#juvenile-justice

#juvenile-justice

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

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

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

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

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

"It's just insane that they're in custody and these are the things that are happening," Diana Gutierrez, David's aunt, said Thursday.

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

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

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

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

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