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JUVENILE JUSTICE REFORM NEWS: THE JUVENILE JUSTICE AND DELINQUENCY PREVENTION ACT IS REENACTED
As all of us in the legal field are former juveniles, you would think it wouldn’t be too difficult to be more understanding with today’s juveniles. Nonetheless, reforming our juvenile justice system is still a slow, arduous process that is often met with much resistance.
However, thanks to the relentless efforts of many policymakers, parents, former juvenile offenders, and justices around the United States, the system we have been using to rehabilitate juvenile offenders looked to a throwback to change the way it looks.
The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA) may sound like a byproduct of all the new juvenile justice reform buzz that has been brewing, but it was actually first enacted in 1974. It was recently reenacted with broad bipartisan support.🤝
The acts core protections are:
Deinstitutionalization of Status Offenders (DSO)
This prevents juveniles from being incarcerated for offenses that would otherwise not be crimes if they were adults.
Adult Jail and Lock-Up Removal
This aims to eliminate locking up children in adult facilities.
Sight and Sound Separation
This prevents youth from having to be incarcerated with adult offenders.
Racial and Ethnic Disparities (RED)
This seeks to address the ever-present problem of racial and ethnic disparity in our youth and adult criminal systems.
The reenactment puts into place several effective tools within our legal system to advance juvenile justice reform; including no longer allowing pregnant girls to be shackled.
STATES ARE NOW MANDATED TO FACE RACIAL DISPARITIES
AND CREATE A PLAN TO ADDRESS THEM
However one requirement that should finally shed light on disparities, is that the act mandates states receiving federal dollars to report on racial disparities among its youth and… come up with a concrete plan to address the disparities.
I am sharpening my pencil in hopes of being able to contribute my thoughts once Nebraska’s numbers are reported. This collection of data is crucial to fix the disparities and ever since states no longer had to keep track, collection efforts have been scaled back.
In some parts of the United States, it is an exciting time to be working in juvenile law. Washington State seems to be finally implementing many of the concepts that juvenile justice reform supporters have been working hard to bring to fruition.
Many of you in the juvenile field and who are parents are familiar with how science has helped to spur these changes with all of the research that shows our youth’s brains continue to develop until approximately 25 years of age.
Washington SB 6160 revised the conditions under which a child must be considered an adult and extended juvenile court’s jurisdiction to the age of 25. This will allow juveniles sentenced to prison sentences that could be completed by the time they turn 25 to finish them in juvenile detention centers. This is aligned with the goals of JJDPA and the research that shows juveniles sent to adult facilities were more likely to re-offend.
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BLUEPRINT FOR CHANGE
The Legal Center for Youth Justice and Education (LCYJE) whose mission is to ensure that all youth who are in and returning from the juvenile system have access to quality education, offer a blueprint for juvenile justice reform. LCYJE is a collaboration between the Southern Poverty Law Center, Juvenile Poverty Law Center, Education Law Center – PA and American Bar Association’s Center on Children and the Law.
LCYJE’s Blueprint for Juvenile Justice Reform outlines nine basic tenets:
- Reduce Institutionalization
- Reduce Racial Disparity
- Ensure access to quality counsel.
- Create a range of community-based alternatives.
- Recognize and serve youths with specialized needs.
- Create smaller rehabilitative institutions.
- Improve aftercare and reentry.
- Maximize youth, family and community participation.
- Keep youths out of adult prisons.
Are you passionate about providing a solid foundation for our youth and reforming our juvenile justice system? Then make sure you click here to check out The Anney E. Casey Foundation’s resources for juvenile justice reform advocates.
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About the Author
Valentina Zapata Harris
Mother | Advocate | Blogger
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