Tagged With "Juvenile Justice"

December 22, 2020 The significance of Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal’s directive to further reform the juvenile justice system is worth highlighting. Advocates for Children of New Jersey (ACNJ) views this directive, which takes effect January 11, 2021, as another step towards building a juvenile justice system that gives youth the support they need as well as addresses racial equity. A key function of the juvenile justice system is to rehabilitate youth, rather than act punitively, and...

New Jersey plans to spend a staggering $445,504 per incarcerated youth in 2022 to house them in facilities that are almost 80% empty. The time is now for New Jersey to close its youth prisons and invest in community-based alternatives. The current system, with its focus wholly on punishment rather than rehabilitation, the current system leaves whole communities — as well as the families of both victims and offenders — with unresolved trauma that continues to reverberate long after the...

New Jersey is launching a pilot program to help young people transition back into their communities after being incarcerated; the pilot program also will be aimed at preventing their involvement with the criminal justice system in the first place. Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver signed the legislation for the program Wednesday. https://www.njspotlight.com/

Juveniles as young as 15 can be tried as adults in New Jersey, where they face a mandatory minimum sentence of 30 years in prison if convicted. EMILEE LARKIN / October 26, 2021 TRENTON (CN) — The New Jersey Supreme Court pushed prosecutors on Tuesday to defend the constitutionality of a mandate that sends juveniles convicted of felony murder to prison for 30 years. Fighting the scheme is James Comer who was 17 years old in 2000 when one of his accomplices to four armed robberies shot and...