As the coronavirus pandemic took hold in the U.S. last month, the number of young people in local secure detention centers fell by 24%, according to a new survey by The Annie E. Casey Foundation. Some juvenile justice experts would like to see the reduced rates become permanent.
Meme Styles watched her three brothers cycle through the criminal justice system starting at a young age. “Since we were teenagers, since we were kids, as a matter of fact,” she said. “In many cases, these are youth that maybe just need that support of their community, or if their father is not there, a mentor to step in and say, ‘I do care.’“
A teenager at Harris County’s juvenile detention center has tested positive for COVID-19 and is being treated on site, officials said Thursday. The child is under the age of 16 and has been detained at the facility since late 2019, said Kendall Mayfield, a spokesperson for the downtown center.
Zero-tolerance policies can set up a pathway that leads a child’s future to be defined by their misbehavior, no matter the other situations happening in the child’s life. If you break the student codes, if you are struggling, if you have an emotional blow-up while at school, if you mess up, does that mean you don’t matter?
Yesterday, the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition (TCJC) released a new report sharing the future policy priorities of the Texas Women’s Justice Coalition. The report, called “The Future of Dignity: Insights from the Texas Women’s Dignity Retreat,” is the result of a wide-ranging policy discussion led by many of the women who pushed for eight new women’s justice bills to become law during the 2019 Texas legislative session.
Zero tolerance disciplinary policies in some of our public schools are creating a school-to-prison pipeline. It needs to be shut off. The disturbing findings of a recently released report from the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition show how harsh disciplinary policies that offer little or no flexibility disproportionately affect students of color and those with disabilities.
On Feb. 6, two armed police officers in Florida walked a 6-year-old girl out of school and into the back seat of a cruiser. They’d been called to take her to a mental institution after she allegedly threw chairs in her elementary school classroom. Body camera footage later published by a local news station shows the girl calmly walking to the car. Police can be heard discussing how school officials must have overreacted.
Texas’ most vulnerable students are unequally punished for disruptive, unruly behavior. Punitive disciplinary policies often lead to pushing students with disabilities and students of color out of the classroom, limiting their ability to succeed academically.
San Antonio Independent School District students converged on Monday night’s school board meeting to demand changes to the district's Student Bill of Rights — among them, that police step back from campus discipline.
The district adopted a Student Bill of Rights late last year that says students should be informed about disciplinary practices and that such practices be applied consistently.
A group of high school activists in the San Antonio Independent School District converged on Monday night’s school board meeting to ask for less police involvement in school discipline and other amendments to the district’s student code of conduct and Student Bill of Rights. “Students have felt like they’re in a prison when really they’re in a school,” said Bella Garcia, 18, a senior at the Young Women’s Leadership Academy, at a press conference before the meeting.
