Shelley Spivack gets right to the point. “It’s all about arts programming for kids who are locked up in Genesee County’s juvenile detention facility.” The cofounder and director of Arts in Detention, which offers instructional workshops in both visual and performing arts for the 10- to 17-year-olds sentenced by to the Genesee Valley Regional Center. 

It includes theatre, poetry, and dance as well as “HerStory: Unlocked,” a gender-based program geared towards the very special needs of girls in the juvenile justice system, says Spivack — pronounced SPEE-vack, she politely corrects with a grin.

Now on display at Buckham Gallery, the “Arts in Detention” exhibit is diverse in content and expression.

Jeree Thomas has joined the Campaign for Youth Justice in Washington, DC as the organization’s new policy director. As policy director Thomas will manage the organization’s policy development, conduct policy analysis, and provide support to the campaign’s partners at the state level. 

If you are a 17-year-old and you break a law here in Michigan, you’re going to be tried as an adult. Michigan is one of nine states that tries 17-year-olds as adults. And virtually every state allows prosecutors or judges to pursue sentencing of a 17-year-old as an adult in specific cases.Once these teens are in the adult prison population, they face the distinct prospect of being raped. The horrible stories of teens being sexually assaulted led Congress to pass a law called the Prison Rape Elimination Act.

Starks, 15, is charged in the murder of his 14-year-old cousin, Jaylen Brock, who died of a gunshot wound last September. The Fremont teen was in court Wednesday for the second day of a bind-over hearing to determine if he will be tried as an adult or in juvenile court.

Reginald Dwayne Betts knows how hard it is to overcome the odds. They keynote speaker for the La Crosse Reads program participated in a carjacking at age 16 and landed a nine-year prison sentence.

Actor Michael K. Williams grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y. in a neighborhood plagued with crime and excess incarceration, but it wasn’t until he watched Ava DuVernay’s “13th” documentary that he recognized a need for juvenile justice reform.

“Not knowingly, that was the beginning of the seed planting for what I’m standing on now,” Williams told Variety at the Season 6 premiere of “Vice on HBO” at the Whitby Hotel in New York City on Tuesday. “It was a rude awakening.”

Now, Williams is bringing awareness to the nation’s mass incarceration crisis through “Raised in the System,” the first installment of a 35-episode season set to tackle political and cultural issues around the world. 

A bill awaiting Gov. Doug Ducey's signature would give courts more time to try youth offenders as juveniles. 

Advocates say this would be an important step to ensure that young people receive age-appropriate treatment in Arizona's criminal justice system. 

A bill allowing certain Florida officials to make announced and unannounced visits to the state’s juvenile justice facilities is now heading to the House floor.

The Missouri Senate has given initial approval to a bill that raises the age to be tried as an adult from 17 to 18.

Seventeen-year-olds arrested for nonviolent crimes would be tried and imprisoned under the juvenile justice system under a measure that moved one step closer to becoming law Wednesday. Senate Bill 324 would reduce crime and save the state money by raising the legal definition of a delinquent from 17 to 18, supporters told the House Committee on the Administration of Criminal Justice, which approved the measure without objection. SB324, which already has won Senate passage, now goes to the full House. It is one of the legislative priorities of Gov. John Bel Edwards.

A bill that aims to raise the age of prosecuting an individual as an adult is headed to the governor's desk for signature. SB 324, proposed by Sen. J.P. Morrell, D-New Orleans, on Sunday passed through the Senate by a vote of 33-4. The bill passed through the House June 2 with a vote of 97-3, which sent it back to the Senate for concurrence. 

A new report is further confirming the racial biases black girls face in school when it comes to being disciplined. 

Since 2001, the number of kids in detention has dropped by more than half across the country—a seemingly decisive victory for juvenile-justice reformers. But digging into the numbers reveals a much bleaker picture. 

America is the only country in the world that allows life sentences without the possibility of parole for people under the age of 18.

When President Obama announced in August that the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) would move away from contracting with for-profit correctional companies, Youth Services Insider speculated that the actual prospect of that was entirely contingent on the next president.