Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/page/251/)
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?
A partnership between the federal government and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation will provide $2 million over the next two years for juvenile justice reform efforts.
Studies have found that subjecting prisoners to solitary confinement makes it more difficult for them to assimilate back into their communities, increasing the risk of recidivism. ... Before Ismael left Rikers two years later, he had spent more than 300 days in “the box,” a six-by-eight-foot cell containing a bunk, sink, toilet, and metal door with no natural light and a small mesh window through which food is delivered. His longest stretch in solitary lasted four months. All of his time incarcerated at Rikers was in pretrial detention — he had not yet been convicted of a crime.
NEW YORK — The two dozen teenagers who have met on the creaking second floor of Renaissance Center to watch a movie together one night in March are no strangers to their share of street violence. The Renaissance Center features a recording studio, replete with a drum set, a collection of electric and acoustic guitars, a row of microphones, and golden curtains for a backdrop. The teens come to perform songs they have written and composed about their life on the forlorn streets of the South Bronx, one of the poorest congressional districts in the country.
It’s easier to get a gun than a textbook in New Orleans, America’s murder capital. ‘Shell-Shocked’ — a movie filled with violence, death and schoolroom chaos — stunned the young Bronx audience in New York. A New Orleans teen pleads “I really do not, do not want to die young! I do no want to stay here because I don’t want to die.”
Earlier this month, JJIE columnist John Lash devoted a long commentary to a controversial new study that is currently making waves throughout the Oregon juvenile justice system.
It's a dramatic change that puts at risk "not only the well-being of our children but the well-being of the nation as a whole," according to a recently released report. Although total federal spending is projected to increase an extraordinary 41 percent over the next 10 years, federal spending on children's programs will increase just 2 percent over the same decade. That's a sharp decline from the 10 percent increase in spending on kids between 2003 and 2013. So where is all that money going?
In recent months, some voices have emerged to suggest that Multnomah County and Oregon return to the old days of juvenile justice, when officials were locking up a greater number of young people who got into trouble.
It’s not easy being black in the United States. Despite America’s Horatio Alger mythology and its focus on personal effort as the way to overcome all obstacles, being born black can work counter to success.