By Ethan Smith, MA, Mentoring Specialist at Save Our Youth.

The Executive Director of Save Our Youth often says kids are a product of who they are connected to and who they are disconnected from. What a sobering thought, especially as we see increasing numbers of kids with few, shallow, or antagonistic relationships with their communities, schools, and even families. Instead, digital media and smart technology have introduced a world of supposedly unlimited connections, and kids today eagerly substitute online “socialization” for real relationships at unprecedented rates. This trend applies equally to the kids we serve around Denver, who are already considered at-risk because of the struggles their families, neighborhoods, and schools face.

By Brian Evans, CFYJ State Campaign Director

Last year was a pretty good one, at least for reforms and restrictions on the practice of transferring youth to the adult criminal justice system. Two states (Louisiana and South Carolina) Raised the Age of adult criminal court jurisdiction to 18, and two other states (California and Vermont) took away the power of prosecutors to “Direct File” children into the adult system. In addition, Washington DC and Arizona passed laws to keep kids out of adult jails, and Indiana enacted a law that will allow some youth charged as adults to return to the juvenile justice system.

By Marcy Mistrett, CEO

On the eve of the inauguration of the 45th President of the United States, I have done a lot of reflection on the need for a peaceful transition of power as one of the core tenants of our democracy.  It’s a moment for our incoming leader to set the roadmap for the country over the next four years.  It is a day filled with deep tradition and symbolism. 

By Marcy Mistrett, CEO

The week of January 15, 2017 is one book-ended by two events of national importance that, juxtaposed, provide us an opportunity to re-evaluate and recommit to our values and beliefs as a country and to our children. Monday, we celebrated Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday – a day marked with our country’s values of hope, inclusion, justice and freedom. By Friday, we welcome in President-Elect Trump, who won his election based on values of fear, bigotry, and exclusion. Yet, what state campaigns that fight for the removal of youth from the adult court can verify, is that in providing a clear roadmap toward justice, we can overcome fear, bridge this paradox and become stronger together.

By Jeree Thomas, CFYJ Policy Director

Right before the holidays, on December 22, 2016, the Ohio Supreme Court decided State v. Aalim and wrote an opinion that is a gift of true due process for Ohio’s youth at risk of mandatory transfer to the adult criminal justice system. 

In State v. Aalim, the Ohio Supreme Court held that the state’s mandatory transfer statute which requires the transfer of youth to the adult system when they are a certain age and have committed a certain offense “violates juveniles’ right to due process as guaranteed by Article I, Section 16 of the Ohio Constitution.”  Aalim argued and the Court agreed that due process requires that every youth receive an opportunity to demonstrate capacity to change, that youth is a mitigating, not aggravating factor, that the mandatory statute’s irrefutable presumption to transfer is fundamentally unfair, and that youth have a right to have their individual characteristics considered at every stage in a proceeding, not just sentencing.  As a result, the mandatory transfer statute does not provide due process, and is therefore unconstitutional. 

2016 was in many ways – let’s face it – a wretched year. But for the work to protect youth from the horrors of the adult criminal justice system, 2016 was actually a pretty good year.

The states of South Carolina and Louisiana passed laws to raise the age of adult court jurisdiction to 18. The states of Vermont and California both ended the practice of allowing prosecutors, without judicial review, to “direct file” juveniles into adult court.

A new law in Indiana will allow some youth charged as adults to transfer back into the juvenile system, and a new law in Arizona will keep some kids charged as adults out of adult jails while they await their trials.  And Washington, D.C., included removing youth from adult jails in its Comprehensive Youth Justice Amendment Act of 2016.

By Marcy Mistrett, CEO of the Campaign for Youth Justice

2016 was quite the year to celebrate the IMPACT of ending the adultification of youth by the justice system. States continue to lead reform efforts, thanks to the stellar work of advocates and impacted youth and their families in championing these reforms as: a bipartisan issue, that makes sense for young people, public safety, and states’ bottom line.  We can absolutely say this year's reforms happened nationally: From Vermont to South Carolina and Louisiana to Indiana, Arizona to California and Washington, DC -- legislators are passing, with wide margins, reforms that take into account that children are different from adults. At the federal level, we got farther on the reauthorization of the JJDPA than we have in 15 years--with strongly supported bipartisan bills that passed in the House, and almost through the Senate-- that would call for removing youth certified as adults from adult jails while they pend trial. And the POTUS took notice, and paid a lot of attention to young men of color in our justice system, using his executive powers to leverage change.

By Jean Trounstine

In April, 2016, my book Boy With A Knife: The Story of Murder, Remorse, and a Prisoner's Fight for Justice was published by Ig Publishing. But getting the book into print was hardly the beginning of my getting to know Karter Reed, a once juvenile lifer, who eventually won parole by suing and then settling with the Parole Board in Massachusetts. It was hardly the beginning of my coming to now firmly held beliefs: that our country must not send youth to adult prisons and that as a nation, we have come late to the compassion table.

This statement was originally published on the Physicians for Criminal Justice Reforn's website. 

The Physicians for Criminal Justice Reform support the end of the prosecution, sentencing, and incarceration of youth under the age of 18 in the adult criminal justice system.

Each year, approximately 200,000 youth are prosecuted in the adult criminal justice system. According to decades of medical literature, adolescent brains are developmentally different from those of adults, often leading to impulsive decision-making, increased risk-taking and decreased appreciation for long-term consequences of behaviors. As a result, youth, by law, are prohibited from taking on major adult responsibilities such as voting, jury duty, and military service. It follows, then, that youth should not be held to an adult standard of accountability when involved with the criminal justice system.

By Anne-Lise Vray, Communications Associate

Human Rights are defined by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) as “rights inherent to all human beings, whatever our nationality, place of residence, sex, national or ethnic origin, color, religion, language, or any other status.” Such rights are protected by the law, including international treaties like the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which the US has signed in 1995 but failed to ratify since then.