The Federal Advisory Committee on Juvenile Justice, which represents the interests of state advisory groups, issued its 2010 Annual Report this week. The report is issued to Congress and the administration, and each presents a set of recommendations on the federal role in juvenile justice, which is mostly the purview of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
The primary recommendation is the same as 2009: reauthorize the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974. Among the recommendations this year:
-Require states to develop a system for child welfare and juvenile justice organizations to identify and intervene with youths involved in both systems.
-Mandate that states limit zero-tolerance policies at school “to the original intent of the Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994”
-A set of three recommendations that would push schools to develop alternative avenues of discipline to use in lieu of referring cases to the police and the courts, and enabling schools to use Title I funds from the Department of Education to develop those alternatives.
-Fund OJJDP to serve as the central repository for data on juveniles who are tried and sentenced as adults.
Click here to read the report.
