Community probation, community service, crisis intervention and other services are listed on a sign outside a juvenile probation office.

Q&A: Long Island judge seeks collaboration among trauma-focused child welfare and juvenile agencies and youths’ families

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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.

Henry Montgomery is free: laughing older black man with glasses, fasemask and headphones

Henry Montgomery, at center of juvenile life debate, is free

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The Louisiana inmate whose Supreme Court case was instrumental in extending the possibility of freedom to hundreds of people sentenced to life in prison without the opportunity for parole when they were juveniles was freed on parole Wednesday after spending nearly six decades behind bars.

Henry Montgomery, 75, was released from prison just hours after the parole board's decision and went to the offices of the Louisiana Parole Project, a nonprofit which is supporting him after his release. There he was embraced by tearful staff and former juvenile lifers who were freed as a result of the court case that bears Montgomery's name.

A New Yorker’s one-time criminal charge, juvenile probation and homelessness

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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.

Opinion: California juvenile reforms should proceed, despite probation officer lobbying efforts

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As California’s juvenile probation caseloads have plummeted and annual costs of incarcerating a single youth skyrocketed to hundreds of thousands of dollars, juvenile probation departments, nevertheless, have manage to stave off severe budget cuts and layoffs. But that ride seemingly is ending as counties explore less costly alternatives to incarceration and probation.

Black juvenile detention Tennessee: Black and white illustration of 3 young children holding hands walking surrounded by text quotes form story and geometric forms

Black children were jailed for a crime that doesn’t exist. Almost nothing happened to the adults in charge.

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Among cases referred to juvenile court, the statewide average in Tennessee for how often children were locked up was 5%. In Rutherford County, it was 48%. Judge Donna Scott Davenport says children need consequences. “Being detained in our facility is not a picnic at all,” she says on the radio. “It’s not supposed to be. It’s a consequence for an action.”

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

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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.  

youth justice disabled people legal guardianship: illustration of an antique 2-sided scale with colorful pastel cloud background

Opinion: Vulnerable youth need justice, and legal aid needs community

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Everyone deserves access to justice. Eight years ago, I took a chance that the community would show up to support legal services – and justice – for vulnerable kids and young adults. 

I’ll never forget the first client who walked through our doors or any of the clients I’ve represented. As I step down from leading Arizona Legal Women and Youth Services (ALWAYS) and turn the reins over to a brilliant successor, I can’t help but reflect on all that I’ve learned, felt, and hoped during my time running a legal aid center. At ALWAYS, we serve human trafficking survivors and children and young adults affected by homelessness, abuse, and the foster care system. With the exception of trafficking survivors, everyone we serve is 24 years old or younger.

California Study: black youth injured during police encounters at greater rates than others: police officer holding nightstick against neck of Black youth during arrest

California Study: Blacks were 19% of youth injured during police encounters; their injury risks were as much as 6.7 times higher than that of whites

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A University of California at Berkeley School of Public Health analyzed 13 years’ worth of hospital records for almost 16,000 patients aged 19 and younger, starting roughly in 2013. Black girls in those reports were injured more often than any group other than Black boys. Whites had the lowest injury rates among all races of youth, according to the analysis, published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association’s JAMA Pediatrics.

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

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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.

New law gives juvenile offenders in Washington state same rights to a lawyer that adults have

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Defendants who are 18 years old and younger will have the same access to legal counsel as adults in Washington, starting next January. That new law trails another juvenile justice reform, which took effect on July 25, aimed at trimming the number of youth in foster care who wind up in juvenile detention. The latter aims to expand the number of community-based endeavors offering trauma-informed rehabilitative care that is culturally competent and focused on racial equity among youth in the justice system. Currently those less restrictive, community placements are available to 25% of juveniles in the state, according to legislators who drafted the measure. The initiative expanding juveniles’ access to lawyers mandates that juveniles can phone, videoconference or talk in person with a lawyer before waiving any constitutional rights, if a law enforcement officer, among other things:

Questions a youth after advising that person of rights granted under the landmark Miranda ruling.