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Spoiler Alert: This essay shares plot details from the book, The Reformatory. In the novel The Reformatory by Tananarive Due, a 12-year-old boy, Robbie, is sent to a reform school in the Jim Crow-era South for kicking the white neighbor who sexually harassed his sister, Gloria. The novel portrays the injustices Robbie faces inside the system, but also the way carceral systems affect whole families, as it depicts Gloria’s attempts to rescue her brother from an unfair fate.

The ACLU of Michigan, the ACLU, Juvenile Law Center, and civil rights attorney Deborah LaBelle applaud the Michigan Supreme Court’s decision that subjecting young people to excessively long prison sentences violates the Michigan Constitution’s prohibition on cruel or unusual punishment.

The director of Clark County Juvenile Justice Services has been placed on leave. County officials confirmed with Channel 13 that John Munoz was placed on administrative leave as of July 9 due to an ongoing investigation into the department.

Nearly 100 people are alleging in a federal lawsuit that they were physically or sexually assaulted while in juvenile detention and correctional facilities operated in Nevada over the last quarter century.

A North Carolina jury convicted a man for carjacking a truck from a McDonald’s parking lot by holding something “cold and hard” on the driver’s neck. A federal appeals court overturned the conviction in 2016, citing insufficient evidence.

Gov. Josh Shapiro recently stated that his office supports codifying a statewide Office of the Child Advocate (OCA) and, importantly, wants the office to have “teeth.” This comes in the wake of yet another tragic death of a child in the system. One thing is clear — Pennsylvania’s children cannot afford to wait for this office to be reinstated with authority.

Tonight, voters approved a ballot measure that adds the City of Philadelphia Office of the Youth Ombudsperson to the Philadelphia Home Rule Charter, making it a permanent City agency. Young people in youth prisons, foster group homes, and behavioral health placements now have a permanent advocate they can reach out to report abuse or mistreatment without fear of retaliation.

Hawaiʻi is poised to become one of the first states in the nation to require a judge to consider a child’s exposure to trauma before charging the youth as an adult. Senate Bill 2108, which would also bar minor victims of trafficking or sexual assault from being charged as adults for going after their abuser, is the state’s latest juvenile justice reform.

A measure on Tuesday’s ballot could make permanent a small Philadelphia program that monitors quality of life for youth in foster homes, behavioral health treatment, and correctional facilities.