With the relatively recent US Supreme Court (USSC) decision that prohibits mandatory life without parole sentences for individuals who committed crimes while under the age of 18, a couple key issues are making their way through state courts, including: (1) are excessively long sentences given in lieu of JLWOP essentially a life sentence...
As WCCF works with others in the Wisconsin 2nd Chance Alliance to raise the age of adult court jurisdiction to age 18 for first-time, non-violent youth we take note that a recent report, Removing Youth from the Adult Criminal Justice System, published by the Campaign for Youth Justice highlights changes in 23 states between 2001 and...
A research brief by Jeffrey Butts, Violent Youth Crime in the U.S. Falls to New 32-Year Low, shows that after controlling for the size of population the rate of juvenile arrests per 100,000 youth peaked in 1994 at around 500 and hit a new low in 2012 of 190. There was a slight upsurge in 2008, but every year between 2009 and 2012, the...
A news release on 8/14 highlights a new UW-Madison study funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Wisconsin Partnership program Education and Research Committee, that confirms the link between exposure to lead and school suspensions. Specifically, the study found that "Our study found that children exposed to lead were more...
We have seen in Wisconsin this week two youth sentenced to very long prison sentences - albeit not life without parole - that raises the question of what constitutes effective justice in these tragic situations. Does a 30-40 year sentence really meet the spirit of the Supreme Court's intent? Should the opportunity for parole come...
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