Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/page/227/)
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?
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case in which it will decide whether to apply retroactively its landmark 2012 Miller v. Alabama decision, declaring unconstitutional mandatory sentences of juvenile life without parole.
What do you think should happen when a kid is incarcerated? If you’re like most Americans, you think rehabilitation should be a top priority for youth correctional facilities, according to a recent poll conducted by the Pew Charitable Trusts. But are kids actually getting what they need in facilities to ensure they don’t commit new crimes when they return home? Evidently not:
Two-thirds of these youth don’t return to school after their release from secure custody. Even though parents and families are the most important factor in determining youth success in reintegrating into the community, only one in three families report being included in any release plans made for their children by juvenile facilities.
WASHINGTON — Juvenile justice advocates hailed Friday four key Florida Supreme Court decisions on life without parole and other extremely long sentences imposed on children.
Georgia is now the first state in the South and the 14th in the nation to bar state agencies from using a criminal conviction as grounds for disqualifying prospective employees. The policy is commonly known as “Ban the Box.” Six states ban the use of such policies by private employers. According to Georgia Justice Project, a legal and social services advocacy group based in Atlanta, 3.8 million Georgians, one in three citizens, have a criminal record. “The research is clear that the best indicator of whether a person with a record will be rearrested is their ability to secure stable employment,” the organization said in a press release.
Compromises are often necessary in the political process, but not if they stand in the way of racial justice and fundamental fairness. In New York state, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has proposed laudable legislation this week.
Unfortunately, the specifics of the proposal embody significant and damaging compromises.
In the spirit of learning from the successes of others beyond our borders, we should embrace some of the successful practices and policies for young adults in conflict with the law from our counterparts in the United Kingdom and Germany.
Just as the “superpredator” label had unfairly distorted perceptions of her young newspaper staff, writer Nell Bernstein said, youth incarceration as a whole is “a system custom-designed to erode humanity.”
“Once you put someone in an orange jumpsuit and put a label like ‘offender’ or ‘delinquent’ on him or her, it’s very easy to start thinking of that person as a different kind of child,” she said.
WASHINGTON — Six petitions have been filed with the U.S. Supreme Court asking it to consider whether its landmark 2012 Miller v. Alabama ruling declaring mandatory sentences of juvenile life without parole unconstitutional should apply to cases decided before the ruling.