Juvenile Justice

Memphis Asks DOJ to End Juvenile Court Oversight

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President Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions are skeptical of federal involvement in local law enforcement matters. Sessions has signaled he will cut back on investigations of discrimination or excessive force by local police and courts. If local officials are so alarmed by Sessions, Shelby County Mayor Luttrell said, it only makes sense the oversight responsibility should be handled locally, not by people in Washington, D.C.

Juvenile Justice

NYC Justice Corps ‘Won’t Let You Give Up’

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A redesigned New York City program aimed at helping at-risk youth learn work ethics and job skills while performing community service in their neighborhoods helped divert hundreds of young people from further involvement in the justice system, says a report released June 28.

Prison Writing

Dear Dad: ‘Why Weren’t You There?’

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To mark Father’s Day on Sunday, The Beat Within, a San Francisco-based prison writing workshop, asked inmates of juvenile detention facilities to “write the letter you always wanted (or maybe never wanted) to write” to their Dads. Here’s a first sampling of the letters they produced.

Juvenile Justice

When Being ‘Facebook-Famous’ Leads to Violence

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New York City ‘violence interruptors’ now use social media to intervene when online conflicts threaten to spill over into violence. Mike Perry and Samuel Jackson tell Crime Report editor Stephen Handelman how they do it in the latest episode of “Criminal Justice Matters.”

Juvenile Justice

How L.A. County Faced Its Tragic Problem with Sex-Trafficked Kids

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Los Angeles police and social workers believed the young girls picked up as prostitutes could best be helped through the juvenile court system. Then they realized little would change until they went after the traffickers who had made L.A. County one of the top child sex-trafficking hubs in the U.S.

Juvenile Justice

Most States Still Deny Juveniles Access to Counsel: Report

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A National Juvenile Defender Center report finds “large discrepancies” across the U.S. in the guidelines and procedures used to determine juveniles’ access to a lawyer. In the report, entitled, “Access Denied,” it calls on state authorities to “recognize interrogation as a critical stage of juvenile proceedings requiring a publicly funded defense lawyer to protect children from potential abuses of authority.”