Join RISE for Youth at our first meeting in Roanoke on Tuesday, January 5th at 6pm.  The meeting will be at Roanoke Main Library located at 706 S Jefferson Street, Roanoke, VA 24016 DINNER WILL BE PROVIDED RSVP to the meeting…

I often quote from papers written by the staff of the Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis; they provide the most fact-based, nonpartisan, clear analysis of key issues facing Virginians. Recently, I attended the 2015 Policy Summit held by the Institute in…

VIRGINIA TOPS ALL states in referring students from school to law enforcement — a dubious distinction that should be cause for concern. Right now there’s a growing recognition that our state’s approach to juvenile justice has to change. Public officials…

VIRGINIA’S juvenile justice system is broken. No less than the sheriff of the commonwealth’s largest city — a former state senator and police officer who advocated the lock-em-up approach for years — has called for a complete overhaul. “Nothing we’re…

Rallying outside the General Assembly, a group of community activists had a message for lawmakers, “Incarcerating kids doesn’t work.” An ongoing 8News investigation has revealed that Virginia leads the nation in referring kids to cops, courts, and correctional centers. “They…

  RISE for Youth, a nonpartisan coalition, is promoting alternatives to incarceration, long-term suspensions and expulsions. “When you suspend a kid, you have them out of sight and out of mind, but they come back,” said Jeree Thomas, an attorney…

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A town hall meeting on juvenile justice reform is set in Richmond. Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice director Andrew Block is scheduled to attend Thursday evening’s event. People who have been incarcerated in the state’s juvenile…

Watching a Richland County, S.C., deputy flip over a desk, dump a student on the floor and toss her across a classroom, Richmond Police Chief Alfred Durham realized his department is not immune to such a spectacle. “I would be…

On one wall inside the ART 180 studio, hand-drawn signs called for unity, fairness over prejudice, and education not incarceration. The artwork was part of the Performing Statistics exhibit, a project that connects incarcerated teens with artists, designers, educators and…