Reporting Highlights

• Facing Felony Charges: Starting this academic year, making a threat of mass violence at schools in Tennessee is a felony, for adults or children.
• Police Take the Lead: Law enforcement officers say that even when kids make threats that are not credible, they need to be held accountable for their actions.
• Contradicting Mandates: Schools must consider whether a threat is “valid” before expelling a child, but police don’t have to. Some kids are being arrested but not expelled.

In late September, Torri was driving down the highway with her 11-year-old son Junior in the back seat when her phone started ringing.

It was the Hamilton County Sheriff’s deputy who worked at Junior’s middle school in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Deputy Arthur Richardson asked Torri where she was. She told him she was on the way to a family birthday dinner at LongHorn Steakhouse.

“He said, ‘Is Junior with you?’” Torri recalled.

Earlier that day, Junior had been accused by other students of making a threat against the school. When Torri had come to pick him up, she’d spoken with Richardson and with administrators, who’d told her he was allowed to return to class the next day. The principal had said she would carry out an investigation then. ProPublica and WPLN are using a nickname for Junior and not including Torri’s last name at the family’s request, to prevent him from being identifiable.

When Richardson called her in the car, Torri immediately felt uneasy. He didn’t say much before hanging up, and she thought about turning around to go home. But she kept driving. When they walked into the restaurant, Torri watched as Junior happily greeted his family.

Soon her phone rang again. It was the deputy. He said he was outside in the strip mall’s parking lot and needed to talk to Junior. Torri called Junior’s stepdad, Kevin Boyer, for extra support, putting him on speaker as she went outside to talk to Richardson. She left Junior with the family, wanting to protect her son for as long as she could.

Richardson quickly made his intentions clear. “We’re coming to arrest him,” he told the parents.

In Torri’s memory, everything that happened next is a blur. Both parents began pleading with the officer: They told him Junior is autistic and would feel claustrophobic in the back of a police car in handcuffs. They said he wasn’t a danger to anyone. Could they drive him to the juvenile detention center themselves? “‘There’s no reason for you to put bracelets on an 11-year-old. He doesn’t understand,’” Boyer recalls saying.

It didn’t work. Torri went inside to get Junior, holding back tears as she tried to explain what was happening. Boyer heard Junior crying on the other end of the phone and began to give him a pep talk. “‘Hey, listen, they got it wrong. I’m on my way down to the jail, and I will not leave until you come home with us. But you have to go with them,’” he recalls telling Junior. “‘Just let them take you.’” Family members followed Torri and Junior into the parking lot to see what was happening, and strangers watched from their cars. Junior’s 5-year-old brother was sobbing.

Richardson put handcuffs on the 11-year-old and locked him in the back of the patrol car. In a police report written later that day, Richardson cited a new state law as the basis for the arrest. He did not respond to multiple requests for comment or to a detailed list of questions.

Two contradictory laws

After a shooter killed six people at Nashville’s Covenant School in 2023, Tennessee’s Republican-controlled legislature ignored calls to pass gun control measures. Instead, they passed a series of increasingly punitive laws aimed not only at preventing future violence but dissuading kids from making threats that disrupt school and terrify other students.

Two contradictory laws went into effect before this school year began. One requires school officials to expel a student only if their investigation finds the threat is “valid,” a term that the law does not define. The other mandates that police charge people, including kids, with felonies for making threats of any kind, credible or not. As a result, students across the state can be arrested for statements that wouldn’t even get them expelled.

Police in Tennessee say that even when kids make threats that are not credible, they need to be held accountable for their actions — including with arrests and felony charges. The Tennessee Sheriffs’ Association announced in September that law enforcement would “not tolerate anyone making threats and inciting fear within our schools and our community. Those responsible will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

Rep. Cameron Sexton, Tennessee House speaker and the Republican sponsor of the felony law, said his legislation is working as intended and will lead to safer schools. “Unfortunately sometimes you have to make examples of the first few who are doing it so that others know that it’s going to be taken seriously,” he said.

[Related: A Louisiana law meant to fight teen violence is sweeping 17-year-olds arrested for lesser crimes into adult court]

Tennessee has not yet released statewide data on how many arrests for threats of mass violence have been made since school started in August. But Hamilton County arrested 18 students in the first six weeks of the school year, more than twice as many as Nashville’s Davidson County — despite Hamilton having far fewer students. Data that ProPublica and WPLN obtained through a records request shows that at least 519 students were charged with threats of mass violence last school year, when it was a misdemeanor, an increase from 442 the prior year. Many of them were middle schoolers and most were boys. The youngest child charged last school year was 7 years old.

Juvenile defense lawyers, judges, school officials and parents criticized the felony law for casting too wide a net — unnecessarily traumatizing kids by arresting and handcuffing them over jokes, rumors and misunderstandings. Ben Connor, a school board member in Junior’s district, said the new law has muddied the waters, making it more difficult to spot real threats when so much time is spent punishing kids who don’t have the intent or the means to carry out violence.

“We may not even be keeping the kids safer by choosing to just send everyone to jail,” Connor said. “At some point you’re going to get desensitized to so many children going to jail for silly things that a credible threat could easily pass through the cracks of that system.”

Andrea Morales for ProPublica

Junior at home in Chattanooga.

“We don’t pick and choose”

The incident that got Junior in trouble happened in science class, during the last hour of the school day. As he would later describe it to his parents, he overheard two other students talking. One was asking if the other was going to shoot up the school tomorrow. Junior looked at the other student, who seemed like he was going to say yes. So Junior answered for him. “Yes,” Junior recalls saying.

According to the police report, other students went to the teacher and told her that Junior said he was going to shoot up the school. Junior denies ever having said that. He lives with his mom, who doesn’t own guns.

It was the type of misunderstanding that, in past years, might have been sorted out by the teacher or a school counselor. But Tennessee law now requires school staff to report threats, credible or not, to law enforcement. If they don’t, they could be charged with a misdemeanor.

Junior was called to the principal’s office to give his version of events. Since it was the end of the day, Torri joined him there when she came to pick him up. The principal, the dean and Richardson questioned Junior about what happened.

After he retold the story, Torri asked what to expect the next day. Torri said the principal responded:

"‘Oh, he can attend school,’ as if he was not a threat. No hesitation.”

Relieved by what the principal said, Torri took Junior home to get ready for the birthday party.

Hamilton County Schools did not respond to questions from ProPublica and WPLN about their general approach to threats of mass violence or Junior’s case, even though Torri signed a form giving school officials permission to speak about what happened to her son. Instead, Superintendent Justin Robertson emailed his communications team asking them to send the news organizations a “generic quote” on the district’s position.

“We recognize the critical importance of identifying and assessing any threat of mass violence made within our schools and advocating for a system of assessment that prioritizes our value of care,” a spokesperson wrote in a subsequent email. “It is critical that we work in partnership with our local law enforcement agencies to conduct threat assessments to determine their severity level and hold individuals accountable for valid threats.”

[Related: Georgia high school shooting shows how hard it is take action even after police see warning signs]

Junior’s parents felt it was overzealous of Richardson to track down Junior and arrest him at the party, especially since the officer knew he would be at school the next day. They later filed a citizen’s complaint against Richardson, stating that he “arrested their son on hearsay” and “wanted glory for making that arrest.” The complaint is still under investigation by the sheriff’s department.

Under the law, Richardson did not need to consider the context or intent before making an arrest.

“We don’t pick and choose,” Hamilton County Sheriff Austin Garrett told a panel of county commissioners at a public hearing in mid-September. His officers “know to make an arrest and charge the person making that threat, child or adult.” When Garrett was elected in 2022, one of his biggest priorities was installing more police in public schools, in part through state grants. Within a year, he succeeded. Garrett turned down requests to be interviewed for this story.

Boyer, Junior’s stepfather, spoke on the phone twice in late October with Richardson’s boss, Hamilton County Sheriff’s Lt. Jeremy Durham. During the calls, which Boyer recorded, Durham said he had reviewed camera footage of the arrest and thought Richardson “did not violate policy.”

“He was not out to get anybody,” Durham said.

“None of us like doing this. There’s no high-five or big honor in putting a child in jail.”

Durham said that ultimately internal affairs would review whether the case was handled properly. “We do have discretion, but it puts a little bit more burden on the deputy when it is a felony, especially one like threats of mass violence on school,” Durham said on one of the calls. He did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

ProPublica and WPLN requested data from Hamilton County Schools on their response to threats in the first six weeks of school. The district investigated 38 threats from students in nearly all grade levels, including finger guns pointed at other classmates and remarks about burning down the classroom. One fourth grader was hit with a soccer ball at recess and angrily told students he would blow up the school.

Police arrested 18 students, even though school officials labeled most of the threats as “low level” with “no evidence of motive.” Of the students arrested, 39% were Black, compared to 30% of students in the district overall. And 33% had disabilities, more than double the share of disabled students in the district’s population.

Junior is Black.

But his stepdad thought they had more time before they’d have to have the talk about how the police are not always looking out for his best interests.

It was a lesson Boyer learned himself when he was a few years older than Junior. At age 13, Boyer was walking his dog when police officers stopped him and slammed him against a fence, saying he “fit the description” of a boy who had escaped from the nearby juvenile detention center.

When he stumbled home, nose bleeding, he sought reassurance from his dad, who greeted him from the porch. His dad’s response has echoed in his head for years: “Yeah, boy, you’re going to deal with that your whole life.” Boyer is determined to avoid making the same mistake with his son. “I’m going to go to the end of the earth for my kids,” he said.

Hundreds of children across the country are facing charges this year similar to Junior’s, especially after a deadly school shooting in Georgia this September fueled a frenzied response. School officials and law enforcement reported immediate increases in the number of school threats on social media and vowed to crack down on anyone making them.

A judicial safety net

As soon as Boyer got to Hamilton County’s juvenile detention center the night of the arrest, he started making his case. Junior has autism, he told the man at the front desk. He’s probably scared out of his mind right now. He’s only 11 years old. Is there any way the man could tell Junior his parents were there, so that he knows he’s not alone?

The man offered to bring Junior into a room with a window that was visible from the waiting room so that he could see Boyer. Hours passed like that, father and son trading half-hearted waves and thumbs ups while they waited.

Boyer started to worry that the detention center might try to keep Junior overnight.

But when he asked an employee, he found out that the detention center wouldn’t hold Junior overnight at all — he was too young. According to state records, the detention center holds children ages 12 through 18. Once Richardson finished writing his report, Junior was free to go.

“So all of this is unnecessary. Putting the handcuffs on the kid, this whole show that you guys are trying to have... You’re not even gonna accept the 11-year-old.”
— Kevin Boyer

Junior was only detained for a few hours before he got to go home, but other kids have been locked in juvenile detention for days. A recent lawsuit against the school board and district attorney in Williamson County, outside of Nashville, alleges that last September a high school junior was handcuffed, taken to juvenile detention and strip searched before being placed in solitary confinement. His requests to speak with his parents or a lawyer were denied, the lawsuit claims. He was held in juvenile detention for three nights, until he was released on house arrest.

The arrest stemmed from an incident in his chemistry class. The principal asserted the student had raised his hand in a “Hilter salute” and made a threat against the school. According to the lawsuit, this claim was baseless and the teacher present denied that the student had done anything inappropriate.

Williamson County’s school board disputed some of the facts of the lawsuit in a court filing in early October, including that a Hitler salute was the reason for the student’s discipline and that the teacher said he’d done nothing wrong. The school board did not describe what happened but said in the filing that the student’s “comments and actions warranted” discipline. A school district spokesperson declined to answer further questions about pending litigation, and the district attorney did not respond to a request for comment.

It’s unclear what will happen with Junior’s case in juvenile court. He was charged with a felony, which could mean imprisonment in a state facility, though it wouldn’t follow him into adulthood because juvenile records are sealed. His case will be heard in juvenile court in December.

A judges opinion

“Because the charge has been enhanced to a felony level, some law enforcement officers started the school year thinking they had no choice but to make an arrest,” said Robert Philyaw, Hamilton County’s juvenile court judge and the president of the Tennessee Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges.

Many of the threats of mass violence cases he’s seen should never have made it to his court, he said. One child held up a battery and called it a bomb. He was arrested. Another said he was going to nuke the place. That child was arrested too, even though he realistically “didn’t have any plutonium in his backpack,” Philyaw said.

“If some child says, ‘I’m going to run an elephant through here and it’s going to tear the school up,’ are they going to be arrested?” Philyaw asked. “Even though there’s no elephant in sight or within that child’s control? I don’t know.”

Most of these cases in his court this school year have been dismissed after a thorough review, he said.

According to a ProPublica and WPLN analysis of state data, juvenile court judges are rarely finding students “delinquent,” a term equivalent to “guilty” in adult court. In fact, about 80% of young people charged with threats in the past three school years have either had their charges completely dismissed or were sent through diversion programs, which could require them to complete community service hours, therapy or other interventions.

Judges are, in effect, acting as safety nets at the end of a harsh process. In some cases, they’ve overruled district attorneys seeking harsher treatment of children. In Knox County, located in East Tennessee, judges largely rejected the local district attorney’s request to detain all children charged with making threats until trial — which could be up to 30 days.

Rep. Bo Mitchell, a Nashville Democrat who co-sponsored the felony law, acknowledged that children who do not pose any danger are being arrested. But he said that district attorneys and judges should use good judgment when determining how to handle the charge.

But Matt Moore, a defense lawyer in West Tennessee, said the stakes for children are too high to rely on the discretion of individual prosecutors and judges as protection from an overly punitive law.

Andrea Morales for ProPublica

Junior loves watching and playing football, and when he can’t be on the field, he often plays football video games.

“The whole point is, these are juveniles. They’re supposed to make mistakes. They’re supposed to be young and dumb,” he said. “And if you don’t have a judge or a district attorney who take that into account, these kids’ lives are basically over.”

“Who takes responsibility?”

The only thing Junior loves more than talking about football is playing it. When the weather is too harsh to get outside, he plays his favorite football video game.

His parents sat high up in the bleachers one day in early October as he ran drills alongside his teammates. They picked him out from the other students easily, his height and stocky build adding to his talent as a lineman. He often encourages the younger players on the team, an unofficial mentor.

“This field is his place,” Torri said, smiling. “He’s the gentle giant of the field.”

That night, Hamilton County Schools had been planning to host a town hall about the threats and arrests. Junior’s parents were hoping to attend and share their story as a way to advocate for their son while the charge against him remains pending in court. But the board canceled the meeting at the last minute without giving a clear explanation.

By the time the two parents found out about the regularly scheduled school board meeting later that week, it was too late to sign up to make a public comment. They felt like they were constantly bumping up against roadblocks in a system that wasn’t designed to let them be heard.

The school district has been grappling with the state laws since the start of the school year. Connor, a school board member, is the father of four daughters in the public school system. He drafted a resolution in an attempt to convince legislators to align the way schools and police handle threats of mass violence. Most importantly, he said, police should have to consider whether a threat is valid before making an arrest, just like schools are required to do before expulsions.

“As a result of this unfortunate disparity,” the resolution reads, “students who have not made valid, credible threats against the security of the school or the safety of their classmates are nevertheless being arrested by law enforcement and detained when these same students might not face discipline at school.”

The school board was supposed to vote on the resolution twice in the last two months, but it canceled both votes.

Connor said the board will instead try to speak directly with the authors of the law. A group of parents, many organized by a chapter of the far-right group Moms for Liberty, showed up to speak out against the resolution at a board meeting in September. One school employee and parent begged the board not to ask for a change in the law and asked them to treat all threats the same: “How can you be sure it’s a valid threat?”

Junior was suspended for two days, according to his parents, but the consequences of the arrest have lasted much longer. Junior can barely talk about what happened, even with his parents. He gets scared when he spots a police officer on the street. Little by little, Junior said, it’s gotten easier for him to sit in the classroom of the teacher who reported him to the police and to walk past the officer who handcuffed him and put him in the back of a cop car.

[Related: A school shooting in Tennessee sparked activism — and now frustration]

In past years, Junior had struggled with reading and math due to his disability and required extra support in school. And it seemed to be working. Before the arrest, Junior was “rocking this school year,” his mom said. “I’m a proud mama.” He would check his own grades daily, excited to see how well he was doing and track his progress. His parents worry his improvements might be derailed.

“So do you fault the officer? Do you fault the new law? Who takes responsibility of this massive problem?” Boyer said. “We’re traumatizing our children.”

***

Aliyya Swaby is a reporter in ProPublica’s South unit covering children, families and social inequality. Previously, she was a reporter at the Texas Tribune, where she covered public education and state politics starting in 2016.

Paige Pfleger covers criminal justice for WPLN News. She has investigated guns and juvenile justice as a fellow with ProPublica's Local Reporting Network.

ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.

The post An 11-year-old denied making a threat and was allowed to return to school. Tennessee police arrested him anyway. appeared first on Juvenile Justice Information Exchange.

Originally published by The 19th

TUCSON, Arizona — Adriana Grijalva was getting ready to head to class at the University of Arizona in the fall of 2022 when she got a text message from her cousin telling her to stay put. The cousin, who works in maintenance at the university, had watched law enforcement descend on campus and reached out to make sure she was safe. A former student had just shot a professor 11 times, killing him.

Grijalva, who was just a few weeks into her first year of college, immediately thought of her sister, who also attended the university. Her stepdad, a music teacher, and her little brother were at a school not far from campus. Her mom must have been out running errands, she thought at the time. Text messages started to fly among members of this close-knit Latinx family as Grijalva tried to make sure everyone was safe and make sense of what was going on.

The deadly shooting left a profound mark on Grijalva personally and politically, moving her from passivity to advocacy. The threat of gun violence and the policies that could help stanch what she sees as a safety crisis in the United States are now her top issue heading into the 2024 election.

Four years ago, Grijalva wasn’t old enough to vote and her views on politics were loosely formed. This November, she’ll be among the estimated 4 million Latinx Americans who can vote for the first time. They’ll account for half of the growth in new eligible voters since the 2020 election.

Nationwide, Latinos make up about 15 percent of all eligible voters. But in Arizona — which helped deliver President Joe Biden’s victory in 2020 after former President Donald Trump won the state in 2016 — Latinx voters like Grijalva make up a quarter of all eligible voters, the highest share of any battleground state.

Latinas account for more than half of those voters. Nationwide, surveys show Latinas having exceedingly high rates of support for gun control policies. This is even more true in Arizona, where about two-thirds of Latinx voters back tougher gun regulations, a position that’s driven by the overwhelming support for these measures among Latinas in the state, across the ideological spectrum.

Grijalva’s generation came of age in the era of mass shootings in schools, their political views shaped by debates about how to prevent such tragedies from occurring again. She plans to vote for Democrats up and down the ballot because she sees the party as the key to gun-control policies, including universal background checks, a ban on assault weapons and red flag laws that could help prevent incidents of violence like the one on campus — and others that have hit close to home.

Ash Ponders/The 19th

Adriana Grijalva and her sister pose for a portrait at their home in Tucson, Arizona. The shooting that took place at their university marked a turning point for the sisters, spurring their involvement in gun violence prevention.

In 2011, a gunman opened fire on a constituent meeting in a grocery store parking lot in Casas Adobes, on the edge of Tucson, critically injuring then-U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords and killing six people.

Latinx Americans have been the victims of two of the deadliest mass shootings in the Southwest. In Texas, a shooting at an El Paso Walmart in 2019 left 23 people dead and became known as the deadliest attack targeting Latinx people in modern American history. And in 2022, in the majority-Latinx city of Uvalde, Texas, 19 elementary school students and two teachers were killed in the country’s third deadliest school shooting to date. It took law enforcement more than an hour to enter the classroom where most of the victims were located and kill the shooter.

“When Gabby was shot here, I was 7 years old. Now I’m 20,” Grijalva said in an interview on campus.

“When Uvalde happened, that really struck a chord — them waiting so long, this Latino community, a small town.”

Vice President Kamala Harris has emphasized gun violence prevention as one of her top issues and on the campaign trail, she has regularly talked about her support for reinstating the federal assault weapons ban and requiring universal background checks. Harris has also said in multiple interviews that she is a gun owner. During a Phoenix rally in August, Harris told the crowd that the United States was experiencing “a full-on assault against hard-fought, hard-won freedoms and rights.” These include, she said, “the freedom to be safe from gun violence.”

Trump’s campaign, which made inroads with Latinx voters in 2020, has put its focus on crime and law enforcement, leaning heavily on immigration as the source of America’s public safety issues, often with false and xenophobic claims about undocumented immigrants. In a speech to the National Rifle Association in February, Trump told the crowd that “no one will lay a finger on your firearms” if he wins the presidential election, and that he would terminate Biden administration regulations on gun owners and manufacturers.

The morning after the 2022 shooting, the University of Arizona campus reopened quickly, but Grijalva struggled to feel comfortable there. She had already been rattled by the mass shooting in Uvalde less than five months earlier. Now her sense of safety had vanished.

She was frustrated by how long it took school officials to update students in the shooting’s immediate aftermath. She thought in-person classes resumed too quickly.

She had been thinking a lot about gun violence prevention since the Uvalde shooting. Grijalva said:

“That one definitely hit close, but I was at first scared to get involved.”

"The semester that followed the shooting on campus was quiet, but once she regained a sense of normalcy, “it was time to do something.”

She sought out the campus chapter of Students Demand Action, a student-led gun violence prevention advocacy group with just a handful of members at the time, and started recruiting for it and passing out flyers. She applied for a fellowship with Giffords, another advocacy group created after its namesake’s shooting and even though she was rejected, she dug more into the issue, “got educated, got more involved.” She then re-applied and got accepted, joining a cohort of other students who wanted to learn more about gun violence prevention efforts.

Now, Grijalva is working with Arizonans for Gun Safety, which is advocating for stronger background check laws, more rigorous requirements for someone to obtain a concealed carry permit and laws that punish gun owners when a child gains access to an unsecured weapon. Grijalva said she supports guardrails that will allow people to own guns but also stem violence.

Ash Ponders/The 19th

Adriana Grijalva adjusts her jacket while looking in the mirror at her home, in Tucson, Arizona.

“If I was in a politician role, I’d make that very clear: it's not about taking guns. It's just that it's not OK to access them so fast or easy,” she said. “If it's harder to get a driver's license, if it's harder to get an education than to get a gun … that's just not OK.”

Building enthusiasm among young voters has always been a challenge for political campaigns. With Latinx voters, the task carries more urgency. Latinx voters skew younger than the overall population and are susceptible to persuasion and low turnout.

Grijalva had felt discouraged by the debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump — then surprised when Harris replaced Biden on the Democratic ticket. There was no immediate gush about Harris, but there was hope about the stakes of the election. The Biden administration’s championing of gun violence prevention measures that had so energized her included Harris, too. She was particularly impressed that the  administration had established the first-ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention — and under a Harris presidency, that work would continue.

Grijalva watched the Democratic National Convention from Tucson and was touched by its segment on gun violence, which included remarks from Giffords. The former lawmaker, who lives with the effects of a severe brain injury that affected her speech, told the audience about her journey learning to walk and speak again.

“The freedom from gun violence,” Grijalva said of the segment’s theme. “Wow.”

The campus shooting rippled through Grijalva’s family. Grijalva’s mom and her sister say the incident sharpened their views on gun violence, reshaped some family dynamics and will ultimately play a role in how they vote this election.

The three women live under the same roof in a heavily Latinx Tucson neighborhood, the kind of multigenerational living that sets Latinx families apart and one reason why experts say:

Politically engaged Latinas wield a lot of influence over their communities.

The ways Grijalva’s experience has impacted her family illustrate that dynamic.

Christina Valenzuela describes herself as a very cautious mom. She never allowed Grijalva or her other kids to crawl up on the counters, worried they might fall. The 44-year-old says the day of the shooting on the campus of the university both of her daughters attended remains a blur.

“It's scary as a mom because you do have to send your kids out, and you don't want to,” said Valenzuela, who in addition to Grijalva and her oldest daughter, Alyssa Grijalva, has two school-aged sons, a seventh grader and her “little guy,” a first-grader.

Valenzuela lived in Tucson when Giffords was shot and recalled two things about that time. One was being “terrified” that “trying to be just a supporter” at a political event could cost you your life. The other, a searing memory, is that a little girl, 9-year-old Christina-Taylor Green, was among those killed that day.

“I just think it’s awful the way things have gone with gun violence,” Valenzuela said. She lamented young people with mental health challenges gaining access to guns “so easily” and guns that “shoot so many people in so little time.”

Valenzuela didn’t grow up with guns in her home, but she remembers the collection of rifles that hung on the wall at her grandparents’ house. Her grandfather used to hunt near his ranch outside El Paso, but she never took part before he died when she was 8.

Ash Ponders/The 19th

Christina Valenzuela poses for a portrait in their garden. The family’s experiences with gun violence have motivated each member to take an active role in the fight for stronger gun control laws.

Alyssa described the shooting at the University of Arizona as traumatizing. She was working as a campus mentor for first-year students and had to help them one month into their college experience navigate a deadly incident on campus. “I understand if you don’t want to go to campus,” Alyssa would tell them, “If you guys don’t feel safe.”

She felt unsafe too.

Alyssa now works as a teacher at a bilingual school two blocks from the University of Arizona. A few weeks ago, when the school year started, she guided her students through drills for several emergency scenarios, including an armed intruder.

“I already told my kids, this is where you’d go, in the corner. The window in the door is blocked off,” she said. “It’s always on your mind as an educator. And I was honest with them. … I mentioned my experience at the U of A.”

The incident wasn’t immediately political for Grijalva’s sister or mom. Valenzuela didn’t cast a ballot in a presidential election until she was in her 30s and hasn’t ever been a regular voter. For a long time, she just felt like her “vote didn’t count” and these days, she sees politics as “ugly and vicious.” Alyssa turned 18 just before the last presidential election and like her mom, voted for Biden.

Latinas like them are less likely to be registered to vote and less likely to turn out than women of any other racial group.

In the last presidential election, just 56 percent of eligible Latinas cast a ballot, compared to 61 percent of Asian American women, 66 percent of Black women and 72 percent of White women, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.

This cycle, both women plan to vote. They joke that Grijalva will make sure of it.

The campus shooting, Alyssa said, “was a big shift for everyone, but especially Adriana.” In her freshman year, her younger sister was a “shy little thing” figuring out where she was headed. Valenzuela said her youngest daughter had always been more reserved, except if she was performing in the mariachi band led by her husband, where Adriana played the violin.

“She wasn't always like this, where she's so vocal. It’s amazed me in the last, gosh, two years,” Valenzuela said. “She has taken such a front role in our family.”

Alyssa said she’s proud that her younger sister’s gun safety advocacy was born out of “her own experiences in our community.”

“Latinos as a whole,” she said, don't always take up space with their voices. “There's still a struggle.”

Both Grijalva’s mom and sister are planning to support Harris. Her sister said she was “iffy” on Biden when she learned he was running again, but feels really inspired by Harris’ momentum. Valenzuela said she is “scared” about the fate of the country and wants to vote for someone with a “moral compass.”

When it comes to down-ballot races, or even Harris’ pick of Gov. Tim Walz for vice president, Alyssa Grijalva said she often turns to her younger sister for insight. “I’ll be like, OK, give me the backstory.”

In a matter of days, their mail-in ballots will arrive.

“We’ll sit at the table and do it all together, make sure that we turn them into the mailbox and they get shipped out — that's how we decided to vote as a family,” Alyssa Grijalva said. “That's more efficient for us, just making sure we get it done.”

Grijalva had been invited to speak about gun violence prevention at a July 14 event near Tucson that included Gabby Giffords. A day earlier, in Butler, Pennsylvania, a gunman fired at Trump during an open-air campaign rally, injuring his ear and killing two attendees.

In the wake of that tragedy, organizers in Tucson decided to cancel their event. “It was very upsetting because it was canceled because of gun violence, you know, so that really sucked,” Grijalva said.

Grijalva had spent hours working on her remarks for the event, which was organized to help energize voters worried about gun violence to support candidates who back gun control measures in November, including a congressional candidate in a nearby district.

“The election is fast approaching,” she wrote.

“The election is fast approaching,” she wrote:

“It’s a big year to choose the candidate best fit to fight with courage for the change we need to see on a local, state, and national level.”

In the months that followed, incident after incident reinforced that gun violence is a constant in her life and that of many Americans. On September 5, a shooting at a high school in Georgia left two students and two teachers dead. Grijalva described it as “heartbreaking.”

“Honestly… why do we keep letting this happen,” she said in a text message. “When is enough gonna be enough. Kids can’t learn if all they are thinking about is, are they gonna get killed.”

Related: Once a ‘badass Latina’ and handcuffed schoolboys, they now push for juvenile justice reform]

Then, just one day later, a 12-year-old student brought a handgun to Los Niños Elementary in Tucson and local law enforcement was immediately summoned.

The school is an 11-minute drive from Grijalva’s house, she pointed out, and “my nana lives four minutes away.”

In late September, almost exactly two years after the fatal shooting of the university professor, the University of Arizona campus was once again hit by gun violence: a 19-year-old from a nearby community college was found shot to death on a campus volleyball court.

Ash Ponders/The 19th

Grijalva enters her student body president office on the University of Arizona campus. Her role on campus has given her a platform to advocate for policies that could prevent tragedies like the one that changed her family’s lives.

Grijalva is the incoming student government president, a role she says is not political in the partisan sense but that has given her a closer view into how school leaders respond to safety threats and how students grapple with incidents on campus. After the recent shooting, she has been busy advocating on behalf of students for more timely safety alerts and extra support, like a day off from class after a tragedy on campus.

“I’ve had a really hard time this week,” Grijalva said. “On a national level, it’s just happening everywhere … And it just sometimes feels like you can't do anything about it — like it's just so normalized.

“I did not think that the first statement I would write as president would be on gun violence.” 

***

Mel Leonor Barclay, is a reporter at The 19th. Her work is fueled by curiosity about the forces that drive everyday people to become politically engaged and shape their political beliefs. Barclay covers how gender, race, ethnicity, economic reality, immigration story and experiences with gun violence shape candidates’ decisions to run for office and voters’ decisions at the ballot box. Previously, she covered government and elections for the Miami Herald and the Naples Daily News, and Trump’s presidential transition, education and labor policy for Politico. Barclay also reported on Virginia state politics and the COVID-19 epidemic for the Richmond Times-Dispatch. 

The 19th — named after the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution — is an independent, nonprofit newsroom reporting on gender, politics and policy. Their goal is to empower women and LGBTQ+ people — particularly those from underrepresented communities — with the information, resources and tools they need to be equal participants in our democracy. Subscribe to their daily newsletter.

Member support made it possible for The 19th to write this series. Donate to The 19th nonprofit newsroom today to support independent journalism that represents you.

The post A campus shooting spurred her political awakening. Her whole family followed. appeared first on Juvenile Justice Information Exchange.

These programs serve as an offramp for youth, protecting them from the harsh punishment of the adult criminal legal system.

Courtesy EJUSA

Jamila Hodge

Restorative justice includes an accountability process that identifies root causes of youth criminal actions, while providing an opportunity for healing both for the person harmed and the person who has caused harm.

“Restorative justice is an essential pillar of the growing movement toward community-led public safety solutions and away from the failings of policing, prosecutions, and prisons,” said Jamila Hodge, CEO of Equal Justice USA. Hodge stated:

“We will never punish our way to safety, but the healing that restorative justice offers does chart the path to safety and well-being.”

“Developing partnerships in these four communities allows us to expand our restorative justice diversion work in the Southern and Midwestern regions of the country – areas that will strengthen the national representation of our Restorative Justice Diversion Collaborative.

Courtesy EJUSA

Cymone Fuller

"[This will] tend to the areas of our country experiencing the heaviest resurgence of tough-on-crime backslides,” said Cymone Fuller, Senior Restorative Justice Director at EJUSA.

“We are excited about all of the possibilities ahead with these new partnerships and are grateful for the opportunity to advance pathways to meaningful healing and accountability for more communities.”

[Related: New book by an author who journeyed from incarcerated juvenile to college professor teaching restorative justice]

Program training and development

The organizations in this new Restorative Justice Diversion Roots Cohort are located in Hinds County, MS; Richmond, VA; Oakland County, MI; and Pulaski County, AR.

Courtesy Equal Justice USA

At the Equal Justice USA Restorative Justice Diversion Roots Cohort Launch Training members gather in a circle during an activity, in Minneapolis, Minn., October 2024.

EJUSA will provide training and technical support to these organizations as they build out their programs over the coming year and begin to work directly with young people and those impacted by harm in the community.

The EJUSA model of  restorative justice diversion is defined by 8 core elements

• • Element 1: Oriented around the needs of people harmed
  • Element 2: Designed to end racial & ethnic disparities in juvenile and criminal legal systems
  • Element 3: Focused exclusively on pre-criminal charge diversion
  • Element 4: Structured to prevent net-widening in the juvenile legal system
  • Element 5: Dedicated to a strengths-based approach to healing harm
  • Element 6: Rooted in relationships – how to nourish, deepen, and heal them
  • Element 7: Committed to protecting participant confidentiality
  • Element 8: Created and held by community and community-based organizations

(Watch video below to learn more about restorative justice.)

For the next 10 months, members of the local organizations and their legal system referral partners will come together with support from EJUSA to develop their programs based on these core elements. They will participate in training opportunities that will prepare them for program implementation.

Courtesy Equal Justice USA

At an Equal Justice USA Restorative Justice Diversion Roots Cohort Launch Training activity members explore different aspects of how to implement and lead restorative justice programs, in Minneapolis, Minn., October 2024.

These four communities join the existing 10 that EJUSA’s Restorative Justice Project already works with, located in cities and counties in California, Louisiana, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, and WashingtonD.C.

Healing in Community: The Power of Restorative Justice Diversion

This video highlights the work and perspectives of several of restorative justice diversion programs in EJUSA's National Restorative Justice Diversion Collaborative.

EJUSA extends deep gratitude to every person who took time to share their wisdom and experience to help tell the story of the powerful impact of restorative justice diversion. We also want to thank Visual Street Films for bringing so much care and commitment to the creation of this film.

[Related: Breaking walls, building bridges -- A call for restorative justice in school discipline]

***

Equal Justice USA (EJUSA) is a national organization that works to transform the justice system by ending the death penalty, strengthening programs that help crime survivors rebuild their lives, and promoting trauma-informed responses to violence that save lives and heal communities.

The post Justice organization announces new youth restorative justice partners appeared first on Juvenile Justice Information Exchange.

Louisiana’s criminal justice system now treats all 17-year-olds as adults. Lawmakers said they were fighting an epidemic of teen violence, but nearly 70% of 17-year-olds arrested in the state’s three largest parishes aren’t accused of violent crimes.

In February, a prosecutor from a rural area outside Baton Rouge asked members of Louisiana’s Senate judiciary committee to imagine a frightening scene: You are home with your wife at 4 a.m. when suddenly a 17-year-old with a gun appears. The teenager won’t hesitate, District Attorney Tony Clayton said. “He will kill you and your wife.”

According to Clayton, teenagers were terrorizing the state without fear of consequences. The only way to stop them was to prosecute all 17-year-olds in adult court, regardless of the offense, and lock them up in prison. Law enforcement officials from around the state made similar arguments. Legislators quickly passed a bill that lowered the age at which the justice system must treat defendants as adults from 18 to 17.

But according to a review of arrests in the five months since the law took effect, most of the 17-year-olds booked in three of the state’s largest parishes have not been accused of violent crimes. Verite News and ProPublica identified 203 17-year-olds who were arrested in Orleans, Jefferson and East Baton Rouge parishes between April and September. A total of 141, or 69%, were arrested for offenses that are not listed as violent crimes in Louisiana law, according to our analysis of jail rosters, court records and district attorney data.

How many 18-year-olds are committing violent crimes?

Just 13% of the defendants — a little over two dozen — have been accused of the sort of violent crimes that lawmakers cited when arguing for the legislation, such as rape, armed robbery and murder. Prosecutors were able to move such cases to adult court even before the law was changed.

The larger group of lesser offenses includes damaging property, trespassing, theft under $1,000, disturbing the peace, marijuana possession, illegal carrying of weapons and burglary. They also include offenses that involve the use of force, such as simple battery, but those are not listed in state law as violent crimes either, and they can be prosecuted as misdemeanors depending on the circumstances.

In one case in New Orleans, a boy took a car belonging to his mother’s boyfriend without permission so he could check out flooding during Hurricane Francine last month, according to a police report. When the teen returned the car, the front bumper was damaged. The boyfriend called police and the teen was arrested for unauthorized use of a vehicle. In another case, a boy was charged with battery after he got into a fight with his brother about missing a school bus.

In July, a 17-year-old girl was charged with resisting arrest and interfering with a law enforcement investigation. She had shoved a police officer as he was taking her older sister into custody for a minor charge resulting from a fight with another girl. None of those defendants have had an opportunity to enter a plea so far; convictions could result in jail or prison time of up to two years.

Adult court versus juvenile court

In juvenile court, teenagers facing charges such as these could be sentenced to a detention facility, but the juvenile system is mandated to focus on rehabilitation and sentences are generally shorter than in adult court, juvenile justice advocates said. And in the juvenile system, only arrests for violent crimes and repeat offenses are public record. But because these 17-year-olds are in the adult system, they all have public arrest records that can prevent them from getting jobs or housing.

Rachel Gassert, the former policy director for the Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights, said there was one word to describe what she felt when Verite News and ProPublica shared their findings: “Despair.”

Eight years ago, Gassert and other criminal justice advocates convinced lawmakers to raise the age for adult prosecution from 17 to 18 years old, pointing to research that shows that the human brain does not fully develop until early adulthood and that youth are more likely to reoffend when they are prosecuted as adults. The law enacted this spring was the culmination of a two-year effort to reverse that.

“The whole push to repeal Raise the Age was entirely political and all about throwing children under the bus,” Gassert said. “And now we are seeing the tire treads on their backs.”

Gov. Jeff Landry’s office, Clayton and state Sen. Heather Cloud, R-Turkey Creek, who sponsored the bill to roll back Raise the Age, did not respond to requests for comment. The Louisiana District Attorneys Association, which supported the bill, declined to comment.

The whole push to repeal Raise the Age was entirely political and all about throwing children under the bus. And now we are seeing the tire treads on their backs.
—Rachel Gassert

Louisiana is the only state to have passed and then fully reversed Raise the Age legislation. It’s one of four states, along with Georgia, Texas and Wisconsin, that automatically prosecute all 17-year-olds as adults. In other states, 17-year-olds can be prosecuted as adults only in special circumstances, such as when they are charged with a serious, violent crime like murder.

Landry and his Republican allies argued that Raise the Age and other liberal policies were responsible for a pandemic-era uptick in violent offenses committed by juveniles in Louisiana. They said juvenile courts, where a sentence can’t extend past a defendant’s 21st birthday, are too lenient.

Juvenile justice advocates argued that the law would cause teenagers to be prosecuted as adults for behaviors that are typical for immature adolescents. These 17-year-olds would face long-lasting consequences, including arrest records and prison time. And the harm would fall largely on Black children. Nearly 9 out of every 10 of the 17-year-olds arrested in Orleans and East Baton Rouge parishes are Black, Verite News and ProPublica found. (A similar figure couldn’t be calculated for Jefferson Parish because some court records weren’t available.)

Opponents of the law also pointed out that the data didn’t show a link between enacting the Raise the Age legislation and a surge in violent crime.

In 2022, when then-Attorney General Landry and others first tried to repeal the law, crime data analyst Jeff Asher said in a legislative hearing that Louisiana’s increase in homicides during the pandemic was part of a national trend that began before Raise the Age was passed.

“It happened in red states. It happened in blue states. It happened in big cities, small towns, suburbs, metro parishes,” Asher told lawmakers. Starting in 2023, data has shown a significant drop in homicides in Louisiana and nationwide.

Conservative lawmakers dismissed Asher’s numbers and instead cited horrific crimes committed by teenagers, such as the brutal killing of 73-year-old Linda Frickey amid a surge in carjackings in New Orleans in 2022. In that incident, four teenagers between 15 and 17 years old stole Frickey’s SUV in broad daylight. One of them kicked, punched and pepper-sprayed her as he pulled her out of the vehicle, according to court testimony. Frickey, who had become tangled in her seat belt, was dragged alongside the vehicle. Landry argued that teenagers who commit such heinous crimes must be punished as adults.

[Related: The seemingly endless cycle of reforms in juvenile justice]

Opponents said the Frickey case instead showed why the law wasn’t needed: District attorneys in Louisiana have long had the discretion to move cases involving the most serious crimes out of juvenile court, which is what Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams did. Three girls who took part in the carjacking pleaded guilty to manslaughter and were each sentenced to 20 years in prison; the 17-year-old who attacked Frickey and drove her car was found guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.

After the attempt to repeal the Raise the Age law failed in 2022, lawmakers passed a bill in 2023. It was vetoed by Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards. “Housing seventeen year olds with adults is dangerous and reckless,” Edwards said in a written statement at the time. “They often come out as seasoned criminals after being victimized.”

This year, with Landry in lockstep with the Republican supermajority in the Legislature, the law sailed through. For Landry, who was elected on an anti-crime platform, the law’s passage fulfilled a campaign pledge. When the law took effect, he declared:

“No more will 17-year-olds who commit home invasions, carjack, and rob the great people of our State be treated as children in court.”

Gage Skidmore/Flickr

Congressman Jeff Landry speaking at the Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Now these teenagers are treated as adults from arrest to sentencing. In New Orleans, that means that:

When a 17-year-old is arrested, police no longer alert their parent.

Department policy requires this step for juveniles, according to a department spokesperson. It’s not clear if law enforcement agencies elsewhere in the state have made a similar change.

All 17-year-olds arrested in New Orleans are now booked into the Orleans Parish jail, where those charged with crimes not classified as violent have spent up to 15 days before being released pending trial. Though the jail separates teens from adults, it has been under a court-ordered reform plan since 2013 after the Department of Justice found routine use of excessive force by guards and rampant inmate-on-inmate violence. Federal monitors said in May that violence remains a significant problem, although they acknowledged conditions have improved somewhat. The sheriff has agreed with this assessment, blaming understaffing.

Most of the cases involving 17-year-olds in Orleans, Jefferson and East Baton Rouge parishes are pending, according to court records and officials in those offices. Several defendants have pleaded guilty. Prosecutors have declined to file charges in a handful of cases. Many defendants are first-time offenders who should be eligible for diversion programs in which charges will eventually be dropped if they abide by conditions set by the court, according to officials with the Orleans and Jefferson Parish district attorneys.

[Related: National report highlights severe cost of inadequate juvenile justice system]

None of the DAs in Orleans, Jefferson or East Baton Rouge parishes took a position on the law, according to officials in those offices and news reports. Williams, the Orleans Parish DA, responded to Verite News and ProPublica’s findings by saying his office is holding “violent offenders accountable” while providing alternatives to prison for those teenagers “willing to heed discipline and make a real course correction.”

Margaret Hay, first assistant district attorney with Jefferson Parish, declined to comment on Verite and ProPublica’s findings except to say, “We’re constitutionally mandated to uphold and enforce the laws of the state of Louisiana.” East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore declined to comment.

Even those who avoid prison face the long-term consequences of going through the adult court system. Background checks can reveal arrests and convictions, which could prevent them from obtaining a job, housing, professional licenses, loans, government assistance such as student aid or food stamps, or custody of their children.

“Having a felony arrest or conviction on your record,” said Aaron Clark-Rizzio, legal director for the Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights, “is like wearing a heavy yoke around your neck.”

***

Marsha Levick, chief legal officer with the Juvenile Law Center, a nonprofit law firm based in Philadelphia, said that what’s happening in Louisiana reminds her of the late 1990s, when states toughened punishments for juveniles after a noted criminologist warned of a generation of “super predators.” That theory was eventually debunked — but not before tens of thousands of children had been locked up and saddled with criminal records.

Mariam Elba contributed reporting and Jeff Frankl contributed research.

Do you have a story to share regarding a 17-year-old facing criminal charges in Louisiana? Contact Richard Webster at Rwebster@veritenews.org.

ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.

The post A Louisiana law meant to fight teen violence is sweeping 17-year-olds arrested for lesser crimes into adult court appeared first on Juvenile Justice Information Exchange.

Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story.

When Justtice Taylor began working at Smith County Jail last year, the inmates made fun of her, and her coworkers worried she wasn't mature enough for the job.

She was, after all, still a teenager.

“People were skeptical of me being so young and coming straight out of high school,” said Taylor, an aspiring homicide detective who was 18 when she was hired as a corrections officer. “Some high schoolers don’t have their heads straight, but I’m one of the ones focused on my career.”

Taylor is among a small but growing number of teenagers taking jobs inside of Texas’ prisons and jails, which face persistent staffing shortages. Without enough guards, lock-ups throughout the state are keeping inmates in extended lockdowns and struggling to find the manpower to fulfill their promise to give inmates unlimited access to air-conditioned respite and cold showers during the summer months.

Two counties house training programs in local high schools

To shore up the shortages, state and local leaders are launching new recruitment efforts and programs that allow students to begin corrections training while still in high school, though they must be at least 18 to begin working inside lock-ups.

In 2023, 68 18-year-olds obtained their jailers license, 17 times the number who obtained their license a decade earlier, according to data from the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement, the agency that administers the jailer’s license exam and certifies trainers.

Officials pitch corrections jobs as gateways to criminal justice careers

Proponents say hiring 18 year-olds is a win-win: The recent graduates fill a critical staffing need while also jump-starting their career right out of high school.

But critics contend that teenagers lack the emotional maturity needed to work with inmates, many of whom are older and struggle with mental illness or substance abuse issues.

“Criminals are crafty con artists, and 18 year-olds are naive,” said Thomas Washburn, executive director of the Law and Public Safety Education Network, a national nonprofit that focuses on career and technical education. “They don’t have the situational awareness and street smarts that you need.”

Jail and prison officials say they are mindful about which adolescents they bring into their departments, ensuring only the most mature and stable individuals are hired.

“Yes, there are some 18-year-old-kids who aren’t mature and don’t need to work in the jail,” said Smith County Chief Deputy Jimmy Jackson. “Most of that immaturity shows up in our job interviews, and we aren’t hiring them. We are hiring the cream of the crop.”

Highly controlled environment

As chair of the criminal justice department at Odessa College, Naomi DeAnda heard the same refrain from law enforcement agencies across West Texas: They couldn’t hire enough corrections officers. Her department already ran a dual credit program allowing high school students to obtain college credit for coursework focused on law enforcement.

But through a new partnership with Ector County and the local school district, DeAnda and William Misczak, an instructor at the college, launched a program that allows students to obtain the certification to become a jailer while still in high school.

Selected high school juniors learn how to investigate crime scenes, process inmates and de-escalate fights.

The program launched this fall with six students, who DeAnda said are lured in by the prospect of earning $65,000 a year as a jailer as soon as they graduate high school.

Leila Saidane/The Texas Tribune

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice recruits correctional officers at the Sheraton Hotel in Georgetown on Sept. 10, 2024.

“West Texas is so driven by oil and gas,” DeAnda said. “So these kids come to us and say they have this other thing, criminal justice, that they are looking into and very interested in.”

Hundreds of miles away in Smith County, Jackson launched a similar program through a partnership with Tyler Independent School District. The district has a criminal justice program within its Career Technology Center, but few jobs in that field are available for students once they graduate. Students must be 21 to enter a police academy. Other criminal justice career paths, such working as prosecutors or defense attorneys, require higher education.

Jackson, who was facing a severe staffing shortage in the sheriff’s department that runs the county jail, worked with the school district to create a program that would let students earn a jailer’s license as soon as they graduate. Ten students were enrolled last year, and 13 are signed up for this coming spring.

“I feel like we’ve probably kicked a snowball off the top of the hill, and each year that snowball turns over, it’ll keep getting bigger and bigger,” Jackson said.

Michael Cavazos/The Texas Tribune

From left: Smith County Chief Deputy Jimmy Jackson and detention officer Justtice Taylor.

TCOLE approved the program, allowing the county to train high school students, granting an exemption to current rules requiring people to be 18 years old when they begin training. Teenagers do not have to complete any additional training, beyond the TCOLE-required basic jailer course, to start working inside county jails.

Taylor, who has worked in Smith County for close to eight months, said the experience of working in a jail has been quite different from what she imagined. Based on the true-crime television shows she had watched, she pictured jail as a scary place, filled with violence and chaos. In reality, she said, jail is a highly controlled environment, and her fellow prison guards are always ready to help her when an inmate acts out or has a medical emergency.

“This is my second family,” Taylor said. “You never know what your day is going to be like. But the good days outweigh the bad.”

Gretchen Grigsby, director of government relations for TCOLE, said that so far, only Smith County and Randall County have piloted a program for high school students. But, she said other departments have expressed interest in launching their own version.

TCOLE is asking the Legislature to allocate $3.46 million over the next two years to fund new staff who would support school districts that want to create a jailer certification program.

“It’s something we are seeing more demand for from the agencies,” Grigsby said. “We need resources from the Legislature to have the staff to support it.”

The tools to succeed

The 120 hours of training jailers must receive before taking their certification exam includes modules on mental illness and how to screen inmates for suicide risk. It also teaches jailers how to assert their authority.

Jailers, the training materials state “must make clear their role as leaders.”

“If the jailers do not claim a leadership role, inmates will assume it themselves, which typically leads to violence and brutality,” the material states. “Once lost, leadership is often very difficult to regain.”

But that instruction is not sufficient to give 18-year-olds the tools they need to succeed as a jailer, some experts say.

“Training is important but so is life experience,” said Michele Deitch, a senior lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Law and LBJ School of Public Affairs. “Eighteen-year-olds do not have fully formed frontal lobes yet. They are barely equipped to be in the adult criminal justice system, let alone supervise people.”

Destiny Ferrell, an 18-year-old jailer in Randall County, said she learned early on that she has to be strict at all times. Otherwise, inmates will take advantage of her.

“They want to see how far you can go,” Ferrell said. “You can’t start off easy. You have to just tell them ‘go, do this.’”

Ferrell said corrections is not for everyone. You must have tough skin, she said, and be aware of the challenges you will witness.

During her 12-hour shifts, Ferrell works alongside a veteran jailer. She said she’ll continue working with a partner until she feels more confident and has all of her responsibilities down. Multitasking is an important part of the job, she said, adding that at any given time, she must keep track of the whereabouts of 48 inmates as well as her fellow guards.

Ferrell said her family is supportive of her new job. Her mother is the one who pushed her to sign up for the training in the first place. She thought Ferrell had a one-sided view of the criminal justice system — one based on negative portrayals of police officers.

Michael Cavazos/The Texas Tribune

Recruiting poster at the Smith County Jail in Tyler.

"She thought I needed a different perspective of how criminal justice works,” Ferrell said. “She believes you should be knowledgeable about everything."

Some parents are more hesitant about their children taking a career in corrections. In Smith County, Jackson recently fielded a call from a parent concerned about her son’s interest in becoming a jailer.

Jackson promised to give the mom a tour of the jail, in hopes of convincing her that it is a safe place to work.

Corrections officers face higher than average rates of depression and PTSD compared to the general population, research shows. One study found 50% of officers say they rarely feel safe at work and that one in three have experienced symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder.

Chris Forbis, sheriff of Randall County, said working inside of a jail is no different than going into the military, something 18-year-olds are able to do. He said that he is careful to screen out applicants who can’t handle the stress of working in a jail. And new officers are paired with an experienced jailer for several weeks before they go off on their own.

“There are certain 18-year-olds who I would not put in a pod, and then there are some who are more mature than the 40 year olds,” Forbis said.

***

Pooja Salhotrais is an Austin-based Texas Tribune reporter. She covers issues ranging from breaking news to developments in state agencies. Salhotrais is a native Texan, born and raised in the Houston area. 

The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan local newsroom that informs and engages with Texans. Sign up for The Brief Weekly to get up to speed on their essential coverage of Texas issues.

Disclosure: Odessa College, University of Texas at Austin and University of Texas at Austin - LBJ School of Public Affairs have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. 

The post Texas prisons and jails are recruiting more teenagers to shore up guard shortage appeared first on Juvenile Justice Information Exchange.

Nikolas Cruz was the rare mass killer in America to have his fate decided at trial; many die during the shooting. It’s a bedrock principle of American justice that every defendant, no matter how serious the crime, is owed a robust defense.

For the first time, Cruz’s defense team told a reporter about how they dug into his troubled life and convinced a jury to spare him the death penalty.

Joe Sexton got access to Cruz’s medical, school, adoption and other records, interviewed members of the defense team at length, talked with Florida legislators, and met with experts on fetal alcohol poisoning and death penalty cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Here is what he learned: Key takeaways from the investigation into how Nikolas Cruz’s defense team convinced jurors not to impose the death penalty.

❶ A noble promise — and its cost.

Making the case for mercy in a death penalty case is a constitutional requirement. But for those who deliver on that mandate, making the case for a killer to be spared can be challenging. For the Cruz defense team, it was absolute hell. Kate O’Shea, the mitigation specialist who helped reconstruct Cruz’s life story, worked 5,000 hours on the case: interviewing 150 people, reading through 8,000 pages of school, medical and other records and spending 600 nights away from home. Casey Secor, a lawyer on the team, put in 4,200 hours, many of them spent looking at autopsy photographs and combing through the blood and brain matter preserved at the Parkland school for the jury to see. They and their colleagues encountered understandable hostility from parents and a shattered community, as well as public outrage.

❷ The team won — and then lost.

Against the odds, and in the teeth of anguished opposition from many of the victims’ families, Cruz was given a life sentence. But that outcome led Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state legislature to rewrite Florida's death penalty statute to make it easier for defendants to be sentenced to die. Today, just eight votes are required for a jury to choose execution, the lowest bar of any state in the country.

❸ Drinking during pregnancy can permanently damage the developing baby’s brain, harm that often goes undiagnosed.

Cruz’s birth mother drank alcohol virtually every day of the first eight months of her pregnancy and signed hospital paperwork declaring herself an alcoholic. Yet Cruz was never evaluated for fetal alcohol spectrum disorder until he’d killed 17 people. He was determined by one of the country’s leading experts in fetal alcohol spectrum disorders to have been brain damaged by his birth mother’s drinking. Emerging research shows such children wind up over-represented in the country’s criminal justice, foster care and mental health systems.

❹ Family rage, family loss

At Cruz’s sentencing, several victim family members excoriated the defense team, even calling for their disbarment. However, the father of one of the girls killed by Cruz met with two members of the defense team at his home. They labored together on the father’s ranch, shared meals, and were given a challenge coin created in the teen daughter’s memory.

❺ Death penalty protections could be uncertain under this Supreme Court.

Some in the death penalty defense community worry that the current U.S. Supreme Court might roll back the long-established requirement that a defendant’s life story be considered by any jury considering execution.

For over 50 years, the Supreme Court has issued a series of decisions declaring who can or cannot be executed, and what evidence juries must hear before deciding a defendant’s fate in a death penalty case. All along, some conservative justices have argued the court has gone too far in what juries can hear about a defendant’s life circumstances. Now, with the court’s conservative supermajority and precedents involving abortion and affirmative action being overturned, some in the capital case defense community are concerned death penalty cases might be next.

***

Joe Sexton is an American journalist reporting on this story for the Marshall Project. Previously, he was a senior editor at ProPublica, non-profit investigative news organization, and prior to that he worked for 25 years as a reporter and senior editor at The New York Times.

The Marshall Project is a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system. 

The post 5 things to know about how the Parkland shooter’s life was spared appeared first on Juvenile Justice Information Exchange.

This interactive map highlights each location with pins marking the schools where incidents occurred. Each pin includes: the school’s name, the type of violent incident, and the number of victims involved.

School violence in Georgia over the past 5 years: 2019 through 2024

[Related: Georgia high school shooting shows how hard it is take action even after police see warning signs]

[Related: Is the National Guard a solution to school violence?]

6 tips: What families need to know about how to safely store firearms at home

***

Daniela Vaziri and Grace Salley are reporters for Fresh Take Georgia.

Fresh Take Georgia is a digital news service offering Georgia news from a fresh perspective focusing on Georgia’s state government and other issues of statewide, regional or national interest.

For more from Fresh Take Georgia and the latest updates, follow them on Facebook and Twitter.

The post School violence: Mapping incidents in Georgia appeared first on Juvenile Justice Information Exchange.

More than 1,200 children accused of serious crimes in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, since 2020 were defended by court-appointed lawyers who lacked state-mandated qualifications, The Marshall Project - Cleveland found.

Ohio reimburses counties for private attorneys to represent people who can’t afford them. However, the taxpayer money comes with strings: Attorneys must keep up with legal education and, in some cases, have trial experience.

The qualification requirements, put in place for juvenile cases 15 years ago, are meant to ensure that youth defense lawyers have training in how juvenile law is different and the best ways to communicate with child clients.

“This isn’t just mini-adult court,” said Leah Winsberg, a former senior policy attorney with the Children’s Law Center, a nonprofit that provides legal services to children and advocates for policy reform. “Lawyers don’t just know stuff because they are lawyers. That is why we need ongoing training.”

Ignoring the standards in Cuyahoga County has contributed to distrust in the system, leading community and child advocates to publicly question whether it causes worse outcomes for kids. The state, which is working with court officials to bring them into compliance, could halt reimbursements, though that is rare.

County juvenile court officials contend that the state’s reimbursement system does not guarantee experienced representation, and that the additional requirements — no matter how well-intentioned — have created a disincentive for attorneys to take on demanding youth defense work.

“The current system also expects us to be the police of attorney ‘qualifications,’” Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court Administrator Timothy McDevitt said in an email.

In 2023, nearly 1,800 children were accused of various levels of crimes, sometimes more than once, in more than 2,800 cases, according to court records. When they can’t afford a lawyer, the court picks a county-employed public defender or a private practice attorney to defend them.

Has representation been adequate?

The Marshall Project - Cleveland spoke to more than a dozen young people, now all adults, about their experiences with court-appointed lawyers. Most, like Demarion Harris, who will be 26 when he’s up for parole in 2030, had no idea how the court picked their attorneys or that the attorneys sometimes lacked the required training.

Several described rushed attorneys who didn’t explain key defense options — including how they could fight to keep their cases out of adult court. Others felt that their attorneys barely made court arguments on their behalf.

Harris said his attorney, one of the juvenile court’s most frequently appointed private attorneys, advised him to forgo key hearings in his felonious assault case, which he later pleaded guilty to in adult court.

“I didn’t really understand what was really going on. He told me, ‘You’re getting bound over to the adult court system,’” Harris said. “He didn’t break down all the motions I had to go through. He didn’t tell me none of that.”

[Related: No place for (most) kids]

Parents of the young defendants said they often heard little to nothing from private attorneys, many of whom failed to return messages.

“You feel helpless,” said Tekisha Cunningham, whose son, Jaylan, was transferred to adult court where he pleaded guilty last year to involuntary manslaughter and other charges. “And as a parent, that's the one feeling you don't want to feel.”

Do attorney qualifications affect case outcomes?

What’s not clear is whether, overall, attorneys’ qualifications affect the outcomes for children facing crimes. Unlike adult court, that type of information for juvenile cases isn’t readily available. The juvenile court provided information on more than 450 cases where prosecutors wanted to transfer a child’s case to adult court, a legal process called a bindover. (Read our explainer to learn more about bindovers.)

Courtesy NCJFCJ

Judge Gayl Branum Carr (retired)

Young people with court-appointed private attorneys, regardless of whether they met the qualification requirements, had their cases moved to adult court more often than cases handled by public defenders.

Court-provided defense attorneys need to be as capable as the prosecutors they face, said Gayl Branum Carr, previous president of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ).

“Our justice system is based on a level playing field, so we have a check-and-balance system,” the retired judge from Virginia said. “It's even more important when you're talking about a child who's charged with a delinquent act.”

Juvenile defenders self-certified their qualifications

Until this year, the juvenile court operated on an honor system where attorneys self-certified on applications that they had the required legal education and trial experience. Unlike other large juvenile courts in Ohio, Cuyahoga County didn’t check. The court trusted attorneys to provide an accurate account of their credentials, said McDevitt, the court administrator. Likewise, the state relied on judges and courts to track and verify the attorneys’ qualifications.

This year, after community members and The Marshall Project - Cleveland questioned county court officials about not following state rules, the court asked attorneys to update their qualifications and reapply for case assignments. Dozens did not. In May, the court found about two-thirds of remaining attorneys lacked at least some of the required legal education or jury trial experience.

At a June meeting of Ohio’s Public Defender Commission, which oversees the system, a court official said just four qualified private attorneys remained to defend children in serious bindover cases, such as murders and aggravated robberies.

The Marshall Project - Cleveland report from March found that, for the year ending October 2023, judges or their staff gave two-thirds of court-appointed delinquency assignments to 10 attorneys.

The juvenile court’s reliance on so few attorneys flouted state and local rules that prohibit judges from making or influencing assignments.

Dozens of community members and child advocates at the state’s meeting in June criticized the court’s practice of hand-picking attorneys. They demanded more scrutiny of whether it was a factor in the high number of children from Cuyahoga County who end up on adult court.

For years, Cuyahoga County has sent more children to adult court than the next four most populous counties combined, according to state data, with more than 90% of those children being Black.

“It’s demoralizing for the community to learn, as we have, that the very court judging our children is itself not following the law,” said Ginger Van Wagenen, a retired attorney and a member of Greater Cleveland Congregations, a non-partisan group of more than 30 congregations and organizations.

At the meeting, a court official said she did not know how many children were represented by unqualified attorneys — including on current cases.

Court appointment attorney qualifications

To qualify for a court appointment to represent kids in felony-level cases, attorneys need to log 12 hours of study in criminal law and procedure in the two years before the assignment. At least half of those hours need to be on juvenile delinquency topics.

The Marshall Project - Cleveland reviewed nearly 200 Ohio Supreme Court records that track continuing legal education hours completed by 46 local attorneys and found that:

• Defense counsel fell short on educational qualifications in 79% of felony-level assignments to private lawyers.
• The state reimbursed Cuyahoga County hundreds of thousands of dollars for assignments to attorneys who lacked qualifications. Some of the reimbursement covered work on other cases for the same clients.
• In picking private lawyers, Administrative Judge Thomas O’Malley assigned private attorneys who turned out to lack the training requirements in 87% of felony cases and 96% of bindover cases — shares higher than any other judge.

The findings were shared with more than a dozen of the private attorneys.

State rules vague

Attorneys, for the most part, said they did their best to meet the qualifications, but pointed to a lack of clarity about which courses would count.

The state rules aren’t specific, leaving it to local officials to decide. Several attorneys said they believed that guardian ad litem courses, designed for an attorney who represents the best interests of children in legal matters and whose work differs from defense counsel, should count. (Find more on how we processed and analyzed the data at the end of this story.)

The state public defender’s office asks for a “good faith estimate” by an attorney or court about whether courses relate to juvenile defense, a spokesperson said.

Court officials or attorneys can contact the state for advice on whether a course would qualify.

Attorneys can also ask to be exempt from the training and trial experience requirements if they prove they can provide high-quality, competent representation.

None of the 46 attorneys reviewed by The Marshall Project - Cleveland asked for guidance or requested an exemption in recent years, the spokesperson said.

Four private attorneys — Edward Borkowski, William Beck, Paul Daher and Christopher Lenahan — accounted for nearly half of all felony case assignments to attorneys who lacked qualification for reimbursement, The Marshall Project - Cleveland found.

[Related: For a handful of lawyers in Cuyahoga County, juvenile cases are big business]

From 2020 through early 2022, Borkowski handled 26 bindover cases — more than any other court-appointed private attorney. Eighteen of the cases were transferred to adult court. Juvenile Court judges appointed Borkowski even though he did not provide the court proof of the jury trial experience required under state rules, according to the court’s review. He needed two criminal jury trials to take first- or second-degree felony cases and three for murder cases. Borkowski did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Courtesy Cleveland State University

Ian Friedman. attorney

Attorney Ian Friedman, who represents lawyers Beck, Daher and Lenahan, said each of the attorneys, who have practiced in juvenile court for decades, believed that the classes they took, including courses for guardians ad litem, satisfied the eligibility criteria in place.

“The only story to be told of these attorneys would be one of great skill and understanding in rendering outstanding legal assistance to their clients,” Friedman said. “If there are any concerns about the services afforded, the analysis should be aimed elsewhere because these attorneys have only operated at the highest levels within a Justice system that was in place long before they began practicing.”

There appears to be a recent uptick in the number of attorneys meeting the legal education requirements.

But some, including Beck, Daher and Lenahan, are no longer applying to take the most serious cases, including bindovers for murder or aggravated robbery. Others, like Borkowski, are no longer eligible after the court found that they lacked jury trial experience.

Going forward, juvenile court officials said they won’t rely on attorneys to report their own qualifications. The court created a staff position to monitor qualifications and case assignments, which continue to be made by judges and their staff despite state and local rules that bar judges from steering assignments.

[Related: Breaking walls, building bridges: A call for restorative justice in school discipline]

Judges have also shifted more cases with children accused of crimes to the county public defender’s office, which two years ago raised the issue of whether private attorneys were fully qualified.

Even as the court has increased case assignments to the public defender by more than 40% since 2022, administrator McDevitt accused the state of turning a “blind eye” to the inexperience of some public defenders.

He asked how many would be “unqualified” if held to the same standards as appointed attorneys. “From daily experience, our judges would tell you the answer to that question is: many.”

The state qualifications for attorney training and trial experience apply only to court-appointed defense lawyers.

The state treats public defenders more like county prosecutors and sets comparable standards for salaries and budgets that cover training and hiring experts to help defend clients.

Twenty of Cuyahoga County’s 27 juvenile public defenders have at least five years of experience, said Cullen Sweeney, the county’s chief public defender. New attorneys receive trial court training and start by handling mostly misdemeanor or low-level felony cases. They team up for trials, Sweeney explained. Caseloads are regularly monitored to avoid overextending staff.

Courtesy Cuyahoga County Public Defender's Office

Cullen Sweeney is the chief public defender of the Cuyahoga County Public Defender’s Office. Photo from 2022.

The public defender’s office has in-house social workers and investigators who can help bolster defense arguments. Private court-appointed attorneys can hire experts and, if judges approve, get reimbursed for those expenses. The state public defender has no record of reimbursement for experts, but has asked the court for evidence of whether juvenile judges have granted or denied such requests.

“I get that the [Cuyahoga County Juvenile] Court does not like or apparently agree with the administrative code,” Sweeney said. “We all have rules with which we do not necessarily agree. We can always advocate for a change to the law but none of us have the luxury of simply ignoring it.”

How we analyzed state reimbursement and local court data

The Marshall Project reviewed whether attorneys selected by the Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court to represent children in felony delinquency cases from 2020 through 2023 met state qualifications for case assignment and reimbursement. According to Ohio Administrative Code 120-1-10, reimbursement is contingent on the attorneys meeting minimum qualifications, like taking legal education courses every two years and taking more serious felony cases to trial in the past decade.

We compiled our review of qualifications as a database, then linked it with reimbursement records obtained from the Office of the Ohio Public Defender. These records are known as “fee bills” and represent money the state reimbursed Cuyahoga County for covering the cost of defending people who cannot afford to hire an attorney.

Using the fee bills, The Marshall Project linked more than 1,500 cases involving more than 1,200 children who were represented by at least one of 40 court-appointed private attorneys who did not meet state standards for reimbursement at the time they were appointed to the case.

First, an attorney gets assigned a case and does work on it. Then the attorney submits the bills to the court, where they are reviewed and approved by a judge. The county reviews the calculation for the attorney fee and issues payments if accurate. Monthly, the county sends the bills to the state public defender’s office to get paid out. The state reviews and records information from the batched bills and pays the county accordingly. The reimbursement process can take up to three months or more from the time the attorney finishes the case.

How we determined appointments

To determine the time of appointment, the analysis used filing dates for each case, which were provided by the court. The data provided by the Office of the Ohio Public Defender lists one case number per reimbursement, though the total amount may cover other cases for the same client.

In some instances, multiple attorneys can bill on the same case. We considered only felony-level appointments in which an attorney billed as defense counsel. Our published results considered the qualifications of any attorneys assigned to a case. In our analysis, we looked at other variations, like whether all attorneys who billed for a case were unqualified. The findings did not differ significantly and capture all children who were defended by an unqualified attorney.

How we determined qualifications

To look at whether attorneys met the state reimbursement requirements, we reviewed Ohio Supreme Court transcripts that track continuing legal education courses and training classes that attorneys take. We looked at transcripts for 46 attorneys who were assigned by the court to represent children accused in serious delinquency cases — cases that would be felonies if they were adults.

The Ohio Supreme Court tallies continuing legal education in two-year increments. We reviewed the courses attorneys took in each two-year period prior to the filing dates for cases the court assigned them.

Ohio sets criteria that these attorneys must meet in order for the county to be reimbursed with taxpayer money for the representation. Every two years, the attorneys must complete 12 course hours in criminal law practice and procedure with at least six hours focused on juvenile delinquency practice and procedure.

The state doesn’t list specific courses that meet those standards, leaving the decision on what counts to county and court officials.

Since Cuyahoga County didn’t previously check on qualifications and didn’t have a system for doing so, we consulted with other Ohio counties, including Franklin and Hamilton, which do. We also asked the Ohio Public Defender’s office for general guidance on the types of credits that should count and reviewed a similar analysis by The Wren Collective, published in December 2023. Based on those discussions we:

• Did not count credits geared toward acting as a guardian ad litem (someone who represents a child’s interests) because it is not related to providing defense in a criminal case.
• Counted all courses that mentioned the term “juvenile.”
• Counted general courses around topics such as children with psychiatric, mental health or substance abuse disorders that were not specifically focused on guardian ad litem work.

***

Doug Livingston is a staff writer for The Marshall Project - Cleveland. Previously,  for 12 years he was a reporter with the Akron Beacon Journal. As a beat and investigations reporter, he’s covered everything from city government, education and politics to criminal justice and policing. His reporting, consistently supported with data and community engagement, has covered systemic issues of insecure housing and rising evictions, lax state laws for charter schools, poverty, gun violence, police accountability, homelessness and more. Livingston has earned multiple awards, including Best Ohio Staff Reporter, from the Press Club of Cleveland, The Associated Press, Education Writers Association and others.

Rachel Dissell is a Cleveland-based journalist with more than two decades of experience reporting on the justice system. She is a two-time winner of the Dart Award for Excellence in Coverage of Trauma.

This article was first published by The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system. Sign up for their newsletters, and follow them on Instagram, TikTok, Reddit and Facebook.

The post Not ‘Mini-Adult Court’: Lawyers lacking qualifications defended 1,200 Cuyahoga County kids appeared first on Juvenile Justice Information Exchange.

On Tuesday, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine announced that the state will try to shut down its three large youth correctional facilities in favor of building smaller and less centralized units. DeWine cited findings that young people “do not respond well to adult-style incarceration,” Crain’s Cleveland Business reported.

The decision came at the urging of a working group assembled by the governor that also recommended the state stop incarcerating teenagers convicted for the first time of non-violent crimes and children under 14 in state youth prisons.

The working group was assembled after a months-long investigation into Ohio’s juvenile justice system by several local newspapers. The investigation found that youths in the system were routinely victims of violence and neglect, and that employees of the facilities faced chronic understaffing and threats to their safety.

Instead of receiving rehabilitation and support, many of these young people left the system with trauma that exacerbated behavioral issues.

Teens who enter the system have a 40% likelihood of winding up back in custody and face a disproportionate chance of dying an early, violent death.

As Ohio considers closing youth detention facilities, recent efforts in other states have hit roadblocks.

Los Angeles County may serve as a cautionary tale for Ohio. Four years ago, the county’s own juvenile justice working group made similar proposals in a plan called “Youth Justice Reimagined.” Like in Ohio, one of the centerpieces of the reform was to decentralize the county’s juvenile halls and replace them with “smaller, more homelike ‘safe and secure healing centers,’” according to the Pasadena Star-News.

Then last year the county reopened the previously shuttered Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall, reasoning that consolidating youths into the facility would let the county system operate more efficiently. Officials are still trying to lower the number of young people at the hall, but violence and drugs have proliferated, youths report feeling unsafe and the threat of another shutdown looms constantly.

Understaffing is one of the most pervasive issues in juvenile justice across the nation, and officials in charge of some systems — like Los Padrinos — have been pulling public servants from other jobs and departments to fill the gaps.

[Related: National report highlights severe cost of inadequate juvenile justice system]

At Los Padrinos, even after 100 field officers from the county’s adult probation program were ordered to work shifts at the hall, staffing levels were still routinely below the legal minimum in July. The low staffing levels are largely related to employees calling out of shifts at a rate that officials have called “extraordinary.”

It’s a vicious cycle. Staff miss work due to “low morale, increased violence and worries about excessively long shifts,” Probation Oversight Commissioner Sean Garcia-Leys told the Pasadena Star-News’ Jason Henry. The lack of sufficient staff then exacerbates those poor working conditions.

In Washington state, Gov. Jay Inslee recently ordered 20 adult corrections employees to work shifts at one juvenile detention center, under an emergency protocol.

The mother of an incarcerated child expressed mixed feelings about the move. She was hopeful that the new staff might bring skills to help the facility operate. But, she asked the Washington State Standard, “They’re used to dealing with adults. This is supposed to be a different form of incarceration. So are they equipped to be dealing with youth?”

In Wisconsin, juvenile justice workers are seeking access to tools used in the adult criminal justice system to manage behavior after a youth counselor was killed in an alleged assault by a 16-year-old earlier this summer. In interviews with a court-appointed monitor, staff claimed “there was no way to hold the youth responsible for their behavior without pepper spray, solitary confinement and mechanical restraints,” according to reporting from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Those practices were all banned under a 2018 settlement after young people in state facilities alleged a pattern of brutality and neglect. The state’s Democratic governor and Republican members of the legislature have been at odds over whether to walk back some of the restrictions in the settlement. But late last month, a judge ruled that they would remain in place.

[Related: As more youth struggle with behavior and traditional supports fall short, clinicians are partnering with lawyers to help]

Meanwhile, a new restriction on the use of solitary confinement was adopted at the Manson Youth Institution in Connecticut after an inquiry launched by the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division.

“We know that isolation can cause real harm to children — increasing risk of depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicide — because their brains are still developing and they lack adequate coping mechanisms,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke in a Justice Department statement announcing the agreement.

Clarke’s civil rights division has also opened an investigation into Kentucky's juvenile justice system. That move followed a state auditor report earlier this year, and the findings included the mistreatment of children, high rates of pepper spray use and the punitive use of solitary confinement.

That investigation looms as the state prepares to reopen a detention center in Louisville, the state’s largest city. The detention center has been closed since 2019 amid a budgetary battle between the city and state, which ultimately led to a plan to refurbish the facility.

Juanisha Saunders, whose son spent time in Kentucky’s juvenile justice system, expressed cautious optimism to the Louisville Courier-Journal. She said a well-run center could help some young people change their lives. But, she cautioned against cosmetic changes that don't address core issues. “You can slap a coat of paint on it,” she told the paper, “but if you don't change the inside, it's still going to become the same.”

***

Jamiles Lartey is a New Orleans-based staff writer for The Marshall Project. Previously, he worked as a reporter for the Guardian covering issues of criminal justice, race and policing.

This article was first published by The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system. Sign up for their newsletters, and follow them on Instagram, TikTok, Reddit and Facebook.

The Marshall Project’s Closing Argument newsletter is a weekly deep dive into a key criminal justice issue. Want this delivered to your inbox? Subscribe to future newsletters.

The post The seemingly endless cycle of reforms in juvenile justice appeared first on Juvenile Justice Information Exchange.

Just months after an unprecedented parental conviction in Michigan, Georgia prosecutors allege a father’s actions led to a mass school shooting.

Colin Gray never pulled a trigger at Apalachee High School — where a mass shooting this week left two 14-year-old students and two math teachers dead — but he could still spend the rest of his life behind bars for murder.

The 54-year-old father appeared in a Georgia courtroom Friday morning on second-degree murder charges that stem from allegations his 14-year-old son carried out the attack and later told investigators, “I did it.”

The father, prosecutors allege, was the gun supplier. Gray bought his son an AR 15-style rifle as a holiday gift in December 2023 “with knowledge he was a threat to himself and others,” according to an arrest affidavit obtained by CNN. Then, the boy used that same gun, police allege, to kill his classmates and two teachers, and injure nine others. Like those before it, the shooting left a much wider swath of trauma that District Attorney Brad Smith referred to Friday.

“You don’t have to have been physically injured in this to be a victim,” Smith said outside the Barrow County courthouse, “Everyone in this community is a victim. Every child in that school was a victim.”

[Related: A history of holding parents responsible for their kids’ crimes]

The charges fall in line with a law enforcement strategy that’s emerged in the last year to thwart a record number of mass school shootings, which federal data show are most often carried out by aggrieved students with guns obtained — either as a gift or without permission — from close family members.

Prosecutors have turned their focus to the killers’ parents.

Just months ago, in early April, Michigan parents Jennifer and James Crumbley were each given decade-long prison sentences in first-of-their-kind convictions: They were held directly accountable for a school shooting that was carried out by their 15-year-old son in 2021 that killed four students.

In both cases, according to prosecutors,

Parents gave gifts to their kids that were later used to commit mass murder despite knowing that their children were on the brink of acting violently.

Still, legal experts said the Crumbley prosecution — which Georgia officials have set the groundwork to replicate — reverses a bedrock legal principle that people cannot be held liable for the actions of others.

“Look, I thought this case could go either way and still when the result came out I was a bit stunned because it’s such a deep legal principle,” Ekow Yankah, a University of Michigan law professor, told The 74 in February after Jennifer Crumbley’s landmark conviction.

“Maybe this kind of case will have an effect,” he said.

“Maybe parents will be more attentive.”

In Michigan, the shooter — who was sentenced to life in prison without parole after pleading guilty — was gifted a 9-millimeter pistol for Christmas that he later celebrated online as “my new beauty.”

Georgia shooting timeline

In Georgia, the timeline that Gray allegedly gave to prosecutors puts his gift weapon purchase just months after investigators questioned the father and son about reported online threats of a school shooting.

Last year, the Federal Bureau of Investigation received reports that Gray's son, then a 13-year-old, posted a threat on the social media site Discord.

He threatened to “shoot up a middle school.”

Local police investigated the tip but failed to link the Discord comments to the teen, even though the account traced back to the boy’s email address. The boy denied making the threats and claimed he deleted the account because it kept getting hacked. Written in Russian, the profile name on the account translated to the last name of the shooter behind the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.

The New York Times reported this week that police searching the teen’s room found evidence of his interest in previous mass school shootings, particularly the 2018 killings in Parkland, Florida.

Meanwhile, Colin Gray acknowledged to police he had hunting rifles at home but that his son did not have “unfettered” access to them.

Charges filed against Gray and 14-year-old son

Charges filed against Gray include four counts of involuntary manslaughter, eight counts of cruelty to children — and two counts of murder in the second degree.

His son, whose age makes him ineligible for the death penalty, will be tried as an adult, prosecutors said, and faces life in prison on four counts of murder. Lawyers for the father and son did not seek bail and the two remained in custody Friday.

[Related: The parents paying for their children’s crimes]

Though the Crumbley case in Michigan presented a novel conviction, it wasn’t the first time a parent has been held legally responsible for crimes committed by their children —including in helping their child secure a firearm later used in a mass shooting. Last year, an Illinois father pleaded guilty to misdemeanor reckless conduct on charges stemming from a shooting that his son carried out in 2022 at an Independence Day parade in suburban Chicago. That case centered on how his son, who was 19 at the time, obtained a gun license.

In Texas, meanwhile, survivors of the 2018 shooting at Santa Fe High School failed last month to hold the gunman’s parents accountable for the carnage. In a civil case filed by survivors and victim’s family members, a jury found Antonios Pagourtzis and Rose Marie Kosmetatos were not liable of negligence after being accused of failing to secure their guns at home and ignoring violent warning signs before their 17-year-old son opened fire at his high school and killed eight students and two teachers.

Are recent state firearm measures part of the solution?

Outside of courtrooms, other firearm measures passed at the state level in recent years have sought to tackle parents’ role in mass casualty events carried out by their offspring. More than half of states now have laws requiring gun owners to keep their weapons locked up or that penalize them if a child gains access.

According to an Everytown for Gun Safety tally,

Georgia lacks both secure storage and child-access laws.

A new state law, however, seeks to incentivize parental responsibility.

Effective July 1, the new law extends a tax break to gun owners who purchase firearm safety devices like gun safes and trigger locks. A similar incentive was rolled out in Virginia in 2023, providing a tax break of up to $300. In its first year, nearly 2,000 people accepted the deal.

6 tips: What families need to know about how to safely store firearms at home

***

Mark Keierleber is a New York-based, award-winning, investigative journalist at The 74.  With expertise in research, data analysis and narrative writing he covers education, juvenile justice, criminal justice, civil rights, immigration, surveillance, security and technology.

This story first appeared at The 74, a nonprofit news site covering education. Sign up for free newsletters from The 74 to get more like this in your inbox.

The post A gunman kills at school and prosecutors again focus on the suspect’s parent appeared first on Juvenile Justice Information Exchange.