This year, more than half a dozen states, including Colorado, Hawaii, Kansas, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri and Utah, have passed new laws reshaping their juvenile legal systems. While some have adopted measures designed to divert more young people from incarceration, others have sought to impose stiffer penalties and expand prosecutors’ authority to pursue adult charges.
The opposite tacks underscore an increasingly fractured approach to juvenile justice nationwide.
Related, “In Texas Schools, a Crisis of Arrests of Kids as Young as 10 - A groundbreaking data analysis shows how districts across the state are arresting and citing children for common misbehavior, leaving lasting trauma as the Legislature rejects bills to raise the age of criminal responsibility and floods schools with even more police.” (arc)
The system is working as intended. Private prisons shouldn’t exist.
Private prisons aren’t the norm like people seem to think. Only about 8% of inmates are in them.
The problem is the private contracts given to public prisons.