Features and Stories
Last spring, Florida lawmakers passed Senate Bill 2112, which allows counties to place children charged as juveniles in adult jails.
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Features and Stories
This is a cautionary tale that raises alarming questions about the treatment of youthful, mostly nonviolent offenders in Mississippi and elsewhere. And it calls into question the wisdom of turning over the care of these youths, some as young as 13, to private companies that exist solely to turn a profit.
Features and Stories
Earlier this year, the Southern Poverty Law Center achieved a major milestone in its campaign to stop the rampant bullying and violence faced by LGBT students, and those students perceived to be LGBT, in school.
Features and Stories
The Southern Poverty Law Center and community members urged county leaders at Florida's Hillsborough County Juvenile Justice Task Force meeting today not to adopt juvenile detention policies similar to those of Polk County, where an SPLC lawsuit has been filed against the sheriff who houses children charged as juveniles in an adult jail.
Features and Stories
There’s no shortage of tragic stories about the dangers of holding children and teens in adult jails. The Southern Poverty Law Center recently filed a lawsuit in Florida that described horrendous abuse at the Polk County Jail – an adult jail where children as young as 8 years old can be detained.
Features and Stories
The U.S. Department of Justice has advised the Southern Poverty Law Center that it will investigate discrimination against students with disabilities in the Georgia public school system. The decision by the department’s Civil Rights Division follows an SPLC complaint filed with the Department of Justice in November.
Features and Stories
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) filed a federal lawsuit against Polk County, Florida Sheriff Grady Judd for regularly subjecting children held at the county’s adult jail to abuse, neglect and violence - including the placement of children in a cage for punishment.
Features and Stories
Every day, SPLC attorneys see how school districts are cutting short the futures of countless students through harsh, “zero-tolerance” policies. Now, a new U.S. Department of Education (DOE) study reveals what we have known for some time.
Features and Stories
A mother whose daughters were hit with pepper spray by a police officer at their school in Birmingham, Ala., joined the SPLC and a coalition of advocacy groups today to present the city council and Mayor William Bell with a petition signed by more than 25,000 people urging them to stop allowing police officers to discipline students with chemical weapons.
Features and Stories
In 2011, the Florida legislature passed a law that set juvenile justice back 40 years. The law, known as SB 2112, allows sheriffs to house young people in adult jails without the protections developed over the years for children in the custody of the Department of Juvenile Justice.
