The Crime Report (https://thecrimereport.org/category/juvenile-justice/)
A study released by the Urban Institute Tuesday suggests turning youth prisons, which have been slowly closing over the past decade, into places where the community can access social services, business growth, and neighborhood revitalization.
Four teenage inmates escaped from a Louisiana juvenile prison over the weekend in a jailbreak so violent one guard was airlifted for medical treatment. The escape marked the second in a week — and at least the fourth in 2018 — from the Swanson Center for Youth, an understaffed facility that has become a cauldron of violence and dysfunction.
In a recent exercise by The Beat Within, a San Francisco-based prison writing workshop, individuals were asked to write essays describing their stay in Juvenile Hall, including what they appreciated, what they didn’t like–and the future they saw for themselves.
A program in Alberta is using chess as part of a unique alternative sentence for non-violent juvenile offenders. The goal is to nurture skills such as reasoning, problem-solving, planning and decision-making.
Some are urging Baltimore schools to follow Seattle’s lead and drop Miranda’s traditional clumsy legalese. Instead of “You have the right to remain silent,” Seattle children and teens are advised, “It’s OK if you don’t want to talk to me.”
Nearly 400,000 young people are put on probation each year, pulling them deeper into the justice system without support or guidance that could divert them to a better path. Introducing a new report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, two juvenile justice experts suggest an agenda to get them there.
Profiling young Latinos as “gang members”—often with little evidence beyond a suspect tattoo— has “devastating” consequences for individuals and their communities, according to a study by the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law.
With one dissent, the Oregon Supreme Court rejected Kip Kinkel’s argument that his sentence, amounting to life without parole, is unconstitutional because he committed his crimes as a juvenile. Kinkel, then 15, killed his parents and two high school classmates, wounding 25 others. The case could head to the Supreme Court.
There is no national legal standard on how many years is too many for a juvenile to serve. Across the country, juvenile offenders are being released from prison based on recognition that human brains continue to develop for the first two and a half decades of life. That’s not the case in Illinois, write two reporters who investigated 11 cases of youths serving sentences of 50 years or longer.
In a study of 1,216 first-time young offenders, researchers found that teenage boys who said their fathers were absent or harsh were more likely to engage in delinquent behavior. The mother-child influence was found to have no effect on the results.