Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/page/320/)
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?
COVINGTON, Ga. -- This small community to the east of Atlanta isn’t necessarily the kind of locale one would associate with progressive juvenile justice policies. Yet here, deep in the rustic Georgian countryside, the local juvenile court has embraced an innovative model where keeping kids out of trouble, the courtroom and especially detention has become an utmost priority.
More than 18,000 young people were killed or injured by a gun in 2010, according to a new report released by the Children’s Defense Fund.
The Fatherhood Image Film Festival explores the complexities of being a father and positive male role model.
Is Calif. lock-up deliberately and illegally depriving wards of education as part of a solitary-confinement regimen?
An employee of a youth service program in Douglas County, Ga., has been charged with child exploitation after allegedly sending sexually explicit text messages to a 16-year-old boy. The community-based alternative program, Youth Villages -- a program headquartered in Memphis, Tenn., with a presence in several states, including Indiana, New Hampshire and Oregon -- was profiled by JJIE earlier this summer. Christiana Brendi Freeman, a 25-year-old from Austell, Ga., had a bond hearing Thursday at the Douglas County Magistrate Court. Youth Villages Inner Harbour Campus, a residential treatment program, is located in nearby Douglasville, Ga. According to the Douglas County Sentinel, Freeman had sent nude pictures to a minor she had worked with at the Inner Harbour Campus.
The changes that last will come when people start to take responsibility for themselves and their communities. They’ll happen when we find other ways to address our conflicts besides calling the police.
A recent conversation with a group of friends reminded me that discussions about money are complicated and can move easily from discussion to heated argument. I said that more public funds should be dedicated to research about positive outcomes for kids in the juvenile justice system and that the research would lead to development of additional evidence-based programs and practices. One friend countered that dollars should be dedicated to prevention to keep kids out of the system. Another suggested that lots of kids come from intergenerational criminal families and will continue offending no matter what the services - that spending public funds on those kids just removed funding for services to kids who don’t get into trouble. A third colleague noted that the most cost effective approach to preventing bad outcomes has nothing to do with kids in trouble with the law.
The new report raises serious questions about the impact of corrections on crime rates.