New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is facing a major challenge to his overhaul of the city’s juvenile justice system. As he prepares to move dozens of teen inmates out of the infamous adult prison on Rikers Island, he’s rushing to recruit hundreds of new juvenile counselors to address understaffing while fighting a lawsuit from the corrections officers asked to temporarily fill in.

As one of the millions of people across the country and around the world who participated in March for Our Lives events this past weekend, I felt that I was standing on the precipice of a new youth movement that might — just might — change the world in fundamental ways. A generation ago, many young Americans took to the streets as part of AIDS activism, to protest a government that was treating their lives with indifference at best, and hostility at worst. Today, we are seeing a new generation carry a similar message to those in power and inspiring their elders to follow their lead.

More than 200 members of the clergy from around New York State are writing to urge Gov. Cuomo and state lawmakers to raise the age of criminal responsibility so fewer juvenile offenders end up in adult prisons. The religious leaders say they have written to the governor and legislative leaders in support of legislation backed by Cuomo that would send most 16- and 17-year-old offenders to juvenile facilities. New York and North Carolina are the only states that prosecute 16- and 17-year-olds as adults.

And then there was one. New York State legislators voted Sunday night to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 18, capping a contentious budget fight and giving supporters of the measure victory after years of frustration. The vote leaves North Carolina as the only state which still prosecutes 16- and 17-year-olds as adults, although that may change later this month.

Significant racial disparities persist among New York City’s school-age children and young adults in educational outcomes, economic security, health and safety over the past 12 years, according to a new report set to be released by the de Blasio administration on Monday. The “Disparity Report,” created by a branch of the Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services' office, and originally intended to help inform the work of the Young Men’s Initiative, compares young Asian, black and Hispanic New Yorkers to their white peers in areas like graduating from high school in four years, rates of teen pregnancy, and rates of school suspensions.

New York state should raise the age that youths can be tried and convicted as adults to 18, a commission appointed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo recommended Monday.

Cuomo, speaking in Albany, said he planned to propose the recommendations of the Governor’s Commission on Youth, Public Safety & Justice as a legislative package to the State Assembly.

In Miller v. Alabama, the United States Supreme Court, announced a legal principle that social science, neuroscience and common sense had long recognized: juveniles have “diminished culpability and greater prospects for reform” such that “children are constitutionally different from adults for purposes of sentencing.” Relying on that principle, the court held that imposing a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole on juveniles violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, even for the crime of murder. As Dana Goldstein’s heart-wrenching article points out, New York State is one of only two states that automatically charge juveniles in adult criminal court. There is an emerging consensus that this is an unsupportable practice, even though some lawmakers are resisting legislation to change it.

New York Times

New York City officials agreed on Tuesday to a plan that would eliminate the use of solitary confinement for all inmates 21 and younger, a move that would place the long-troubled Rikers Island complex at the forefront of national jail reform efforts.

As legislation to raise the juvenile age of prosecution gains steam, advocates are preparing for their next big hurdle in getting a law on the books.

The controversy over protests during the national anthem at NFL games last season helped propel issues of racial inequality and social injustice to the forefront and gave athletes a stronger voice to bring about change, current and former players said Friday.

A recent spate of serious juvenile crime, including a string of car thefts in which offenders fled police at high speeds and the slaying of an innocent 63-year-old man in Hartford, represent one of the most serious and brazen outbreaks in years.

Criminal justice reform advocates frequently note that New York and North Carolina are the only two states to charge 16- and 17-year-olds as adults for non-violent offenses.

Public defenders from across North Carolina gathered around a Martin Luther King Jr. statue in Charlotte on Friday to decry racial inequities in the justice system. The attorneys, who get a close-up view of what's happening in the courts and jails across the state, called for a system free of racial inequality, discrimination and bias.

The Justice Department last week published proposed new rules related to the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA) that will require most states to make significant improvements or face the loss of federal funds at a time when the appropriation has dropped significantly. 

After being challenged by the U.S. Department of Justice, Ohio's juvenile justice agency reduced the solitary confinement of its young inmates last year.A new report by the Ohio Department of Youth Services shows seclusion of inmates declined by more than 66 percent in 2014 from the previous year.