Raised on the streets, the sound of gunshots is just down the road from one group of teens in northeast Austin. Around the corner, a friend is being held at knifepoint. But one nonprofit in Austin is determined to show these youths another way to live. “I had to choose a better route. I was stuck in my ways, doing what I wanted to do,” said Antonio Martinez, 21.
Texas is one of only three states to automatically treat 17-year-olds as adults when they are arrested, and the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition said that can often lead to a lifetime of involvement with the justice system. Since 2007, advocates to “Raise the Age” have encouraged state policymakers to change laws, so teens can go through the juvenile justice system instead.
State Sen. Bryan Hughes laid out a bill which would protect school districts from liability in cases of armed employees. Hughes (R-Mineola) presented SB 534 before the Senate Committee on Education Thursday afternoon.
A Killeen man serving a life sentence for capital murder may be eligible for parole sooner than expected thanks to a bill that has passed the Texas House and is currently in the Texas Senate. Jason Isaiah Robinson, 43, is being held in the Hughes Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in Gatesville. He was sentenced to life in prison on Aug. 9, 1995, according to TDCJ inmate records.
Only one child in federal custody at the Freeman Coliseum has been reunited with his family. The vast majority of the 1,898 children ages 13-17 who remain at the facility have been there long past the five- to seven-day timeline that immigrant rights groups were told to expect before authorities reunited the children with their families.
Dallas ISD must stop using school suspensions as the district works to redress racial disparities, a group of local and statewide education advocates demanded Tuesday. Doing so would help keep children on track and position DISD as a national “game-changer” in taking meaningful steps toward policies that underscore the Black Lives Matter movement, advocates said.
Exactly one year after the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition (TCJC) first asked Governor Greg Abbott to protect incarcerated people and their communities from the urgent threat of COVID-19, the organization is remembering the lives lost to the virus and continuing to push for action.
For the fourth consecutive year, the Texas Women’s Justice Coalition is taking action on International Women’s Day to keep women out of the justice system and improve outcomes for those who have been impacted by arrest and incarceration. The Texas Women’s Justice Coalition is comprised of more than 70 formerly incarcerated women, advocates, and service providers seeking to stem the tide of women’s incarceration, improve their conditions of confinement, and help women successfully return to their families and communities.
A group of San Antonio Independent School District students called for the district to include more diverse student voices that accurately represent them in district decisions during a discussion on student rights Tuesday. The SAISD Student Coalition and Poder, the San Antonio Alliance of Teachers and Support Personnel’s social justice caucus, held a Facebook Live discussion on student rights Tuesday, with experts from the University of Illinois at Chicago, the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, and Texas Appleseed, an Austin-based nonprofit working to end inequities in state laws.
Kicking off the opening day of Texas’s 87th Legislative Session, where state leadership will be contending with a billion-dollar budget shortfall, the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition (TCJC) repeated their previous call for lawmakers to prioritize communities over corrections in an unprecedented year.
