An Arizona bill would compel police officers to inform minors under 18 of their rights after being arrested; which is required by federal law, but not always followed in practice, according to advocates.

The measure, which last week passed the Senate's judiciary committee with a recommendation to adopt, would also require officers to inform kids' parents of their arrest within 90 minutes.

Shannon Hayes, board member of the Black Mothers' Forum, told committee members, per federal law, officers are required to inform kids of their rights during investigation proceedings, commonly known as Miranda Rights.

"In 2022, we see that this is simply not the case when it comes to our Black and brown children," Hayes asserted. "Especially in school settings, where the already disproportionate discipline of our children is exacerbated by criminalized disciplinary actions of school administration and the presence of school resource officers."

School resource officers are police who are embedded in schools, a practice which has come under scrutiny after several cases of police violence against kids have been caught on camera. The proposal has bipartisan support, and earlier this month passed the House with near-unanimous approval.

While the measure still needs approval from the Senate, its odds look promising.

Rep. Sonny Borelli, R-Lake Havasu, the Senate majority whip, expressed his support for the bill during last week's committee meeting, pointed out children, under pressure from adult police officers, can incriminate themselves without fully understanding their rights.

"You have to know your constitutional rights, and I'm surprised that the police officers, that this practice ... the law is not being followed," Borelli emphasized. "Just because you're under 18 doesn't mean you don't have any constitutional rights."

The bill comes as a new report from the Sentencing Project revealed most official estimates undercount the number of kids behind bars in America.

Per the report, most youth incarceration counts use a single-day snapshot model, which largely fails to capture kids who have been arrested and detained, but have not had a court hearing.

Josh Rovner, senior advocacy associate for The Sentencing Project and the report's author, said kids of color were more likely to be detained than their white counterparts.

"Overall, one out of every four kids who are sent to court are detained at the outset," Rovner reported. "Now, for white youths, that is one out of every five. For Black and Latino youths, it's closer to 30%, and that is not connected to the seriousness of the offense."

According to the report, in 2019, America's kids were detained nearly a quarter-million times, and traditional one-day count methods exclude roughly 80% of kids behind bars.

Reducing the number of young people involved in the criminal justice system means working on the root causes which can lead them there. A youth justice advocacy group will host a series of events this week to address the issue.

The Connecticut Justice Alliance's #InvestInMeCT campaign was first launched in June 2020 after many discussions about a lack of investment in youth in the state, especially in communities of color.

Christina Quaranta, executive director of the Alliance, said the campaign relaunch comes at an important time, after a bill became law last month aimed at addressing a perceived youth crime wave.

"We're not paying attention to the fact that we are in a pandemic and before March of 2020, Black and brown communities were divested in, intentionally, for many years," Quaranta asserted. "The importance of addressing the root issues and investing time and money, and resources, and love and care, is more important than ever now."

As part of the week of events, the Justice Alliance has updated its report from two years ago on ending youth criminalization. Quaranta said it includes new conversations with community members the Justice Alliance has had through its "vision sessions."

The new state law increases penalties for some serious crimes, with the maximum juvenile sentence extended to up to five years. It also increases the amount of time a young person can be detained while awaiting a judge's ruling.

Quaranta explained she hopes the events can spark more discussion about the root causes of crime, such as mental health and trauma in public policy.

"For many years, Connecticut made lots of different changes to the legal system without necessarily having the opinion of those who had actually been through the system," Quaranta noted. "Hearing what people have to say about how they were affected by the legal system will inform the decisions that lawmakers make."

The Alliance vision sessions are this Tuesday through Thursday, in New Haven, Norwalk and Waterbury. They'll speak with residents about solutions working in their communities to support young people, and find out what resources are needed. The week of events culminates Friday with a celebration in Bridgeport.

From Fox News to The New York Times, media coverage over the past few years has sounded the alarm about a purported increase in violent crime among kids. However, a new report finds those claims have been false or largely overstated.

The research by The Sentencing Project reveals youth violent crime rates, in categories from murder to robbery, declined nationwide from 2019 to 2020. Ann McCullough, a Youth Justice Wisconsin project director, said her organization has noted similar declines locally, but said unfounded stereotypes still can have long-term repercussions.

"Negative stereotypes about youth, service gaps and structural racism are the foundation for the youth-related criminal-justice policy and system we have today," she said, "nationally and in Wisconsin."

To keep kids out of the system, the report's authors propose diverting young people accused of crimes into restorative justice programs, placing more counselors in schools instead of police, and providing positive development programs for kids who have gone through the system.

With the impending closure of the Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake youth prisons, McCullough said she believes now is the time to open a new chapter in Wisconsin's youth corrections system. However, she added, alternative programs are facing significant staffing shortages, an issue she contended could be remedied in part by new investments from lawmakers.

"Public health models for violence prevention work," she said, "but they also need to be funded and supported at the same level as our correctional system in order to see a significant change."

According to data from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, juvenile arrests in Wisconsin dropped by about 70% from 2011 to 2020. Richard Mendel, who wrote the report as a senior research fellow for The Sentencing Project report, said national crime rates among kids and teens have been declining for years.

"Over the past 20 years, the share of arrests of kids under 18 has fallen by more than half, and they continue to fall," he said. "A lot of this has been tied to the pandemic. The share of crimes that were committed by kids went down - and despite that, we're seeing this narrative of youth crime 'out of control.'"

The Sentencing Project report only includes data up to 2020, the most recent year the statistics are publicly available, and its authors acknowledged future data may reveal that youth crime rates have increased since then. However, they noted that would be understandable, given the mental-health impacts of the pandemic on kids, and said they think it shouldn't serve as rationale to push for more punitive juvenile-justice policies.

New research found reports of skyrocketing youth crime are not only unfounded, but are also fueling calls for stricter punishments.

Data from The Sentencing Project showed the share of crimes in the U.S. committed by young people fell by more than half in the past two decades. It also decreased in all major types of offenses in 2020.

Richard Mendel, senior research fellow for The Sentencing Project and the report's author, said given the stress young people faced over the past two years, he would not be surprised if future data reveal a pandemic-era increase in youth crime. But he contended a temporary rise should not be used to justify returning to 'get-tough' approaches.

"This is not a moment to be panicking about youth crime," Mendel argued. "Especially if that panic is going to lead us to embrace solutions that we know the evidence shows does not work."

According to the report, juvenile detention and transfers to adult court can worsen youth outcomes. Instead, Mendel encouraged reforms to help drive young people away from delinquency, including reducing reliance on youth confinement and making stronger investments in social and mental health supports in schools and communities.

Mendel pointed out Ohio is a national model for reducing youth incarceration through RECLAIM Ohio, which offers financial incentives for counties to divert young people from Ohio Department of Youth Services institutions to community-based programs.

"Research on that is overwhelmingly positive that the kids do much better," Mendel reported. "In terms of rearrest, in terms of reincarceration, in the community programs than they do in incarceration. And yet, that program has come under attack."

A commission is reviewing the program's past three years after learning the suspect in the shooting death of a Cleveland police officer was on juvenile court probation. The youth services population dropped from a high of more than 2,600 in May 1992 to 375 in December 2020, which officials attribute to RECLAIM Ohio's success.

Meanwhile, officials in Cuyahoga County and Columbus have reported recent increases in stolen cars and carjackings among younger juveniles. But Mendel believes media coverage of youth crime is often sensationalized, and missing critical context.

"There's a lot of political opportunism that's being applied," Mendel observed. "It's important to be skeptical, and to look for context and look at the historical data. Is it really true?"

The report noted because there is no published federal data on carjackings, increases in a select number of cities do not necessarily indicate a national trend.