Connecticut turnaround of juvenile system sets standard: common area of juvenile facility with bright colors and motivational banner

Connecticut’s turnaround of troubled juvenile system sets a standard, says justice-equity organization

Connecticut has turned its troubled juvenile facilities into what federal officials have cited as exemplary national models. Staffing is up dramatically, in part because directors talked to employees about their worries and took steps to solve them. The strategy helped reduce confrontations and brought the Hartford center national recognition this year from Performance-based Standards, which works to improve juvenile justice outcomes and equity.

Angola prison: The entrance to the Louisiana State Penitentiary has a guard house that controls entry into the compound with seop sign, three white buildings and brick sign —the sign says "Louisiana State Penitentiary" and "Burl Cain, Warden"

Q&A: From Louisiana prisoner to Louisiana State University graduate

Within months of his release from a lifetime imprisonment sentence in Louisiana's 18,000-acre prison in Angola, La., Andrew Hundley, then 34, enrolled in junior college and founded the Louisiana Parole Project, a nonprofit focused on advocacy and reentry for former juvenile lifers. Under a 2016 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Hundley, who’d been sentenced in 1997, when he was 15, was released after serving 19 years at Angola. Hundley had the chance to start over, finish college and start a family. But many of the men and women he works with through the Parole Project are older and entered the Louisiana prison system at a time when there were no educational opportunities, especially for lifers. 

girls: Tall man speaks at lectern

Reforming Juvenile System For Girls Requires Stories, Three Experts Say

A pregnant teenager stands alone in a cinder-block cell in one image. In another, a young body shivers, curled up in an oversized T-shirt huddled in the far corner of a cold cement room. The pictures are just a few of the thousands in a collection by Richard Ross, who uses his photography as a vehicle to highlight the needs of the estimated 48,000 children in custody each day. Ross has documented the lives of young people caught up in the juvenile justice system in Juvenile-in-Justice, a project he founded to connect human faces to a story often told in terms of cold statistics. 

“My whole focus for the last 15 years has been interviewing these kids and being a co-conspirator with them in terms of trying to be the conduit for their voice,“ he said. Ross was one of three juvenile justice experts on a webinar hosted Tuesday by the Dui Hua Foundation as part of a series focused on unique issues girls face when they come into conflict with the legal system.

prosecutor: Statue of Lady Justice

Prosecutors Champion Legitimate, Meaningful Justice Reforms

As a career prosecutor I have spent the better part of 45 years working in all areas of the criminal justice system. I started as a juvenile court prosecutor at a time when our juvenile justice system was not nearly as adversarial as it is now but rather seemed more interested, as such cases are legally styled, in the best interest of the child.

community-based alternatives: Angry rebellious teenager being analyzed by a counselor as other teens sit nearby, psychotherapy concept

Georgia Reforms Gave Us More Choices, Better Results

As Bill Gates famously said in his book, “The Road Ahead” (1996), “We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten.”

Orchestra, young people, young adults crowd stage in multicolored outfits, all performing at once.

They’re Working to Reform Juvenile Justice With an ‘Art Attack’

The pianist jammed on the Steinway with such force, he stood up to play it. The rest of the orchestra swayed with the Songs of Solomon and Wadleigh High School choirs onstage at Carnegie Hall, singing a student composition about outcasts seeking change and second chances.

Judge Tom Smith, in his judicial robes over blue shirt and red tie, leans on his bench in the courtroom.

In 2 Arkansas Counties, Jailing Youth Increasingly Used As Last Resort

In 2008, Wendy Jones’ teenage son, Corby, began getting into trouble with the law: skipping school, doing drugs, stealing. His behavior soon landed him in Benton County, Arkansas, juvenile court, followed by a stay in the local juvenile detention center, or JDC, a 36-bed, jail-like facility in Bentonville, not far from the home offices of Walmart.