Recent news

The Walker administration and the Department of Corrections announced today that they will be closing the Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake state-run youth correctional facilities in Irma. The decision comes following an injunction secured by the ACLU of Wisconsin and Juvenile Law Center (with pro-bono assistance from Quarles & Brady) through a class action civil rights lawsuit in federal court centered on the use of solitary confinement, pepper spray, shackling, and strip searches of children.

Yesterday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded the Department of Justice’s critical guidance on the use of costs, fines and fees for youth in the juvenile justice system. The guidance, which clarified existing law, was written by the Justice Department’s Office for Access to Justice, Office of Justice Programs, and Office for Civil Rights under the Obama administration.

Juvenile Law Center, the nation’s oldest public interest law firm focused on children’s rights, today denounces the Graham-Cassidy healthcare bill in the U.S. Senate as uniquely harmful and damaging for young people in the child welfare system.

Advocacy organizations Juvenile Law Center, SchoolHouse Connection and National Network for Youth strongly support the introduction in Congress yesterday of two bills that would significantly improve the chances for higher education success for youth experiencing homelessness and youth who have been in the foster care system.

Juvenile Law Center today released a critical report with key findings on the use of solitary confinement at juvenile facilities nationally. The report found that despite progress at the federal level and in a growing number of states, solitary confinement of youth remains widespread, with a disproportionate impact on youth of color, LGBT youth, and youth with disabilities.

Yesterday, Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court unanimously ruled that before youth can be sentenced to life without parole, the state bears a high burden of establishing they are permanently incorrigible.

Today, Western District Judge Peterson found that the use of solitary confinement, pepper spray and restraints at two juvenile facilities in Wisconsin violate youths’ constitutional rights under the Fourteenth Amendment.