NACDL fully supports the concept that juveniles are different than adults and should be treated as such. NACDL encourages legislators to promote polices that evaluate juvenile family history and brain development prior to developing legislation that could in effect have profound implications on a juvenile's future.

Brief of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Mississippi Office of the State Public Defender, and Mississippi Public Defenders Association In Support of Petitioner.

Presented by Alisa Rachelle Blair, Deputy Public Defender, Los Angeles County Public Defender

Race Matters II: The Impact of Race on Criminal Justice
January 10-11, 2019 | Los Angeles, CA

A coalition of national and local advocacy groups issued a call to state and local officials to stop rendering juvenile system fines and fee for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic, when many families are already experiencing economic hardship, in addition to other suggested policy and legislative actions to reduce harm.

Presented by: Marsha Levick, Co-Founder, Deputy Director, Chief Counsel, Juvenile Law Center; and Dr. Jennifer Woolard, Associate Professor of Psychology, Georgetown University and Research Fellow, Center for Social Justice

Reports and other resources related to juvenile justice.

This month Tony Bornstein reviews The Master Plan: My Journey from Life in Prison to a Life of Purpose by Chris Wilson with Bret Witter.

People exiting the custody of the criminal justice system encounter substantial challenges in gaining employment, finding housing, and accessing medical and mental health care. This article explores areas in need of attention and reform so that young people who have been adjudicated delinquent or convicted of a crime are not punished subsequently by other systems they encounter.

The United States has over 2,500 youth offenders serving life in prison without the possibility of parole. The rest of the world has zero.

Last summer, NACDL members completed a survey on the impact of allegations of gang affiliation on bail decisions and pretrial detention. The survey was inspired by a case in which a 16-year-old — considered an adult in the New York criminal justice system — was jailed on a first-arrest misdemeanor charge when a prosecutor requested high bail at arraignment, alleging that the youth was in the gang database.

During the next 18 months, the work of NACDL’s Juvenile Justice Committee will focus on the landmark decision in Graham v. Florida, in which the U.S. Supreme Court held that adolescents who commit non-homicide offenses cannot receive life without the possibility of parole (LWOP), and must be given a meaningful opportunity for release.

Of the 2,500 people in the United States who have been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for crimes committed before they were 18, two-thirds of them are concentrated in just five states — Pennsylvania, Michigan, Louisiana, California, and Florida. There are thousands more children across the country sentenced to “virtual life” sentences of 60, 70, 80, or 100 or more years.

First enacted in 1974, the federal Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA) embodies the federal government’s best efforts to improve juvenile justice systems at the state and local levels.

This month Tony Bornstein reviews A Stone of Hope by Jim St. Germain with Jon Sternfeld.