Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/tag/juvenile-offenders/)
Equal Justice USA (EJUSA) announced October 8 that it will partner with four new communities to build new restorative youth justice diversion programs. Restorative justice includes an accountability process that identifies root causes of youth criminal actions, while providing an opportunity for healing both for the person harmed and the person who has caused harm.
The first and only time Malik Rainey was arrested, he was 16 and charged, as an adult, with possession of a loaded firearm. But instead of serving what could have been up to 12 years in prison, he wound up in a court-mandated program that kept him out from behind bars as long as he stayed away from crime, and got an education and a job.
Read the individual stories of Xochtil Larios, youth justice coordinator, Jacob Jackson, a community organizer, and Israel Villa, mentor to many juvenile justice-involved youth, about how personal experiences in the juvenile justice system shape their individuals' advocacy of justice reform.
Behavioral health researchers, often, used to routinely dismiss using cultural rituals to help alter people’s actions, including as a tool to steer at-risk youth away from criminality. For the Photojournalist Alex Milan Tracy captured an Indigenous drumming circle at that state’s Tillamook Youth Correctional Facility.
Lawmakers in the Georgia House voted Monday to raise the age limit to 17 for prosecuting young defendants in juvenile court. House Bill 462 was approved on a vote of 145-22, sending it to the state Senate for further debate.
A stolen bike. A schoolyard tussle complete with shiners. A neighbor’s garage door graffitied. These seemingly minor incidents can start a young person down the road to delinquency. And once down that road, some young people will find themselves in the juvenile justice system.
Juvenile offenders participating in a 30-year-old project diverting youth from detention to community-based programs were less likely to cycle back into incarceration than those not enrolled in such projects, according to an evaluation recently released by the San Francisco organization launching that pioneering program.
A new study published in the journal Child Development finds that adolescents that eschew school for employment are more likely to be associated with antisocial behaviors than peers that either work less hours or focus solely on schooling. Researchers, over a five year window, examined the relationship between work hours and school attendance in a sample of almost 1,300 juvenile offenders. The study, conducted by researchers from Temple University, the University of Pittsburgh and the University of California, Irvine states that teens that work long hours while simultaneously attending high school classes were more likely to engage in antisocial behavior than classmates that had less work hours or did not work at all. In particular, researchers noted an apparent connection between high-intensity employment - categorized as more than 20 hours per week—and greater likelihoods of teens fostering antisocial behavior, such as bullying and vandalism. Teens that attended school regularly, without working, were found to demonstrate the least amount of antisocial behavior, while teens that worked long hours and did not attend classes regularly were found to be the likeliest adolescents to engage in antisocial activities.
In October, officials in one Florida community announced that its local police force would now have the ability to issue civil citations in lieu of formal arrests for certain crimes. The Leon County, Fla., measure targeting a largely adult-offender base takes many cues from the state’s juvenile justice system, which has seen vast improvements to juvenile crime rates due to lock-up alternatives. According to the News Service of Florida proponents of a statewide movement issue more citations to and arrest fewer adult offenders – if the individual has committed a non-violent crime and has no previous arrest record -- claim that such a policy would save the state tens of millions of dollars in annual incarceration expenses. Tentative plans would require adult offenders in Leon County - which contains the state capital of Tallahassee - to undergo an assessment within three days of a citation, in addition to performing community service or receiving substance abuse treatment if it may have been a contributing factor to the crime. Leon County officials began issuing civil citations for non-violent juvenile offenders in 1995.
More than two years after U.S. Supreme Court decisions started throwing out mandatory death and life sentences for minors, judges in Washington, Illinois and dozens of other states still lack guidance on what to do with juveniles past and present convicted of murder and some other serious felonies. “Courts are uncomfortable in trying to figure out what ‘life’ means in terms of years,” said Kimberly Ambrose, senior law lecturer at the University of Washington School of Law. She represented Guadalupe Solis-Diaz at the state’s Court of Appeals, arguing against a 92-year sentence he’s serving for six counts of first-degree assault and other charges for his role in a drive-by shooting. The then 16-year-old Solis-Diaz fired into a crowd in Centralia, Wash., in 2007, though did not injure his target or anyone else. It’s not clear in Washington if those 92 years are equivalent to what the U.S. Supreme Court calls “life” sentences.