Posts Tagged ‘juvenile justice’
Florida's Troubled Prison, Juvenile Justice Systems Gearing Up For Overhaul
Proposed reforms to the Florida DOC include reducing harsh penalties on youth offenders. By Christopher Zoukis Following the launch of a new goal plan for the Florida Department of Corrections, big changes should be arriving in the beleaguered system, with several new pieces of legislation introduced and new budgetary items requested. All of the proposed…
Read MoreJustice System Throws Poor Kids Into Debtors' Prison
By Christopher Zoukis It is becoming increasingly obvious that zero-tolerance policies contribute to the school-to-prison pipeline, often unfairly punishing youth for offenses that should not be dealt with in the criminal justice system. Involvement in the criminal justice system often kicks off a domino effect toward further interaction with the criminal system. For non-violent offenses…
Read MoreCounseling and community service for juvenile offenders instead of incarceration
By Christopher Zoukis King County, Washington is one of the most recent courts in the country to turn to the alternative approach of restorative justice over criminal justice when it comes to dealing with juvenile offenders with no previous criminal record. King County courts already try to use detention sparingly and only for the most…
Read MoreGeorgia’s Criminal Justice Overhaul Demonstrates Widespread Positive Effects
In the last five years, Georgia has been successful in making badly needed, sweeping changes to its criminal justice system under the direction of Republican Governor Nathan Deal. The state has come a long way from where stood in 2009 when a Pew Research Center study indicated that one in 13 citizens were involved in…
Read MoreJuvenile records create major hurdles, says study
By Christopher Zoukis The United States has no national standard for how juvenile records are dealt with, and no states earned a five-star rating from the Juvenile Law Center, a national public interest law firm that ensures child welfare. The center scored each state on factors such as confidentiality of records, availability of sealing of…
Read MoreConnecticut aims to break school-to-prison pipeline
By Christopher Zoukis Connecticut is moving to implement a series of juvenile justice and education reforms aimed at cutting the school-to-prison pipeline after a series of complaints were lodged about problems plaguing the state’s system. Governor Dannel Malloy has already moved to close the Connecticut Juvenile Training Program by 2018 after multiple reports of violence,…
Read MoreStop Sending Juvenile Offenders to Adult Prisons
By Jean Trounstine and Christopher Zoukis In a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision is a deceptively simple line that should affect, and in many cases, transform the way Americans think about juveniles who kill. At the heart of the 2012 groundbreaking case, Miller v. Alabama, said the Court, is the idea, proven by neuroscience and…
Read MoreNew Focus On Education For Juvenile Prisoners
By Christopher Zoukis On December 8, 2014, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) released new guidelines, coined a “Correctional Education Guidance Package,” designed to enhance educational programming in juvenile detention centers. These guidelines have the potential to help many of the 60,000 juvenile prisoners who are currently in…
Read MorePipeline to Prison: How the Juvenile Justice System Fails Special Education Students
Photo by Jackie Mader / Hechinger Report By Sarah Butrymowicz and Jackie Mader / The Hechinger Report Toney Jennings was illiterate when he was arrested at age 16. In the six months he spent at the Lowndes County Jail in Eastern Mississippi, he says he played basketball, watched TV and “basically just stayed to myself.” A…
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