Connecticut turnaround of juvenile system sets standard: common area of juvenile facility with bright colors and motivational banner

Connecticut’s turnaround of troubled juvenile system sets a standard, says justice-equity organization

Connecticut has turned its troubled juvenile facilities into what federal officials have cited as exemplary national models. Staffing is up dramatically, in part because directors talked to employees about their worries and took steps to solve them. The strategy helped reduce confrontations and brought the Hartford center national recognition this year from Performance-based Standards, which works to improve juvenile justice outcomes and equity.

Connecticut Advocates Worried About Youth in Adult System ‘Vulnerable’ to COVID-19

The public won’t know their names, their ages nor why they were behind bars. They won’t hear their interaction with the person whose job is to check them for symptoms weekly. Nor will they hear the thoughts running through their minds as they sit in their cell, isolated from the unprecedented chaos outside.

mentor: Young African American male outside wearing a black and white baseball jersey henley shirt looking serious

I Thought I Could Help My Last Mentee — But I Was Wrong

It’s pretty to believe that if one only puts in the time, he can save a wayward child. It doesn’t always work out that way. The troubled boy I mentored for 6½ years, through a Norwalk, Conn., school volunteer program, fired me last May.

Connecticut: Older bald man with gray mustache, beard, dark glasses in tan scrubs over white undershirt next to younger, tattooed man with dark mustache, beard, in same clothes with arms folded.

A Connecticut Prison Has a Radical New Plan to Keep Young Inmates From Coming Back

Leona Godfrey was sitting down to dinner at a TGI Fridays in Orange, Connecticut, in December 2013 when she glanced at a television and saw her little brother’s name on the local news. Davon Eldemire had tried to rob a small grocery store, shooting and injuring the owner. “I was devastated,” Godfrey recalled. “What was he thinking? I couldn’t eat.”

Officials Release New Details in Elementary School Massacre

On Saturday, Newtown, Conn. officials released the names of the 20 children and six adults slain in last Friday’s shooting spree at Sandy Hook Elementary School. According to initial reports, all of the children killed in the attack were between 6 or 7 years old. State police say 12 of the young victims were female and eight were boys. All six of the slain adults were female.

In the Eye of the Storm: Remembering the Most Vulnerable

As with most natural disasters, the attention of the media was initially centered on the havoc wrecked by Hurricane Sandy. We were drawn to its most dramatic images – the dangling crane at the construction site of a luxury high-rise in Midtown Manhattan; the New York City building whose façade collapsed, resembling the open side of a dollhouse; the half-submerged roller coaster, all that remained of an amusement park on the Jersey shore; the river of water running through the narrow streets of Hoboken; and the weeping mother who lost two toddlers amidst the flooding on Staten Island. We watched cable news. We texted REDCROSS to 90999.  We donated canned goods and batteries. Yet, consistent with human nature, our interest soon faded.