Alabaman appealing 55 year sentence for burglary death: graphic image of young black boy with blue background

Alabaman is appealing 55-year sentence for participating in a burglary ending in teen friend’s death by police

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LaKeith Smith, under Alabama’s felony murder law allowing prosecutors to charge a person considered an accomplice to a crime, was faulted for his friend’s death. No evidence that the teen fired or possessed a gun was presented during the trial. Smith, now 23, should never have been in that group of boys, his mother said, making trouble with them. He also should not be serving a 55-year sentence in a maximum-security prison...

Ticketing students: Three teen boys fighting in school corridor

Ticketing misbehaving students is counter-productive, critics of that practice argue

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Students can be ticketed by school resource officers or by local police departments to whom school staff members refer students viewed as disruptive. From misdemeanor offenses to such potential felony offenses as gun possession or assault, students can be cited under local ordinances. There is no centralized database of how many school districts employ that kind of discipline.

Florida: Very large circle of people hold hands indoors

As youths face hefty court fines, some states find new ways for them to pay for their crimes

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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

Juvenile Sentencing: Two policeman holding Black male teen between them walt around whote police car in a grassy park

Minorities are less likely than whites to bypass courts for community-based rehabilitation, new analysis finds

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Citing, among others, the case of a Black boy who first was incarcerated, at 14, for stealing candy and, at 16, died at a restrictive wilderness camp where he was sent for violating curfew and other parole violations, this new report from The Sentencing Project suggests that U.S. courts divert comparatively fewer minority youth into community-based service or other rehabilitation. And diversion, overall, is sought less often than it should be.

Homeless: Illustration of adult courching between 2 people sitting in chairs facng the femail sitting with head in hands

Youth leaving foster care, juvenile and other systems are aim of Washington housing effort

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Implemented in June, HB 1905 establishes a five-year budget of over $5 million to reduce homelessness among those aforementioned groups. Washington’s Office of Homeless Youth will be responsible for much of that budget, administering $1.6 million in flexible funding that lets people who are allotted those dollars determine how to spend them on transportation, telephone or other everyday expenses.

The word "criminal" is engraved on a building.

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

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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.

What happened after Minneapolis removed police officers from schools

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By September 2020, 11 new unarmed public safety support specialists, many with law enforcement-related backgrounds, were in place and on the Minneapolis Public Schools payroll. Two years and one pandemic later, initial data and interviews with students and staff suggest that fewer Minneapolis students are being punished and, consequently, missing class for suspensions or other punishment.

Tattoed forearms and hands rest on cell bars.

Analysis: Higher arrest and incarceration rates for Florida girls vs. boys

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Non-felony offenses accounted for two out of three arrests of juvenile girls in Florida, according to “The Justice for Girls Blueprint: The Way Forward for Florida,” recently released by the Delores Barr Weaver Policy Center.

Two-thirds of the state's justice-involved girls but roughly one-third of boys — 66% versus 38% — were arrested for felony offenses. Two-thirds of girls and almost one-fifth of boys were incarcerated for non-felonies, according to the center's analysis of data from Florida’s Department of Juvenile Justice Delinquency Dashboard, Department of Health Youth Substance Abuse Survey and the Youth Risk Behavior Survey...

study says schooling for incarcerated youth is inferior: boy in juvenile detention holds book behind back as he walks in line with other detainees

Study: Schooling for incarcerated youth is fragmented, inferior

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Most of the 50 states have clearly designated which agencies are in charge of hiring teachers for incarcerated juveniles, creating teaching curriculum and other education services. But how and by whom that instruction gets delivered varies substantially from state to state and locale to locale, resulting in a fragmented system that generally provides inferior instruction, according to a recent report from Bellwether Education Partners.

LGBTQ youth and young adults: An individual standing in the center of six people, all with their backs to the camera, holds in the air a large gay pride flag with stripes of red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple flag that symbolizes gay pride.

Litigation and innovation involving LGBTQ juveniles, a disproportionately larger group

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Tailor-made services are important for many justice-involved LGBTQ youth and young adults their advocates contend, because those individuals’ encounters with law enforcement, courts, correctional and other agencies often are in stark contrast to how their heterosexual peers navigate the justice system and society in general.