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.
“‘We agree that Bridge City and Swanson need to be closed; they’re too large, outdated and dangerous,’ said Rachel Gassert, the policy director for the children's rights center. But she also notes there is ‘no evidence that a youth prison model really works that well to rehabilitate children’.“
The Advocate
July 4, 2019
Read More“Still in her first month as the new director of the parish's Department of Juvenile Services, Wade exudes excitement as she discusses her plans for the city-parish agency, which includes the youth jail, probation and family services. Despite the challenges she knows lie ahead, including operating an aging facility built in 1952, Wade's determined to bring hope to the vulnerable population the juvenile system is meant to serve.“
The Advocate
May 28, 2019
Read More“The district attorney said police officers and Juvenile Court judges have been pressured to go easy on youthful offenders, although he declined to identify the sources of that pressure. He also criticized a shift mandated by the City Council to arrest fewer juveniles for low-level “status offenses” like truancy and curfew violations. “
The Advocate
May 16, 2019
Read More“In this first phase of the Raise the Age law, the state will no longer automatically arrest, detain and prosecute 17-year-olds as adults when the teens are accused of nonviolent crimes. That change, advocates hope, will better rehabilitate youth, but many officials worry how it will affect an already underfunded and, often, outdated juvenile justice system.“
The Advocate
February 28, 2019
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