CFYJ released a new report today, State Trends: Updates from the 2013-2014 Legislative Session. The report takes a look at states that have, and are taking steps to remove children from the adult criminal justice system.

State Trends documents the continuation of four trends in justice reform efforts across the country to roll back transfer laws in the country, from arrest through sentencing. Building on efforts from the last decade, states continue to amend and eliminate harmful statutes and policies created in the 1990s that placed tens of thousands of youth in the adult criminal justice system. In 2014, advocacy, research, operative Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) regulations, and fiscal analysis assisted in the introduction of bills in nine states to remove youth from the adult criminal justice system and give youth an opportunity at more rehabilitative services.

Just this month, the Office of Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) released a brief entitled Juveniles in Residential Placement, 2011, which includes data from a one-day census of the number of youth incarcerated in youth prisons or in private residential institutions in the United States.

According to this report, on any given day, 2,239 of the youth counted in residential placement are there for status offenses—which the report defines as “behaviors that are not law violations for adults, such as running away, truancy and incorrigibility.”

Youth Advocate Program (YAP) released new report today that shows community based programs are more effective and less expensive that locking up youth. As states continue to grapple with the fiscal impact of incarceration there seems to be smarter, more effective and less costly way of doing business. The Safely Home report highlights how youth have been safely and successfully supported in their homes and with their families in many jurisdictions around the country.

Thousands of children have been funneled into Michigan’s adult prison system due to a series of harsh “tough on crime” laws on perceived youth violence, according to a new report by the Michigan Council on Crime and Delinquency (MCCD).

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.

In a recent report titled “Branded for Life,” the Human Rights Watch condemned the state of Florida’s outdated policies of allowing juveniles to be moved to the adult court through “direct file.” This policy allows a prosecutor to have unfettered discretion to move any juvenile offender under 18 into the adult court. “Florida transfers more children out of the juvenile system and into adult court than any other state. In the last five years alone, more than 12,000 juvenile crime suspects in Florida were transferred to the adult court system.” Roughly 98% of Florida youth in adult courts are there because of the arbitrary decisions of prosecutors stemming from this “direct file” process.

Today the Juvenile Justice Initiative released a new report, "Automatic Adult Prosecution of Children in Cook County, Illinois, 2010-2012". The report finds that only one white youth was among the 257 Cook County children charged with crimes requiring an automatic transfer to adult court in a recent three-year study period, and most of those children live in predominantly minority communities in the south and west sides of Chicago.