Press Contact: For all media inquiries, please contact Madison Kaigh, Communications Manager, at mkaigh@texascjc.org or (512) 441-8123, ext. 108.
AUSTIN - For the first time, Texas appeals courts have overturned the convictions of two teenagers tried as adults, ruling that the juvenile courts did not provide enough evidence to explain why the youths were "certified" as adult defendants.
Reformers argue that treating 17-year-olds differently from younger teens leads to higher sexual abuse and suicide rates, as well as costing the state money.
Measures to raise the cutoff age of who counts as an adult in the Texas criminal justice system from 17 to 18 failed to pass before the end of the biennial legislative session on June 1. Reform advocates promised to renew their push for the change in 2017, while hailing changes to the state's laws on truancy and juvenile probation.
Supporters of overhauling juvenile justice in Texas cheered the passage of two state bills even as some mourned the failure of a third that would have stopped the prosecution of 17-year-olds as adults.
Read the rest of this article at the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange.
It’s a Friday night and your daughter comes to you with the usual request: “Hey, Mom? Can I borrow the car tonight? Emily is having some people over.” You want to say no, but then remember your own teenage years. Oh, to be a teenager.
Read the rest of this op-ed at the Austin American-Statesman.
As juvenile court judges, our mission is to help troubled kids get back on track while ensuring accountability and community safety. To help our communities meet those goals, we join sheriffs and other officials in calling on the Texas Legislature to make the juvenile justice system the default for 17-year-old offenders.
Seventeen-year-olds deserve to be a part of a system that has a better chance of turning them into productive citizens. Their success breeds success and safety for society, after all, advocates of juvenile justice say.
In Texas, you have to be 21 to apply for a concealed handgun, 18 to play the lottery and 18 to get a body piercing without a parent's consent. Yet a nearly century-old Texas law treats a 17-year-old who shoplifts an iPhone as an adult criminal.
In Texas, you have to be 21 to apply for a concealed handgun permit, and, in many cities, 18 to buy an e-cigarette.
Read the rest of this article at the San Antonio Express-News.
With the start of the 2015 legislative session on the horizon, Fort Bend County is preparing for a possible change to the age at which criminal offenders are classified as adults in Texas - a shift that some worry could leave the county's juvenile detention program in the lurch.
Texas is one of only 10 states that automatically places children under the age of 18 in the adult criminal justice system. Overwhelming evidence suggests that sending 17-year-olds to adult jails - rather than keeping them in the juvenile justice system - needlessly destroys lives and threatens public safety by turning nonviolent teenagers into hardened criminals.