juvenile detention fees: stone sign for juvenile court entrance with flowers in front

Study: With homicide the No. 1 cause, formerly incarcerated Ohio juveniles’ death rate was six to nine times higher than that of other youth

By |

Death rates were 5.9 times higher for previously incarcerated 11- to 21-year-olds in Ohio than in that state’s general population of youth enrolled in Medicaid health insurance for low-income people, according to a study recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association’s JAMA Open Network.

In a finding researchers said was especially startling, formerly incarcerated females died at nine times the rate of the general population.

“More than half of all deaths were among youths convicted of crimes against persons,”  wrote the researchers, who examined 3,645 formerly incarcerated youth. “More deaths occurred in youths who were incarcerated for the first time and in youths who spent less than or equal to [one] year in custody.”

Teen death in police custody: video still of foster teen death in custody: screenshot from surveillance video showing three figures in struggle

Video shows struggle before foster teen’s death in custody

By |

Surveillance video shows a Black 17-year-old struggling with staff at a Wichita juvenile center last fall before he died after he was restrained facedown for more than 30 minutes.

Sedgwick County released 18 video clips late Friday afternoon of what happened before Cedric Lofton was rushed to a hospital on Sept. 24. He died two days later.

Juvenile reform: multiple metal-framed windows of abandoned multi-story building

Opinion: As some detention centers close, reviving “tough-on-crime” is bad policy

By |

Recent surges in homicides and shootings have prompted some who are opposed to juvenile justice reforms to call for a return to tough-on-crime policies. Those approaches did not make the public safer. They did result in needlessly high incarceration rates for young people, particularly for Black and brown youth. Now is not the time to abandon smart-on-crime justice reforms of the last 20 years as part of yet another race to prove who can be the toughest. We should, instead, be doubling down on those smart reforms.

Juvenile detention medicale: White man in white lab coat stansds in dark roon reviewing a large wall lightbox with numerous x-rays on it

Upcoming study aims to gauge prevalence and impact of traumatic brain injury on juveniles in detention

By |

Traumatic brain injury among juvenile offenders will be assessed as part of a three-year research project that’s slated to enroll the first of roughly 110 youth and young adult study participants in Florida as early as late January. Ultimately, the study aims to determine which TBI treatments might help keep those youth from cycling in and out of detention, complete their education and succeed at work.

COVID-19 in juvenile facilities: worker with packaged masks for distribution

As COVID-19 lingers, some juveniles facilities rate better than others in health safety

By |

The nation’s 1,772 juvenile facilities face many challenges caused by the pandemic, according to those working inside and monitoring them from the outside. So far, juvenile facilities — 789 of the 1,510 nationwide are detention centers or long-term secure facilities, the remainder are group homes, residential treatment centers, wilderness camps and such — and the organizations monitoring them have reported no young people dying from the disease.

rethinking juvenile justice and schools report: chalkboard graphic of student walking towards justice building instead of school

Council of State Governments re-issues guidance to help probation offices and educators avoid over-penalizing juveniles for truancy alone

By |

Based on a September 2020 analysis finding that South Carolina schools in 2018 referred almost 61,000 students to juvenile courts solely for being excessively absent from school, the Council on State Governments Justice Center recently re-issued guidance for changing juvenile probation protocols that aim to improve the students' educational prospects and classroom attendance.

Detention diversion: two young women in orange t-shirts and dark pants stand in front of a wall with several posters and notices

A New York City detention-diversion project is reserved for girls and queer youth

By |

Since Just Us launched in January, 25 youth have enrolled in a three-year pilot project that pays girls and queer youth involved in the criminal justice system, or who are at-risk for winding up there, to participate in projects aimed at keeping them out of detention facilities.

Run by New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services and created by a Vera Institute of Justice task force, JustUs provides individual and group counseling; legal advocacy; employment workshops; and internships for Brooklyn youth. The program serves females who are lesbian, bisexual and straight and youth who are non-binary, trans or queer.

“A lot of times, people are looking for support and they want to be heard and seen,” said Helianis Quijada Salazar, director of JustUs. “We try to customize everything to meet the unique needs of a person.”

Analysis on racial disparities in youth detention: Upset boy leaning on fence, youth separated from family and detained

Analysis: Racial disparities in juvenile detention narrowed overall, but widened in some states

By |

Black youth were more than four times as likely as white ones to be detained or committed to a juvenile facility, according to a report released this month by The Sentencing Project, which also noted that the Black-white disparity in detention and incarceration declined since it last analyzed the data. The newest report is based on the 36,479 youth in a total of 1,510 detention centers, youth prisons, residential treatment centers and youth homes as of October 2019; the prior analysis was conducted in 2015.

South Carolina juvenile detention reform: Woman with long light brown hair wearing black and white striped top holding papers up with her right hand stands behind a wood and brass podium speaking into a microphone.

Parents and corrections officers fault South Carolina juvenile facilities before state senate

By |

Though technically it was against the rules, a juvenile corrections officer had been watching and chuckling along as a group of girl detainees enjoyed riding a foam mattress down a flight of stairs at a Union, S.C. detention facility in November 2020. Declaring the scene a riot, the supervising officer ordered his underlings to search the girls. In front of male officers the girls were forced to strip down to their bras and panties.