Child Welfare
Representatives with Prevent Child Abuse West Virginia held a Tuesday morning breakfast meeting with about 80 legislators and government officials to encourage the state to take a more active role in preventing child abuse, reports Jared Hunt of the Daily Mail.
Connecticut’s state child advocate, Jeanne Milstein, is retiring in March after 12 years on the job, reports Jacqueline Rabe Thomas and Mark Pazniokas of the CT Mirror.
Juvenile Justice
From the editorial board of The Oklahoman: Federal lawmakers must make sure the potential benefits of compliance really do outweigh the costs if they want more states to get in line with the Adam Walsh Act, which requires the inclusion of some juvenile sex offenders on the national registry.
Cherie Townsend is in as executive director of the newly formed Texas Department of Juvenile Justice, reports the Austin Statesman. Townsend has led the Texas Youth Commission since 2008, and will now oversee an agency created by the merger of TYC and the Texas Juvenile Probation Commission.
A Kansas state legislative committee focused on juvenile justice programs recommended an expansion of vocational training efforts for juveniles in state custody this week, reports Tim Carpenter of the Topeka Capital-Journal. The committee also proposed taking actions to prevent mixing violent and nonviolent offenders in community residential facilities.
The presiding judge of the Los Angeles Juvenile Court will toss the $250 truancy tickets issued to students who were late for class but can prove they did not skip the day, reports Barbara Jones of the Contra Costa Times.
Trey Bundy, reporting for California’s Bay Citizen, looks at Gov. Jerry Brown’s second effort at shuttering the rest of the state’s juvenile justice facilities. The majority of California’s state-run juvenile training schools have already gone the way of the dodo as the number of juveniles incarcerated by the state has plummeted.
Worth mentioning just for the hilarity of the concept: Virginia has placed a locked facility on probation, reports Will Jones of the Richmond Times-Dispatch. What happens if it violates probation, does it get locked up?
