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JJPL AND FFLIC WIN HISTORIC VICTORY WITH CLOSURE OF JETSON YOUTH PRISON

By Real Cost of Prisons Project (The Sentencing Project)

The results of years of litigation, media advocacy and family organizing reached a high point in 2003-2004 with the closure of the hyper-violent Tallulah youth prison and sweeping juvenile justice reform legislation, requiring a change from a punitive juvenile system to a rehabilitative system based on the highly effective Missouri model. The Juvenile Justice Reform Act of 2003 required the move away from large youth prisons to small, regional, home-like secure care facilities close to children's homes, an increase in evidence-based alternatives to incarceration programs and a decrease in the number of non-violent children sent to secure care. In spite of the ground-breaking legislation, juvenile justice reform had come to a standstill over the past year, with the three large youth prisons deteriorating, new reports of abuse in Jetson, and no movement to build the small, regional rehabilitative facilities and alternative programs required by the sweeping reforms JJPL and FFLIC helped pass in 2003...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog on June 30, 2008 (boomark / email).