The Crime Report (https://thecrimereport.org/category/juvenile-justice/page/2/)
Critics want to halt construction of a 112-bed jail for youth in Seattle, but five teens were arrested for the execution-style killing of a man. Jails are needed for such defendants, a columnist maintains.
Despite abundant evidence that youth prisons have failed to rehabilitate young people, scores of large, locked youth prisons are still open in the US, where children in custody continue to experience daily atrocities, say two youth advocates.
Experts say that fines, fees and court costs imposed on juveniles can have detrimental consequences for individuals and their families.
The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention has only 60 employees, but one-fourth of its positions may not be filled after attrition. That would reduce efforts to insure state compliance with a federal law providing juvenile justice aid.
Seattle prosecutor Dan Satterberg continues “peacemaking circles” approach to juvenile crime despite murder charges against one of its participants.
Deprivation of liberty is a “last resort” in the German juvenile justice system. Instead, as two US researchers discovered on the last leg of their fact-finding trip in Europe, the priorities are diversion, rehabilitation and minimized interventions for emerging adults under 21 who run afoul of the law.
A Columbia University study argues that examining aggressive tweets among gang members, particularly after a loss, could cut short the cycle of gang-revenge killings if grief counselors and other mental health services intervene in time.
It’s rare for a judge to reject a plea bargain, but it’s happening in some cases involving juvenile lifers negotiated by new Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner.
Nearly three months after a riot at the juvenile detention center, officials in Cleveland’s Cuyahoga County said they would create a Community Intervention Center to match youth in the criminal justice system with critical services such as mental health evaluations.
Thanks to a juvenile justice strategy that prioritizes education over incarceration, the tiny Balkan nation holds less than 30 young people behind bars. Two American researchers say the US could profit from a similar approach.