11-year old arrested for making threat in Tennessee: view of young black child form behind in horizontal striped shirt at dusk

An 11-year-old denied making a threat and was allowed to return to school. Tennessee police arrested him anyway.

By |

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 ...

Schools face pressure to take harder line on discipline: closeup of students hand holding red pen with class in desks in background

Schools face pressure to take harder line on discipline

By |

As kids' behavior reaches crisis points after the stress and isolation of pandemic shutdowns, many schools are facing pressure from critics to rethink their approaches to discipline — including policies intended to reduce suspensions and expulsions.

Utah College Classes: Man in blue shirt gestures speaking to clas stanng in front of a white board filled with text

Utah offers “free college for all” to juveniles behind bars

By |

Along with New Jersey and California, Utah is among a growing number of states that are implementing postsecondary programming for incarcerated youth. Utah’s Higher Education for Incarcerated Youth program even goes beyond what’s offered to incarcerated adults in Utah: Most adults in Utah prisons do not have access to free college-level courses.

The word "criminal" is engraved on a building.

Court watchers urge change in Florida, which is No. 1 in prosecuting youth as adults

By |

Since 2007, 18 states have raised to 18 the age at which a person can be criminally charged as an adult, according to a 2021 report from The Sentencing Project. In a previous report, that organization concluded that 250,000 youth nationwide were being charged as adults annually in 2000. By 2019, that number was 53,000, an 80% drop.

JJIE HUB Latest: Juvenile Juctice Center modern red brick and cement building with black sign

JJIE Resource Hub: Federal funds to slash student suspensions; trying adults as children; and other topics

By |

Unspent American Rescue Plan funds to lower the number of students who wind up in the juvenile justice system. The impact of racial disparities resulting from handling children through the adult criminal justice system. Innovative law school partnerships to aid youth simultaneously in the foster care and juvenile justice systems. How children without lawyers fare in immigration proceedings...  Juvenile Justice Resource Hub curates those and other analyses, reviews and research on juvenile justice policy, practice, reform and programs.

New Juvenile Prison: Large, 2story, modern red brick and light cement building with front lawn and low shrubbery

Opinion: New, multimillion-dollar jail is no panacea for juvenile offenders

By |

How one prisoner, sentenced as a teen, sees spending millions on new juvenile jail:

For almost 25 years, I’ve been on North Carolina’s death row. The people on death row who have signed onto my letter protesting that new jail – and more than 40 other men on death row who wanted to sign but were physically unable to position themselves to do so – were confined as children to boot camps, reformatories, detention centers and youth prisons.

S.C. Juvenile Justice System lawsuit: Two hands intertwined with chain link fence close-up

Groups sue over conditions in South Carolina’s juvenile lockups

By |

Several civil rights groups are suing South Carolina over conditions at its juvenile lockups, alleging that children in state custody are subject to violence and isolation while deprived of educational or rehabilitative programs.

New Mexico jail: Michael Brown portrait with short light brown hair and beard smiles into camera sitting in turquoise plastic chair in prisoner visiting room wearing navy blue prison uniform with heavily black tatooed arms on lap and fingers interlaced.

Behind bars since age 16, juvenile lifer watches New Mexico struggle over sentencing reform

By |

Michael is one of dozens of people in New Mexico who received what juvenile justice reformists call “de-facto life sentences” — sentences so long they will likely never be released — for crimes committed as minors. He is a vocal supporter of youth sentencing reforms that died in the state legislature earlier this year, part of a national movement to rehabilitate juvenile offenders and make them eligible for parole earlier.