Category: Juvenile Justice

Movies have depicted high-speed police chases as necessary to catch criminals. Talented directors have created these movie scenes to be dramatic and engaging, building excitement in the audience when the police officers stop and arrest the bad guys. Rarely do they show the dangerous outcomes for innocent bystanders.  Since 1979, over 5,000 car passengers and …

Continue reading “What to Do If Your Child is Injured in a Car Chase with Police”

Florida’s juvenile justice system has been sharply criticized in recent years. While the state has tried focusing on rehabilitation rather than punishment, critics say teens are too often placed into a hostile environment where youth-on-youth beatings can happen. After they’re released from the system, their records follow them. In the internet age, employers can get …

Continue reading “Florida Lawmakers Consider Erasing Juvenile Records”

Parents of small children often worry about their safety when they’re at school, fearing they could get bullied by other students. What they usually don’t worry about is whether their children have reason to be afraid of something else: law enforcement.  So it shocked more than a few parents to watch video images on their …

Continue reading “Police Arrest a 6-year Old in an Orlando School”

School gun violence has been a serious topic for the last couple of years. Since the Parkland school shooting that occurred on February 14, 2018, schools and law enforcement have enacted much stricter policies for teens and preteens who make threats in school or about the school via social media.  The first school massacre in …

Continue reading “What Happens If My Child is Arrested at School for Making Threats?”

Every parent worries at some point about their child getting behind the wheel. For young drivers especially, there are plenty of outside distractions they face, including electronic devices that take their attention off the road and put them at risk for getting into potentially devastating accidents. Recently, however, research has been released indicating that young …

Continue reading “New Study Shows Teens with ADHD Have a Higher Risk of Car Accidents and Traffic Violations”

Most of us are no longer surprised when a mass shooting takes place at school. As a nation, we have gradually become desensitized to violence in our society; still, that doesn’t mean that we no longer live in fear of becoming victims. Our youth are especially saturated with awareness about school violence – from active …

Continue reading “How Parents Should Respond to School Shooting Threats”

Fewer than two months after the mass shooting that occurred at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, Florida, a 14-year old in Winter Haven snuck a gun and two knives into Winter Haven Christian School. The student kept the weapons in his backpack, which police found in his locker. He had a semi-automatic pistol, 11 rounds …

Continue reading “Winter Haven Kid Takes Gun to Feel Cool at School”

Teenagers in one central Florida county have gone too far, according to a disgruntled sheriff. Sheriff Mike Chitwood of Volusia County has proposed issuing steep fines to parents of students who invent school shooting threats. He believes holding the parents accountable will put an end to their proliferation and force parents to be more involved …

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Teens in Pinellas County have brought the notorious game Grand Theft Auto into the third-dimension. An epidemic of underage kids strikes every night, stealing cars and going for joy rides. In the process, they destroy the cars they steal, risk their lives, and endanger others. On occasion, they die in the process. The issue has …

Continue reading “Teen Auto Theft Spirals Out of Control in Pinellas County”

More kids in Florida wind up in adult prisons than in any other state. That’s because in Florida, more kids are prosecuted as adults for felony crimes. Within the state, one county stands out in particular for sending the highest proportion of juveniles to the adult court system: Escambia County in the Florida panhandle. From …

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