False Confessions: N.Y. State Mulls Bill Requiring Videotaped Interrogations
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The New York Police Department is willingly unfurling its own interrogation recording program, albeit slowly.
An 11-year-old denied making a threat and was allowed to return to school. Tennessee police arrested him anyway.
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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 ...
A campus shooting spurred her political awakening. Her whole family followed.
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.
Justice organization announces new youth restorative justice partners
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.
A Louisiana law meant to fight teen violence is sweeping 17-year-olds arrested for lesser crimes into adult court
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?
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Texas prisons and jails are recruiting more teenagers to shore up guard shortage
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School violence: Mapping incidents in Georgia
Study: Many Convicted Juveniles Say They Falsely Admitted Crime
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More than a third of juveniles convicted of serious crimes said in a recent study they had falsely admitted to a crime they did not commit.
[Photos] Young Incarcerated Photographers Make Magic in Photos
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How do you make magic in a place where there is none? In Rhode Island a photography program inside of a youth detention center is asking just that.
OP-ED: Incarceration is Only One Piece of a Rational, Effective Juvenile Justice System
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A visitor from another planet – or even another country – who reviewed the juvenile justice system in most states, might conclude that we are committed to continuing crime through our addiction to incarceration. The overwhelming lessons of science and experience should be enough to convince policymakers to use detention, jail or prison as a last resort and for the shortest time possible. Instead, most states perpetuate large punitive institutions at great cost even though best practices demonstrate that local community-based, family-involved treatment is more effective at reducing juvenile crime. Imprisonment fails as a strategy to rehabilitate because it seldom changes behavior except to worsen it. I do not mean that incarceration is never necessary nor that any state should ignore the need for swift action to remove a kid from the public in exigent circumstances.
South Florida Squeezes School-to-Prison Pipeline
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South Florida’s Broward County School Board voted unanimously to sign new rules, written by many hands, which are meant to drive down arrests and their unintended consequences in the state’s second most populous school district. The Nov. 5 Memorandum of Understanding approved by the school board has its signatories promise “appropriate responses and use of resources when responding to school-based misbehavior.”
Appeal Likely in Juvenile Lifer Ruling
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Advocates for juvenile justice say a Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling issued Wednesday that will preclude hundreds of juvenile lifers from seeking new sentencing hearings is blatantly unfair.
OP-ED: InsideOUT Writers: A Program of Change for Re-entry Youth
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I was born while my mother was in jail. Immediately, my grandmother took me in to her home, as she did with three other of my mom’s six kids.
OP-ED: JJDPA: Setting National Standards for Youth in the Juvenile Justice System
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Almost 40 years ago, Congress enacted the Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA), the bedrock federal juvenile justice law that sets national standards for youth in the system.