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Four Texas civil rights and youth-justice reform groups called Thursday for the state to close all of its remaining juvenile-justice lockups and replacing them with community-based treatment and rehabilitation centers.
Texas lawmakers have a difficult decision to make. Should the state shutter its five remaining youth lockups and admit we're just not capable of finding the money, the staff or even the fundamental competence to keep juvenile offenders safe in large facilities?
What is the best way to deal with juvenile crime? A summit meeting at the state capitol is trying to come up with that answer.
Juvenile justice advocates say operational and behavioral problems at Texas lockups for youth have persisted under the state's control for more than a decade.
Desmond Hawkins, who turned 18 on Nov. 8, is accused of shooting and killing Reginald Sherman on Oct. 11, 2016, in what police have said was a robbery attempt.
Youths at the Gainesville State School say staff paid them with drugs and cash to assault one another.
Another one of the 'get tough on crime' measures dating from the blood soaked 1990s is being questioned in Texas, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
Seventeen-year-olds are automatically prosecuted as adults in the Texas criminal justice system. A new data analysis from a broad coalition of groups working to raise the age of criminal responsibility in Texas from 17 to 18 finds that 17-year-olds are arrested at a rate and for non-violent, low-level offenses that closely resemble those of 16-year-olds rather than older youth or adults.
The Lone Star state notched up some bad marks in a newly released analysis of pretrial justice across the country.
Do 17-year-old offenders belong in adult prison? Would there be benefits to raising the age of responsibility to 18 instead?
Read the rest of this blog post at the Goolsby Law Firm's blog.
