courts

Report describes the issue of confusing language used in court proceedings, and how juveniles often have issues understanding the implications of adjudication.

All children and youth have a human right to quality public education in safe and supportive learning environments. Such an education provides a foundation for access to higher education, meaningful employment and full participation in society. Although a ...

Excerpt from website This second Webinar in the joint U.S. Departments of Education, Justice, and Health and Human Services Supportive School Discipline (SSD) Webinar Series provides the knowledge that school, district, residential facility, and cour ...

This second Webinar in the joint U.S. Departments of Education, Justice, and Health and Human Services Supportive School Discipline (SSD) Webinar Series provides the knowledge that school, district, residential facility, and court staff, law enforcement, ...

Screening and assessment of traumatic stress and its psychosocial after-effects play an important role in a trauma-informed juvenile justice system. Trauma exposure and its negative consequences are highly prevalent among justice-involved youth. For examp ...

Every day, hundreds of thousands of youth cycle in and out of state and local juvenile justice systems throughout the county. They are seen in probation offices, juvenile detention centers, juvenile courts, and correctional facilities every day. Many of t ...

The Council of State Governments (CSG) released a groundbreaking report, Breaking Schools’ Rules, in 2011, which documented the negative impacts that suspension or expulsion from Texas public schools have on students. The CSG report revealed a large “huma ...

There has been a growing interest in placing sworn law enforcement officers in schools as School Resource Officers (SROs) as a means of improving school safety and improving relations between police officers and youth. However, when this project began in ...

Juvenile courts nationwide handle cases referred by schools for truancy or behavioral incidents. Since 2012, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ) have trained jurisdictions on strategies and policies to reduce the number of re ...

The term complex trauma describes the dual problem of children’s exposure to traumatic events and the impact of this exposure on immediate and long-term outcomes. Complex traumatic exposure refers to children’s experiences of multiple traumatic events th ...

A memorandum of understanding (MOU) is a critical document in establishing coordinated efforts in a school-justice partnership. An MOU is a multilateral agreement among multiple parties intended to express a common vision and line of action. MOUs in schoo ...

The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges joined by the Honorable Steven Teske, Chief Judge, Clayton County, Georgia, introduces and discussed the steps to develop a MOU during this interactive online training. A memorandum of understand ...

This report examines how the involvement of the criminal justice system in school discipline policies and practices causes deprivations of human rights for children in four key areas: the right to be free from discrimination, the right to education, the r ...

Fueled by increasingly punitive approaches to student behavior such as “zero tolerance policies,” the past 20 years have seen an expansion in the presence of law enforcement, including school resource officers (SROs), in schools. According to the U.S. Dep ...

In 2005-2006, juvenile justice professionals in Pennsylvania’s 67 counties were assessed to determine their current aftercare practices. As a result of this assessment, this Toolkit was written in 2006 to address one of their main areas of concern: helpin ...

Therapeutic treatment of the psychosocial after-effects of childhood exposure to traumatic stressors is a key component in the development of trauma-informed juvenile justice systems (Kerig, 2012). More than 80% of juvenile justice-involved youth report a ...

Children depend on their families for support and reassurance. This is especially true following a traumatic event when a child’s belief in the safety and predictability of the world has been undermined. But trauma does not affect the child alone.The effe ...

In the nine years since Congress reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) as the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), startling growth has occurred in what is often described as the “School-to-Prison Pipeline”1 – the use of educational p ...

The National Center for Mental Health and Juvenile Justice (NCMHJJ) and the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ) for the four-part webinar series. The series will explore the fundamental components of developing effective school-b ...

Your student is about to start the most important year of high school - perhaps the most important year of school so far. This is the year that will set the stage for whether they will graduate and whether they will be ready for college.

A majority of children involved in the juvenile justice system have a history of trauma. Children and adolescents who come into the court system frequently have experienced not only chronic abuse and neglect, but also exposure to substance abuse, domesti ...

In the wake of the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, communities, advocates, and policymakers across the country are proposing and already implementing different ways to address gun violence in our society—such as passing new gun control me ...

The number of students issued suspensions in U.S. schools continues to be extremely high, resulting in thousands of students missing school every day. Simultaneously, disparities in school suspension continue to worsen, indicating that students in some gr ...

The first webinar in this series of four provides an overview of two school-based diversion initiatives that emerged from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Models for Change Mental Health/Juvenile Justice Action Network, and that have be ...

Child trauma is endemic in the juvenile justice system. At least 75% of youth involved in the juvenile delinquency system have experienced traumatic victimization, and 1111–50% have developed posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Many of these young peopl ...

Article explains the importance of developmentally appropriate language for youth attending court.

Large numbers of youth involved with the juvenile justice system have significant mental health and substance abuse issues. Many of these youth could be better served in community settings, and juvenile court judges can lead or support community efforts ...

The zero tolerance policies that were adopted by many local and state education agencies in the 1990s had the unintended effect of unnecessarily introducing low-risk youth to the juvenile justice system for disruptive behaviors that are very typical of ad ...

As the education of our children – our nation’s future – and the school-justice connection has increasingly captured public attention, the sunshine of increased graduation rates has brought into sharp focus the shadow of the so-called school-to-prison pip ...

Excerpt: The “school-to-prison pipeline,” a term that has garnered a great deal of attention in recent years, describes the direct link between exclusionary school discipline practices and students’ subsequent involvement in the juvenile justice syste ...

Excerpt from website As a result of the growing body of evidence demonstrating the alarming relationship between widespread school suspensions and expulsions and involvement in the justice system, today’s schools, courts, and communities require new ...

Cyberbullying is bullying through technology, such as computers and cell phones. Law enforcement officers are increasingly confronted with cyberbullying complaints due to the prevalence of technology used by children and youth, and new legislation and law ...

Criminalizing kids for minor misbehavior in our schools unnecessarily exposes them to our justice system and increases the likelihood they will drop out of school and face later incarceration. Involvement of all stakeholders, including judicial leaders, i ...

Many schools across the United States have enacted zero tolerance philosophy in response to perceived increases in violence and drugs in schools. It is believed that aggressive and unwavering punishment of many school infractions, including relatively min ...

The NCJFCJ has published this guide as part of a larger project addressing school discipline referrals to the juvenile justice system. The project aims to reduce the number of referrals to the juvenile justice system for school based behaviors through the ...

The NCJFCJ has published a Technical Assistance Bulletin on the School Pathways to the Juvenile Justice System: A Context for a Practice Guide for Courts and Schools as part of a larger project addressing school discipline referrals to the juvenile justic ...

For students and educators to achieve their full potential, safe schools are fundamental. Students who report feeling safe in school are more engaged in class, have higher academic achievement, and have lower rates of absenteeism, truancy, and behavioral ...

Youth courts, also called teen courts or student courts, handle cases involving young people referred by schools, parents, law enforcement, and other criminal justice agencies. Schools are increasingly adopting youth courts to use in place of detention a ...

Farmington, CT – Four Connecticut schools were selected as partners in the Connecticut School-Based Diversion Initiative (SBDI) for the 2013-2014 school year. SBDI is an interagency state and local partnership supported by the Connecticut Judicial Branch, ...

In 2008, the new Mental Health/Juvenile Justice Action Network selected “early diversion” as its first area of focus. Its goal was to create opportunities for youth with mental health needs to be diverted as early as possible from involvement with the juv ...

Youth who become involved with the juvenile courts have many common background risks. These risks are related to the individual (e.g., early aggression, mental health problems, substance use, trauma, education deficits, special education disabilities), fa ...

This Field Guide is written for Assistant Attorneys General, Child Protective Service Specialists (case managers), County Attorneys, Court Appointed Special Advocates, Behavioral Health Treatment Providers, Juvenile Probation and Parole Officers, and Scho ...

In the early 1990s, many schools adopted zero tolerance policies, which mandate the use of specific disciplinary consequences—often severe and punitive—in an effort to increase school safety. Originally designed to reduce weapon-carrying in schools, these ...

The juvenile justice system in America is a paradox when it comes to promoting the welfare of our nation’s young people. We have come a long way from old English common law which treated children as adults under the "vicious will” doctrine,1 to creating j ...

Ironically, zero tolerance policies once promoted as a solution to youth violence have created a school to prison pipeline. Widespread discipline practices of suspension, expulsion, and arrest for school behavior problems are turning kids in conflict int ...

Article asserts that there are ethical and logistical questions unique to the juvenile justice process that would pose difficulties in conveying this information to juveniles.

Please join the International Association of Chiefs of Police, in partnership with the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges and supported by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention's School Justice Collaboration Program i ...

This toolkit provides a step-by-step guide for implementing some of the core principles and activities of the full SBDI initiative. A simple-to-use checklist is included to guide you through implementation of key SBDI elements. There are self-assessment q ...

RESEARCH AND DATA ON SCHOOL DISCIPLINE practices are clear: millions of students are being removed from their classrooms each year, mostly in middle and high schools, and overwhelmingly for minor misconduct. When suspended, these students are at a signif ...

The Portal offers law enforcement, criminal justice, and school personnel an opportunity to gain critical knowledge and training on issues impacting youth in their community such as: school safety, safeguarding children of arrested parents, and child sex ...

Excerpt from website This Webinar provides the knowledge that school, district, and court staff, law enforcement and legal personnel, youth, families, and other community stakeholders need to better understand how the use of youth courts in schools c ...

Excerpt from website This Webinar provides the knowledge that school, district, and court staff, law enforcement and legal personnel, youth, families, and other community stakeholders need to better understand how the use of youth courts in schools ...

Throughout the United States violent crime has seen a marked reduction—reports of violent crime have decreased from 1.4 million in 2007 to 1.2 million in 2011. In the past few years, a growing awareness in high percentage rates of the detention of mentall ...