Nationally, on any given night, approximately 81,000 youth are confined to juvenile facilities and 10,000 children are held in adult jails and prisons. Approximately 1 in 10 young male high school dropouts is incarcerated or in juvenile detention. For African Americans, that number is 1 in 4. Research shows that just over two million youth under the age of 18 were arrested in 2008. Of these two million, about 95 percent had not been accused of violent crimes. In 2010, of the nearly 100,000 youth under the age of 18 who were serving time in a juvenile residential placement facility, 26 percent had been convicted of property crimes only, such as burglary, arson, or theft. Access to education both stems the tide of incarceration and improves inmates chances of re-acclimating to society after their release.
“After losing his bench in a Democratic sweep, Harris County Juvenile Court Judge Glenn Devlin released nearly all of the youthful defendants that appeared in front him on Wednesday morning, simply asking the kids whether they planned to kill anyone before letting them go. ‘He was releasing everybody,’ said public defender Steven Halpert, who watched the string of surprising releases. ‘Apparently he was saying that's what the voters wanted’.“
Houston Chronicle
November 7, 2018
Read More"Sadly, the Texas Department of Juvenile Justice has been making policy decisions about juvenile offenders with inaccurate data for more than two years. That's because the department is using an outdated, faulty data system that was developed in-house more than 25 years ago. The Dallas Morning News reported Wednesday that these problems have led to compromised decisions regarding treatment costs, staffing ratios, re-incarceration rates and health care costs, to name a few. This is unacceptable."
Dallas Morning News
August 17, 2018
Read More"The Closer to Home program launched six years ago. It’s the center piece of juvenile justice reform in Texas. 'What it showed policy makers both locally and at the state level is that youth do better when they’re closer to their families,' Griffiths explained."
Fox 4 Dallas
July 23, 2018
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