address.
This is an excerpt from the new book “Trapped in a Vice: The Consequences of Confinement for Young People.”
California is in the process of revising standards for the state’s local juvenile justice facilities, which confine and detain thousands of young people every year. These standards should protect young people from the rampant abuse, trauma and violence that occur within these facilities.
The Open Society Foundations U.S. Drug Programs Drug Policy Project will provide $75,000 to support healthy alternatives to mass criminalization and incarceration by strengthening proactive community-driven health services and providing resources for interventions made prior to or instead of arrests in order to improve the health and safety of individuals and community well-being.
Juvenile crime in Alabama has dropped by 27 percent in the past five years, but the number of kids in the state's juvenile justice system hasn't declined, according to a report drafted by a legislative task force.
Several years ago I was running a reentry project in south Brooklyn supporting formerly incarcerated people returning to their communities. We were able to raise some funds to create a leadership development workshop.
The national prison rate is at its lowest since 1997, according to an analysis by The Pew Charitable Trusts. This is apparently not correlated with the decrease in crime, according to date from the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics.
In Arkansas, juvenile justice reform has long proved elusive. While most neighboring states have reduced their youth incarceration rates by double digits since the 1990s, Arkansas’ confinement per capita confinement numbers remain stubbornly high.