Virginia can build a youth justice system that is fair, humane, and grounded in evidence—one that invests in young people’s capacity to grow rather than foreclosing their futures. Taken together, the following bills, which passed through the General Assembly in 2026, reflect a commitment to both accountability and redemption, and to a Commonwealth that does right by its most vulnerable young people and their families.
Starting July 1, children under the age of 11 cannot be formally processed through Virginia’s juvenile justice system. Instead, young children who act out will be served through family support and community-based services rather than through arrest and criminalization.
Young children involved in the legal system are far better served through family support and community-based services than through court involvement. Virginia was one of a shrinking number of states with no minimum age, and this legislation aligns the Commonwealth with child development research and the growing national consensus.
Minimum Age 2026 One Pager.pdf
This legislation expands the use of diversion programs that redirect eligible youth away from formal court proceedings and toward community-based services and supports. Research consistently shows that diversion reduces recidivism, preserves family stability, and produces better long-term outcomes than formal adjudication—particularly for first-time and low-level offenses. Starting July 1, courts can return cases to intake if they’re not appropriate for processing, and youth have the opportunity to participate in diversion more than once.
Concerns about conditions at Bon Air JCC are well-documented. For nearly two years, young people there endured prolonged room confinement, severely disrupted education, and sharply limited access to mental health care and family contact. The following three bills directly respond to those failures:
This legislation restores court oversight to youth held on indeterminate commitments to the Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ). Currently, release decisions are left almost entirely to agency discretion, even when a youth’s confinement is extending beyond the Department’s Length-of-Stay Guidelines. This bill ensures a meaningful judicial check on those decisions and guards against unnecessarily prolonged confinement.
This legislation aims to restrict the use of room confinement—effectively solitary isolation—in DJJ facilities. Prolonged isolation causes serious psychological harm, particularly to adolescents, and has been widely condemned by pediatric and mental health experts. This legislation requires DJJ to establish clear limits on the practice and to protect the wellbeing of youth in state custody.
This legislation extends the Office of the Children’s Ombudsman’s oversight to include youth in DJJ custody who were in foster care before their commitment to DJJ. These young people are among Virginia’s most vulnerable—many have already experienced significant trauma and prior system failures. Independent oversight is essential to protecting their rights and ensuring accountability when things go wrong.
More information on these three bills can be found in the the Virginia Commission on Youth’s meeting materials, located here: https://vcoy.virginia.gov/meetings.asp
This legislation updates Virginia’s parole procedures for individuals who committed offenses as juveniles and are serving lengthy sentences. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions in Miller v. Alabama (2012) and Montgomery v. Louisiana (2016) require that juvenile defendants receive meaningful consideration of their youth—and a genuine opportunity for release from incarceration. This legislation ensures Virginia’s parole system fully reflects those constitutional requirements and honors the science of adolescent development.