Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/tag/diversion-court/)
Courts have long mandated fees, aiming to hold youth accountable, deter them from future crime and often to cover the justice system’s administrative and other costs. Yet, advocates of juvenile justice reform contend that those conventional methods of demanding accountability from young offenders are counterproductive, neither serving the interests of youth nor their victims
Launched in summer 2021 as an expansion of the incarceration-diversion program, Long Island, N.Y.'s ConcepTS also stands for “collaboration, oversight, nurturing, community, engagement, participation and treatment services.” It’s the brainchild of Suffolk County Supreme Court Justice Fernando Camacho, who says he has a heart for young people and a love of the law. The Juvenile Justice Information Exchange’s Micah Danney interviewed Camacho about what diversion programs mean for juvenile offenders and the juvenile justice system he helps to oversee.
In the eyes of court officials with say-so over whether he remains free or on lockdown, Nasheem Heath has mostly made the right moves since, at age 16, he was arrested for pointing a pistol at a random stranger and snatching that man's necklace and cash. Heath has not been re-arrested. He has held a seasonal job with a moving company. What he still doesn’t have is a home to call his own or the kind of income that would let him afford it. I was angry,” said Heath, now 20, who was a homeless kid on that night in May 2017 when he committed that crime.
Unless accused of criminally negligent homicide, no child younger than 12 could be legally arrested, detained or brought before a judge, according to legislation New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo appears poised to sign. Approved by the state’s legislature, the bill undoes a 1909 law allowing the arrests of kids as young as 7.