Anne Teigen State juvenile justice legislation in focused on broad, sweeping reform measures, raising the age of juvenile court jurisdiction, sealing and expungement of juvenile records, addressing due process and rights of juveniles, and limiting the use of restraints and solitary confinement. Comprehensive Reform Utah passed a sweeping juvenile justice reform bill in with broad, bipartisan support. The new law establishes standards and criteria for pre-court diversion, caps fines and fees, limits school-based court referrals, and sets limits on the amount of time youth can spend in detention centers and under probation. It also establishes statutory standards for which youth may be removed from their homes and redirects cost savings toward expanding effective community-based services to all court districts in the state.
News CLBB Faculty Member Leah Somerville is featured in this article highlighting the difficulty in clearly defining a line between adolescence and adulthood. Kinscherff draws parallels between conversations around pain in juvenile justice settings and other legal and medical domains.
Edersheim offers insight on how the neurobiology of adolescence makes the case for raising the age of adult incarceration. A wider and better-translated neuroscientific understanding of the adolescent brain has the potential to help inform and transform how we respond to juveniles who offend, for their benefit and to reduce recidivism.
Supreme Court has evolved to change our legal responses to juvenile offending. They have abolished the death penalty for crimes committed during adolescence, found mandatory life-without-parole sentences for murder in violation of the 8th Amendment, and eliminated life-without-parole sentences for crimes less than murder.
A significant part of the argument for these decisions included an understanding of adolescent brain development. They have developed basic tools that offer data with which to judge the potential for juvenile desistance, recidivism, and rehabilitation.
With its ability to examine the workings of the teenage brain, neuroscience is improving our understanding of adolescents, and potentially, juvenile offenders.
Through their window into the brain, neuroscientists understand, for example, that adolescents mature at markedly varied rates. They can often recognize risks, but incomplete development of brain mechanisms related to modulation of impulsive behavior reduces their tendency to heed those risks.
Science may also help us understand which juvenile offenders are likely to commit future crimes and which may not.
Scientists and clinicians interested in the practical application of neuroscience have created a substantive body of work that should inform juvenile justice policy.
The MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice established and expanded the knowledge base on adolescents and crime, and dissemination of that knowledge to juvenile justice practitioners and policy-makers has played a critical role in policy change.
Models for Changea multi-state initiative relying on a network of court officials, legal advocates, and researchers, produces research-based tools and techniques to make juvenile justice systems more fair, effective, rational, and developmentally appropriate. Researchers have taken to the popular press, as well, to advance a developmentally appropriate juvenile justice system in the areas of prevention and treatment.
Meanwhile, the legal system urgently lacks a nuanced conception of adolescent brain development as it is currently understood, and an effective use of data and assessment tools that would drive systematic change. CLBB contributes to the improvement of juvenile justice by engaging in activities that translate neuroscience through original research and expert engagement with the public.
With support from the Harvard Society for Mind-Brain-Behavior, CLBB has convened a Faculty Working Group to catalyze the development of a rich, interdisciplinary program of education, outreach, research, and policy work.
Is Healthy Neurodevelopment a Civil Right? Watch complete event video here. Events Robert Kinscherff provides perspective inside the fight over the fate of juveniles in prison for murder, following a landmark Supreme Court ruling.The Juvenile Justice Information System (JJIS) is a statewide, integrated electronic database designed to support a continuum of services among all members of the juvenile justice community.
Over the past six months, WITF received unique access to the Cumberland County juvenile justice system, which operates behind closed doors due to the confidentiality involved to . Juvenile Justice Centers; Find juvenile justice centers, departments, or juvenile delinquency prevention offices.
Juvenile justice centers provide information on juvenile delinquency and victimization, juvenile detention, juvenile rehabilitation, juvenile probation, juvenile corrections, and the juvenile court system.
State juvenile justice legislation in focused on broad, sweeping reform measures, raising the age of juvenile court jurisdiction, sealing and expungement of juvenile records, addressing due process and rights of juveniles, and limiting the use of restraints and solitary confinement.
May 10, · by Don Chaddock, Inside CDCR editor | Apr 26, | Juvenile Justice, More Stories, Rehabilitation, Unlocking History. Prior to the creation of a juvenile justice system, young offenders were sentenced much like their adult counterparts.
At one time, young offenders could be sentenced to . Chuck Supple serves as the Director of the Division of Juvenile Justice.
He has been with the Division for over fourteen years, serving as a Parole Agent assisting youth in DJJ facilities prepare for reentering their communities, Commissioner and Executive Officer on the Juvenile Parole Board, and Chairman of the Board of Juvenile Hearings.