It costs about $35,000 to incarcerate a juvenile.  It takes about  $7,000 a year to educate one.  

Juveniles can be tried as adults in all 50 states, and are vulnerable to adult punishments.  They may also be remanded to adult prisons. 

The U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child states that crimes committed by a juvenile should not result in execution or life in prison without parole.  In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it is unconstitutional to execute people for crimes they committed as children.  As a consequence, a number of young people were released from death row into the general prison population.  Five other countries execute people for juvenile offenses: Iran, Yemen, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan.

Police Guards Are Not the Answer at School

March 12, 2013: Sherrilyn Ifill, President and Director/Council of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, writes to oppose increasing the number of School Resource Officers, another name for armed police, in public schools because the presence of police increasingly criminalizes students.

January 2013: In the context of the horrific shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, the UCC Justice & Witness Ministries has signed on with many of our partners to this excellent statement: Police in Schools Are Not the Answer to the Newtown Shooting.

 Twenty-Third General Synod, 2001:

"We affirm the right of juveniles to an equitable system of justice that respects the life and promise of our youth."