Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/tag/restorative-justice/)
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.
Washington, D.C. – Fight Crime: Invest in Kids released their report “Costly, Punitive Juvenile Justice Approaches Undermine Healthy Adolescent Development,” during a virtual briefing that brought together experts to discuss the urgent need for reform in the juvenile justice system. One key highlight: Rather than helping to fix juvenile crime in America, our current justice system often makes it worse. The report shows that our juvenile justice system often fails to consider the realities of adolescent development. Adolescents, unlike adults, are still maturing cognitively, meaning they lack the capacity to effectively self-regulate, plan for the future, or control impulses.
Imagine waking up each morning with no hope for the day ahead, navigating a minefield of potential conflicts with your body on high alert. That was my reality as a marginalized youth — misunderstood, labeled as a troublemaker and cast out without a chance to reconcile and evolve. Growing up with anxiety in school is an all-too-common experience that perpetuates a cycle of fear and resentment. It’s time to acknowledge and address this narrative that adversely affects our youth’s learning experiences and the education system. Restorative justice programs are part of the solution.
As kids' behavior reaches crisis points after the stress and isolation of pandemic shutdowns, many schools are facing pressure from critics to rethink their approaches to discipline — including policies intended to reduce suspensions and expulsions.
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
How one prisoner, sentenced as a teen, sees spending millions on new juvenile jail:
For almost 25 years, I’ve been on North Carolina’s death row. The people on death row who have signed onto my letter protesting that new jail – and more than 40 other men on death row who wanted to sign but were physically unable to position themselves to do so – were confined as children to boot camps, reformatories, detention centers and youth prisons.
Some juvenile and criminal justice reform advocates laud restorative justice — it requires those who commit crimes to make amends, rather than merely face a prison sentence — as a potent solution to curbing crime. This model presumes that the wrongdoing is corrected when a defendant’s apology and efforts to take accountability somehow satisfy the victim. Restitution is measured by the defendant engaging in dialogue with the victim, alongside a neutral third-party, for months, if not years.
The day they came face-to-face with the teen who accidentally shot and killed their son, Brad and Meagan Hulett confirmed, in their minds, that prison was the last place the shooter should end up.
This is how practitioners of restorative justice approach things: First, focus on building strong, authentic relationships in a community, including schools that now are reopening. Then, if and when community members or students make a mistake or cause harm, rather than simply looking at which rule was broken and which punishment should be prescribed, collaborate to help ensure that the erring individual has the space and support to hold herself or himself accountable.
A June 2021 report from the U.S. Department of Education found that, from the 2015-16 through 2017-18 school years, there was a 5% spike in the number of on-campus students arrests and a 12% increase in police answering calls to campuses.