Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/series/from-the-bureaus/page/28/)
NEW YORK — The savage killing of two police officers has done nothing to ease the tension between protesters and the city and police department they hope to reform. In fact, divisions between the two sides appear to only have deepened. And with more protests planned for New Year’s Eve, the stand-off shows no sign of letting up.
NEW YORK — It has been more than 20 years since the day Nicholas Heyward Jr. was shot by a police officer while he was playing cops and robbers as a 13-year-old with his friends in the stairwell of the Gowanus Houses in Brooklyn.
NEW YORK — Each story is unique in its own way. A phone call before work. One last football game before heading out of town. A bachelor party before a wedding. Then a call or a knock on the door and life would no longer be the same.
NEW YORK — On a sunny school day last year, the last thing 20 teenagers seemed interested in was a yoga class. Most hadn’t even bothered changing out of their jeans, leather jackets and baseball caps. Despite appearances, one in particular was different.
John was a senior at Humanities Preparatory Academy, a small alternative public high school for students deemed at-risk, yet with the academic potential to attend college. He’s been assigned to the yoga class for the past three years.
“I thought it would just be a class of breathing, just calming the body down, that’s it,” said John, 18.
At-risk youth are those under 18 who are likely to drop out of school for a variety of reasons: substance abuse problems, a troubled home life or getting into trouble with the law. Trauma, poverty and violence often factor in as well.
Friends and family of 35 alleged gang members from west Harlem filled the courthouse today. But decisions never came, leaving families frustrated and suspects awaiting judgment amid hostile tension in jail.
Daryl and a guest discuss policing in public housinge today on the "Brian Lehrer Show" on WNYC 93.9 FM.
NEW YORK — Residents of the Grant and Manhattanville housing projects in west Harlem have been subjected to a deadly gang rivalry spanning generations. This past June, the New York Police Department unleashed a squad of more than 500 police officers to raid the housing complexes and make arrests.
Six months later, the alleged gang members – ages 15 to 30 – wait to receive their sentences Wednesday. The NYPD maintains that arresting more than 100 potentially violent criminals in one fell swoop was a triumph.
Family, friends and neighbors wonder if this is simply a stopgap solution.
LOS ANGELES — The man who has presided over the largest juvenile court system in the nation for 20 years will leave behind major advances in treating so-called crossover youths. He leaves with his trademark blaze of silver hair, relaxed attitude and easy humor intact.
Sentenced to life in prison at the age of 15, Julie Anderson’s 34-year-old son Eric, along with roughly 80 fellow Illinois inmates, has received his first hope for freedom since he sat in a courtroom 19 years ago.
NEW YORK — Ruben Rodriguez, a teen from the Bronx, is on Rikers Island, waiting to stand trial for homicide. By the time he returned to the Box (punitive segregation) in late September, City of New York Correction Department Commissioner Joseph Ponte publicly promised to end punitive segregation for Rikers’ roughly 300 juvenile inmates by 2015.