Being a child in the USA should not be a trick or treat, it should be fulfillment of a promise of mire birthright.

National Youth Justice Awareness Month 2014 (click here)

October is National Youth Justice Awareness Month – a time when the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Campaign for Youth Justice and our allies host community events that expose the devastating consequences of children being sent to adult courts, jails and prisons.

Even though the research is clear that children in the adult system are more likely to reoffend than if they are held in the juvenile justice system, thousands of children are sent into the adult system every year in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi. We must stop this destructive practice. Steps also must be taken to ensure children in the juvenile justice system have every opportunity to get their lives back on track.

To begin young people should not be nameless and faceless in a juvenile justice system. They need to recapture their innocence and way forward into the promise of this country. Every child is someone with potential. Young people should never be abandoned to a system that creates a void for their personality and value.

Welcome. (click here) The Juvenile Justice Resource Hub is a comprehensive source of information on cutting-edge juvenile justice issues and reform trends. The content of this website is being developed in phases, so check back regularly for new material.

While Faith Based assistance can provide a means of finding a young person's spirituality, it should never be the only aspect of their life that provides the reward of social interaction. Every young person should have a focused Case Manager to move them from dysfunction to being proud and autonomous and drug/alcohol free. Juvenile detainment can be the opportunity the USA has to reclaim their lost before they enter into a life of self-destruction. Society needs wholesome young people that can even be mentors to those needing to find their way home. No young person leaving juvenile detention centers needs to have a clear understanding of the dangers of substance abuse and gun violence. They need to value their individuality and realize relationships are best when each in the relationship are anchored in their own sense of self and purpose.

When and if young people return to their families the juvenile system needs to be sure they are entering into a life renewed by their experience with sufficient food and monetary resources to carry them into the promise of education. Where families are not shored up to provide that level of stability the family becomes part of the rehab program to improve the home environment these young people return. 

Juvenile justice is the country's 'chance' to make changes in their lives and in their community to move not just the individual to hope, but, within a community that can provide that stability and future.

The drug economies in any state have to end. We are moving as a country into accepting some level of the drug economy into legitimacy. When the USA accepts the fact drug legitimacy creates financial resources, there is then a responsibility by the industry for addressing abuse and rehabilitation. As the country accepts the cannabis industry there is every reason they will conduct their own research with public service commercials to stem abuse and risk. Young people should never be a focus of potential profits as the tobacco industry has in 

The cannabis industry should never become the focus of social ills, political rhetoric and potential lawsuits as the tobacco industry has been so willing to participate. The cannabis industry needs to exhibit social responsibility with real benefits and uses of their product.

The age of permission should be the same as alcohol. The industry has an opportunity to be smart and adult about this new economy within the USA. The industry has the opportunity to stem substance abuse and find a healthy use of it's product, both medicinal and recreational. No outside interest should seek to exploit this new industry causing it's reputation insult and rejection by the American people. I would suspect there will be international interest in viable industry and to that end it needs to have policies and goals for the industry. 

Young people are important to the USA and they should never be targets of anything except their promise of a future and how to achieve the rewards of a democracy.