#juvenile-justice

#juvenile-justice

Over the last several years, we've watched something deeply troubling unfold in our city: Kids-some as young as 12, 13 years old-are being pulled into violent crimes by adults who know exactly how to exploit our system,

Me first joining the program, I was incarcerated... I was like, woah, I've never done this before. It helped me escape from the reality I was in, and it helped me belong,

If this case remains in juvenile court, the shooter will face at most three to five years in a secure juvenile facility. I don't believe that is sufficient in this case," Rosen said during a press conference Wednesday morning outside the county's Juvenile Center in San José. He said a sentence of several years wouldn't allow enough time for meaningful rehabilitation.

The 17-year-old boy walked across Valley Fair shopping mall on Black Friday, police said, accompanied by a young woman, her baby in a stroller and a loaded semi-automatic handgun. When he encountered a man in rival gang colors on the mall's second floor, police said, nothing seemed to deter him: not his recent arrest and probation on a weapons charge, not the mall's ubiquitous surveillance cameras and not the potential of hitting innocent shoppers on one of the busiest shopping days of the year.

Geyser was 12 in 2014 when she pleaded guilty to stabbing a sixth-grade classmate to appease the mythical Slender Man. Geyser, now 23, was picked up 24 hours later 100 miles away at a truck stop outside Chicago in the company of 43-year-old Chad Charley Mecca, a transgender woman. She had cut off her monitoring ankle bracelet. Mecca said in a phone call to the Wisconsin news outlet WKOW, she ran because of me.

One student could not write his name. Over three sessions, which turned out to be all the time they had together before he left the facility, they practiced reading and writing his first name, last name, date of birth, and address. "I don't know what's to come for him, but at least I know he walked out with those skills," said Leyva. For her, part of defining success includes "creating the possibility for them to believe that they can learn."

"I felt like I couldn't fight," Fehler testified.

Majors, 18, an aspiring punk-rock musician, fought like hell, biting Weaver in the finger and causing him to fly into a rage, stabbing her as feathers flew out of her down jacket. Davis admitted to picking up a knife dropped by Weaver and handing it back to him. Lewis held Majors in a headlock, and Weaver repeatedly knifed her, piercing her heart and leaving her to die.

The attorney with the city's District Attorney's office had initially requested for the court to grant a "707 transfer hearing" that would officially move the case from a juvenile court to an adult criminal court. EXCLUSIVE: Video shows moment Ricky Pearsall shooting suspect flees Union Square crime scene The Public Defender's attorney said the teen is a product of childhood trauma, neglect and the foster care system,

Over a decade ago, filmmaker Mimi Chakarova began following a cohort of young people trying to turn their lives around by becoming firefighters and medics through Bay EMT, a free training program. The result of that relationship-building, , shares their stories and the way they intersect with sweeping social issues like crime, public health, poverty, and inequity in a documentary that has the intimacy of a home video.

"I remember coming out of the theater and feeling upset and needing to decompress and grab a drink," Chakarova said. "That's when Randall West, the same firefighter I met a year before walked into the same place I was. Randall said: 'You want to do a documentary of unrecognized heroes? You've got to talk to Wellington. You've got to do a documentary about the kids who are in his program'."

A 16-year-old boy pleaded guilty to being an accessory after a mass shooting that left two men dead and three others injured in Etobicoke.

Lloyd Francis, a 21-year-old with extensive criminal history, was able to evade severe punishment due to the state's Raise the Age Law, having spent only two years incarcerated despite multiple serious charges including attempted murder.

"This trial has been hard... I feel like us yelling out of our lungs, it meant something." - Diana Gutierrez, aunt of David Gutierrez, expressing the emotional toll and relief following the verdict.

Sen. William Smith emphasizes the urgent need to clean up an overgrown cemetery in Prince George's County, which contains unmarked graves of Black children sent to a 19th-century juvenile facility. He believes acknowledging these deaths is crucial to addressing systemic issues within Maryland's juvenile justice system.

The trauma from both incidents, Brou said, has stayed with him to this day.

Probation officers are not clinicians and this tool removes this type of decision making from the probation officer.

It's like a little jungle. Everybody wants to be tough. Everybody wants to fight. It's a lot to go through.

After one of her first visits to L.A. County's juvenile hall in Sylmar, Efty Sharony filed a report that said she witnessed conditions worse than anything she'd seen in "over 20 years of experience visiting every level of carceral facility in California."

Thanks to 'reforms' like the Raise the Age act, which keep teens under 18 from suffering anything more than wrist slaps, juvenile offenders roam free.

"The Probation Department's chaos creates dangerous ripple effects on our youth's safety. Time and again, in report after report, we've seen neglect, mismanagement, and abuse, all while officials insist that change is coming."

You're not alone. Exactly what you feel [right now], I felt it. No matter how ugly it may look right now, whatever your situation is, it will get better.

"The goal is to provide a clean slate when they later apply for jobs, loans or housing."