On May 15th, states were required to certify compliance, or provide assurances that it would eventually come into compliance, with the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA). This week, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ), only two states have certified full compliance with PREA: New Hampshire and New Jersey. Forty-six states provided assurances that they will continue to work on full implementation and seven state Governors completely rebuked the federal statute and stated they would absolutely NOT comply. These states include: Arizona, Idaho, Indiana, Nebraska, Texas, Utah, and Florida.

In 2012, youth in the District of Columbia spent more than 10,000 days - the equivalent of 27 years - in adult jail under a statute that enables federal prosecutors to send DC youth accused of certain crimes to adult court without judicial review, according to a new report released today by DC Lawyers for Youth and the Campaign for Youth Justice. The report cites the inadequate facilities, high risk of victimization, use of solitary confinement, long-term consequences of adult felony convictions, and failure to deter future crime as reasons to reform DC's approach to the prosecution of youth as adults by promoting the rehabilitation of young offenders and improving public safety.

As we wrap up our PREA "There's No Excuse"  Week of Action, we wanted to highlight efforts across the country and give everyone one more chance to support PREA implementation this week.

Today, Governors across the country will certify whether the state is in compliance with the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) and make assurances to the Department of Justice that the state will use federal resources to come into compliance with PREA.
YOUR SUPPORT AND YOUR VOICE MATTERS

Prisons and jails across the United States house youth under 18 with adults every single day. The most recent data from the Department of Justice, Bureau of Statistics reports that nearly 4500 youth are held in jails and nearly 2000 in prisons on any given day. According to the new data, Florida houses over 200 youth each day in adult prison, Louisiana and New York, 178 and 182 respectively, Connecticut 143, North Carolina 115, and Michigan and Texas, 106 and 104. Georgia houses nearly 100.

This week on, May 15th marks the certification date for the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA), and the CFYJ has been pushing for transparency and compliance with the Youthful Inmate Standard (YIS). The YIS was created to protect youth in adult jails, prisons, and lock ups and we are anxious to see how states will comply with this standard. With your help, it will become clearer to all of us what states are doing and how they plan to safely and humanely detain youth in adult jails/prisons. Our hope is that they realize that the safest and smartest plan is to simply remove youth completely.

Yesterday, continuing the move towards improving Missouri's justice system for ALL youth, Missouri's House of Representatives adopted SCR29, a resolution establishing a "Juvenile Justice Task Force" that will make recommendations to the General Assembly by 2015 on:

According to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s latest bulletin, U.S. courts with juvenile jurisdiction handled nearly 1.4 million delinquency cases in 2010. “Delinquency Cases Waived to Criminal Court, 2010” shows that more than half (54%) of these cases were handled formally (i.e., a petition was filed requesting an adjudication or waiver hearing) and of the petitioned delinquency caseload, about 1% resulted in judicial waiver to adult criminal court. The number of delinquency cases judicially waived peaked in 1994 at 13,300 cases, more than double the number of cases waived in 1985. In 2010, juvenile courts waived an estimated 6,000 delinquency cases, 55% fewer cases than in 1994.

By Anna Wong
W. Haywood Burns Institute

This week’s blog, How the JJDPA Helps to Improve Outcomes for Youth of Color, is from Anna Wong at the W. Haywood Burns Institute and talks about how we can reduce racial and ethnic disparities in the juvenile justice system and the important role the JJDPA plays in this work.