Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/page/63/)
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?
In the midst of the ongoing pain and heartbreak of America’s gun violence epidemic, there are some incredible success stories from around the country that have profound policy implications.
In the city of Stockton, Calif., gun violence was already notably on the rise in 2011 because of a series of compounding circumstances. First, there were cutbacks in law enforcement due to a city budget crisis.
When we began our journey to rebuild broken urban communities in our city, Jacksonville, Fla., 20 years ago, little did we know that we would become an important part of a powerful national movement — reframing how we look at crime, incarceration and poverty.
Florida currently spends $2.4 billion annually on its criminal justice system. With the state’s criminal justice system operations being the third largest in the country, there are more than 96,000 Floridians in state prisons and another 166,000 under community supervision. We saw a 9% reduction in crime rates statewide in 2018, which is in line with Florida’s 48-year trend.
Jerel’s story is one of many tales of hate, anger, pain and violence that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer youth face daily. The same way this hate erupted into violence involving a gun for Jerel illustrates how easily this could happen for other LGBTQ youth.
In the early 2000s I had the privilege to serve as the administrator of the Pinellas and Pasco counties Juvenile Assessment Centers. For those of you not familiar with the JACs, their purpose is to serve as a one-stop shop for all juvenile services. The JACs provide law enforcement with a central point of contact for juveniles who have been arrested.
Some things I just don’t get.
I get it that the fastest runner doesn’t always win the race and the strongest doesn’t always win the battle. I get it that chance can decide outcomes. And when chance is the deciding factor, it seems unfair to the fastest and the strongest, but welcome to the underdog.
California has comprehensively strengthened its gun safety laws over the past 25 years and is now generally considered to have the strongest gun safety laws in the nation. Giffords Law Center, which evaluates the strength of state gun laws, affords California the top rank on its Annual Gun Law Scorecard. These legislative changes have been associated with significant declines in overall gun deaths and homicides at the state level.