Child Advocates React To AG Holder’s Juvenile Justice Reform Call

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Local child advocates are reacting favorably to United States Attorney General Eric Holder’s recent comments about the dire need for major juvenile justice system reform. In remarks to the National Association of Counties Legislative Conference, Holder called for the Department of Justice to adopt a new approach that combines evidence-based research and comprehensive community partnerships. Holder also said that it’s time for us to ask some important questions such as; why is it that African-American youth make up 16 percent of the overall youth population, but comprise more than half of the juvenile population arrested for committing a violent crime?  Why is it that abused and neglected children are 11 times more likely than their non-abused and non-neglected peers to be arrested for criminal behavior?   And why is that so many of those who enter our juvenile justice system either can’t afford – or do not know to ask for – access to legal guidance?

Saggy Pants Ban: Will It Overload Dublin, GA Courts, Encourage Racial Profiling?

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By Chandra R. Thomas

Dublin, Ga. Juvenile Court Judge William Tribble, Sr. says he has plenty of work to keep him busy on the bench. Now’s he’s concerned that a new ordinance signed into law Tuesday banning saggy pants in the middle Georgia city might end up overloading an already jam-packed court docket. “I can just see my assistant district attorney prosecuting a case like that,” says Tribble, who claims he spotted a young man in sagging pants on the streets of Dublin during his phone interview. “We’ll have a robbery and child molestation cases to handle and then there will be 20 baggy (pants) cases that we’ve got to get rid of.