North Carolina now sits ten months away from implementation of the Juvenile Justice Reinvestment Act (JJRA), widely referred to as “Raise the Age.” I had the opportunity to attend a summit hosted by Justice Initiatives in Charlotte last week focused on readiness for raise the age implementation. The recent report from the Juvenile Jurisdiction Advisory Committee (JJAC) is full of information about what still needs to be done for optimal implementation. The recommendations contain two major themes: provide legislative fixes to avoid unintended consequences and fully fund the new system. Continue Reading
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Tag: juvenile code reform
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Juvenile Code Reform Legislation (HB 879) Becomes Effective December 1, 2015
In a prior post, I wrote about SB 331, which proposed several changes to the delinquency subchapter of the Juvenile Code. That bill didn’t make it. Instead, it became HB 879 (enacted as S.L. 2015-58), which includes several new laws intended to either increase due process protections for juveniles, reduce further entry of juveniles in the delinquency system, or reduce juvenile confinement. Although it’s similar to the prior Senate bill, there are some important differences that you should know about before the new laws become effective on December 1, 2015. One of these laws involves a juvenile age increase, although it’s not quite the change for which “raise the age” advocates were lobbying.
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