the crime report

Illinois routinely prosecutes teenage nonviolent offenders in adult court, says the Chicago Reporter. The paper’s analysis of court data found that 17-year-olds convicted of felonies in the state defy the perception that they are violent criminals who deserve to be punished alongside adults. More than half of 17-year-olds prosecuted in Cook County’s adult courts were convicted for drug deals and property theft.  Include robbery without a gun, and nonviolent offenses amount to 71 percent of all convictions. The single largest number of convictions was based on low-level drug offenses. (more…)

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The following is the true life story of Manos, a young inmate,who wrote this as he leaves the juvenile justice system and enters the adult system.  The letter was originally published by The Beat Within, a juvenile justice system writing workshop, which has generously allowed The Crime Report to share.

Hey Beat, What’s cracking? Today I’m going to talk and write about my long life story from beginning to end. It all started off when I was born in O’Connor Hospital in San Jose. I was born on September 23, 1992. I can’t really remember a lot of my memories from when I was a little kid, but I’ll tell you the ones I do remember.

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The National Juvenile Justice Network (NJJN) recommends options for juvenile justice advocates to pursue in states facing budget shortfalls in a new study. The paper  “The Real Costs and Benefits of Change: Finding Opportunities for Reform During Difficult Fiscal Times,“  offers two core ideas: leverage deinstitutionalization and realigning/reducing spending.

Read the study here.

Use the Crime Report for more information on Juvenile Justice.

Four dangerous and troubled youth prisons in New York State will be placed under federal oversight, strict limits will be imposed on the use of physical force by guards, and dozens of psychiatrists, counselors, and investigators will be hired under a sweeping agreement between state and federal officials, the New York Times reports. It includes the most significant expansion of mental health services in years for youths in custody, most of whom suffer from drug or alcohol problems, developmental disabilities, or mental health problems. (more…)

New Report Builds the Case for Action to Better Serve LGBT Youth in Louisiana

Louisiana is notorious for housing some of the most brutal youth prisons in the country. In recent years, it’s made great strides toward reform, as leaders introduced more therapeutic, rehabilitative models.

Even still, youth who identify as LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) experience physical, sexual and psychological abuse, excessive use of lockdown and isolation, confidentiality breaches and privacy violations in Louisiana’s juvenile justice system, according to the report “Locked Up & Out.”

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The U.S. legal system is slowly coming to realize that many underage sex workers are victims of exploitation, not juvenile delinquents.

The King of Prostitution wears a black polyester robe. His kingdom is a windowless, white-painted courtroom in midtown Manhattan, and his subjects are the men, women and children of the night.

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