Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/page/331/)
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?
Texas may soon come into compliance with last year’s Supreme Court ruling barring states from sentencing juveniles under 18 to mandatory life without parole.
New York’s juvenile justice system is slowly being overhauled by Gov. Cuomo’s Close To Home initiative, a set of proposals to keep youth close to their communities.
In 2006, the mother of a teenage daughter involved in the juvenile justice system in Hawaii contacted a small, non-profit in Lake Charles, La., more than 4,000 miles away. The mother was seeking support from someone who could understand her plight in navigating the juvenile justice system and possibly help her find the treatment and services her daughter desperately needed. Her search, to find someone who had experienced the same challenges, took months of calls, letters, emails and Internet searches. Her efforts and lack of response left her hopeless. Fast-forward seven years.
Juvenile court judges and their clerks in Massachusetts will see more money in their paychecks in 2014 thanks to a provision in the recently passed $34 billion budget. The phased-in salary increases, the first for judges and clerks since 2006, will total $23 million annually, about 2 percent of the 2014 budget. The budget will increase the salaries of regular associate judges from nearly $130,000 annually to almost $160,000 -- an increase of approximately 23 percent. The Republican reports that under the new budget -- which Gov. Deval Patrick said he will sign next month -- trial court clerk salaries will increase by 22 percent, from $110,000 to approximately $135,000. Assistant court clerks will see their salaries increase by nearly $19,000, and first assistant clerks by $20,000.
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A report released last week by the Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth calls for the state’s Dept. of Children’s Services to step up its efforts in meeting the needs of young people with psychological and other health problems.
As a criminal defense lawyer and the mother of two girls, I have a very effective disciplinary tool at my disposal: I can take just about any undesirable interaction between my daughters and frame it as a crime. If the older one smacks the younger one, it’s an assault. If the younger one takes her big sister’s earrings, it’s larceny. If they are both yelling and shouting at each other, it’s disorderly conduct. Over the years, I’ve been able to advise them that this behavior not only breaks the rules of our home but also violates North Carolina’s criminal statutes. As someone who defends children in juvenile delinquency court, I can also warn them that they could be criminally prosecuted and end up – as my young clients do – facing a judge and the possibility of a year of supervised probation, removal from their home, or long-term detention and commitment.
Following the release of a recent Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) report, Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice Commissioner Avery D. Niles released an official statement responding to the report’s claims that the state’s juvenile facilities post among the highest rates of sexual victimization in the nation.