Criminal Law

Juv Arrests Drop in Wisconsin

Posted on March 25, 2008
The number of juvenile arrests in Wisconsin dropped noticeably from 1997 to 2006, according to state officials. The La Crosse Tribune reports that When it comes to those 17 and younger, three broad categories of arrests are tabulated and reported by the state Office of Justice Assistance: index arrests, for serious offenses such as murder and [...

Dallas Morning News: Get Tough Doesn?t Work

Posted on March 24, 2008
Editorial in today’s Dallas Morning News (thank you, Grits for Breakfast, for pointing it out): Texas’ Pipeline to Youth Prison When a teenager waves a gun in your face and steals your wallet, it’s hard to think empathetically about a time when he was just a little boy with dreams of being an astronaut or firefighter...

NY Prison Shutdown Update

Posted on March 24, 2008
On Sunday the Albany Times Union ran a page-one story about the struggle in the State Senate over the Office of Children and Family Services proposal to shutter six underused juvenile prisons. “Every empty bed costs the state between $120,000 and $200,000 per year, according to OCFS,” reporter Irene Jay Liu writes...

The Bullies of Fayetteville

Posted on March 24, 2008
Dan Barry writes a weekly column for the New York Times called “This Land,” and this week’s entry tells the sad story of Billy Wolfe, a 15-year-old in Fayetteville, Arkansas, who has endured constant bullying from his classmates for the past several years...

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Good Feeback on Barry

Posted on March 24, 2008
Good feedback on The Bullies of Fayetteville post from earlier: check out the comments section for two thoughtful comments on Dan Barry’s piece in Monday’s New York Times.

Kentucky May Collect DNA From Some Teens

Posted on March 21, 2008
The Kentucky Senate Judiciary Committee has approved a plan to broaden the state’s DNA database to include all adult and some juvenile felony offenders, the Louisville Courier-Journal reports. The state currently gathers DNA “only from adults who commit violent felony offenses, sex offenses or burglaries, and from youths 13 or older who commit sex offenses...

Lower the Drinking Age?

Posted on March 21, 2008
Debate over lowering the drinking age is heating up in several states, says USA Today.

Wash State: No Jury Trial Rights for Violent Juvs

Posted on March 21, 2008
The Washington State Supreme Court ruled yesterday that a juvenile charged with a violent crime has no constitutional right to a jury trial. The case centered on Azel Chavez, who was 14 in 2004, when he hatched a plot to kill three high school football coaches he was angry with...

El Diario: Shut ?em Down

Posted on March 18, 2008
Editorial from today’s issue of El Diario, the largest Spanish-language daily in New York City, courtesy of (and translated by?) the New York Juvenile Justice Coalition: Closing the door on juvenile facilities EDITORIAL - 03/18/2008 One of the fights that Governor David Paterson must gear up for is around the closing of under-used facilities for juvenile offenders...

HuffPo: Missouri Works

Posted on March 17, 2008
Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children’s Defense Fund, sings the praises of the Missouri Model in this dispatch at The Huffington Post.

Policy Dialogue on NY JJ Reform

Posted on March 14, 2008
Press release from the New York Office of Children and Family Services: FYI - you may be interested in attending: New York State Juvenile Justice Reform “A Policy Dialogue” March 17, 2008 10-12 pm FIRST LUTHERAN CHURCH 181 Western Avenue Albany, New York Speakers: Gladys Carrión, Commissioner, NYS Office of Children & Family Services Ray Schimmer, Executive Director, Parsons Child and Family Center Katharine Briar-Lawson, Dean, [...

?Emily?s Law? Moves Forward in Minnesota

Posted on March 14, 2008
The Minnesota House Public Safety and Civil Justice Committee held a hearing yesterday to consider the so-called “Emily’s Law” (HF699), which would lower the age of adult certification for violent juvenile offenses to 13. The bill is named after Emily Johnson, a 2-year-old who, in June 2006, was sexually assaulted and killed by the 13-year-old son [...

Trouble in the Shaloh Joseph Case

Posted on March 13, 2008
Yikes. Here’s the first line of an article in the South Florida Sun Sentinel about a troubling development in the Shaloh Joseph case (background here): “A Broward Circuit judge today banned the mother of a 12-year-old murder suspect from having any contact with her son after she was overheard encouraging him to kill himself and likening [...

Spitzer?s Fall = Prison?s Rise?

Posted on March 13, 2008
This article from the Albany Times Union, courtesy of the Real Cost of Prisons blog (the newest addition to the Juvienation blogroll), provides a partial answer to one of the week’s burning questions: How will New York Governor Eliot Spitzer’s resignation affect Office of Children and Family Services Commissioner Gladys Carrion’s plan to shut down [...

Louisiana: Jindal vs. Landrieu

Posted on March 12, 2008
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has proposed an $11 million cut in spending for juvenile justice programs. Lieutenant Governor Mitch Landrieu, who’s been working on this stuff for a lot longer than newcomer Jindal has, thinks that’s a lousy idea...

Trouble in Albany

Posted on March 12, 2008
No, not the Spitzer thing–although perhaps it’s related; I still don’t know. Read this urgent message from Mishi Faruqee, who directs the New York Juvenile Justice Coalition: Dear Friends: As you know, the New York State Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) has proposed closing six youth prisons as part of a larger effort to reform [...

Sanity on Youth Gangs in Wash State

Posted on March 12, 2008
A column by Janice O’Mahony, chair of the Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee in Washington State, appeared yesterday on the Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s opinion page and led with this friendly statistic: “Since 1996, there has been a 40 percent decrease in juvenile arrests in Washington...

Criminal Record

Posted on March 12, 2008
On February 28 I posted a brief note about a new report from the Pew Center on the States that brought some startling statistics to the public eye. With a record-high population of more than 2.3 million adults behind bars, the report found, America now incarcerates more than one in every 100 adults...

Juvie LWOP Update: Stalling in IL?

Posted on March 12, 2008
The Christian Science Monitor ran a good piece yesterday on the movement across various states to do away with life without parole sentences for juvenile offenders. Much is familiar, but important nevertheless and certainly worthy of update: primarily, legislation pending in Illinois, Michigan, Florida, Nebraska and California to allow parole hearings for this category of [...

Against Florida HB 273

Posted on March 12, 2008
On Monday Sandra Adams, a Republican State Representative in Florida, gave the first reading of a proposed measure she’s sponsoring, House Bill 273, which Permits court to retain jurisdiction over child or child’s parent or legal guardian until certain costs & fees are satisfied; provides for preadjudicatory release conditions; provides additional use of certain types of [...

CDC: One in Four Teen Girls Have an STD

Posted on March 11, 2008
A new report out today from the US Centers on Disease Control and Prevention–the first of its kind–has found that 25 percent of teenage girls carry some form of sexually transmitted disease. That is, according to this summary in Reuters, an estimated 3...

ATTN: Reclaiming Futures Applicants

Posted on March 11, 2008
Reclaiming Futures, a five-year, $21 million project of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, has been developing new models for juvenile justice at ten pilot sites across the nation (locations here). A new grant is allowing the program to expand to six new communities, and the program is inviting prospective 2008 participants to a one-hour [...

CJJ RFP: JJDPA Survey

Posted on March 10, 2008
The Coalition for Juvenile Justice is seeking proposals from independent research consultants to develop, conduct and write up a survey among the nation?s 56 state juvenile justice advisory groups on the JJDPA (questions about compliance, challenges, successes)...

Defendant in Shaloh Joseph Case to Stay in Juv Detention

Posted on March 10, 2008
The 12-year-old Florida boy charged with fatally beating his 17-month-old cousin will spend at least two more months in the secure juvenile detention center where he’s been held since he was arrested January 4, a Broward County judge ruled today...

Catching Up With the JJDPA Reauthorization Campaign

Posted on March 10, 2008
From the March issue of Youth Today (the link is unavailable, so the text is posted below in full): Advocates Seek to Reform JJDP Act by Erika Fitzpatrick Federal juvenile justice reauthorization should for the first time encourage states to address conditions in youth jails and residential facilities, in light of recent abuses in such places as Texas [...

Breaking News Update

Posted on March 10, 2008
If you happen to go to that JJ briefing in Albany tomorrow, ask the “high-level” officials in attendance how this might affect the proposed prison reforms.

New York JJ Briefing Tomorrow

Posted on March 10, 2008
Who: Advocates for juvenile justice reform in New York What: Briefing with a ?high-level? administration official Where: Flag Room of the Capitol Building, Albany, New York When: Tuesday, March 11, 1:45 PM (tomorrow!) Why: The New York State Senate and Assembly are considering an ambitious proposal from the state?s Office of Children and Family Services to enact long-sought reforms [...

Ellen: We Need to Change the Message

Posted on February 29, 2008
Ellen DeGeneres opened her show this morning with a few minutes of emotional commentary on the murder of Lawrence King. “A boy has been killed and a number of lives have been ruined,” she said. “And somewhere along the line the killer, Brandon, got the message that it’s so threatening and so awful and so [...

Highest Rate of Incarceration in US History

Posted on February 28, 2008
A new report published by the Pew Center on the States reveals that the jail and prison population in the United States is 2.3 million people. That’s more than one in every one hundred adults, the highest rate at any time in US history. Last year alone the population grew by 25,000...

Torture in Ohio

Posted on February 27, 2008
When Sheila Clark came home from work last Friday in Hanover Township, a rural town near Cincinnati, she found her disabled 18-year-old daughter, Ashley, bound, gagged, bruised and bleeding. Her hair had been cut off. Her assailants had doused her with water and forced her to walk barefoot through the snow in the yard...

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