— In Massachusetts, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled that the juvenile court has the authority to divert juvenile cases involving weapons possession on campus to a program in order to “avoid attaching to juveniles the stigma of a criminal.” The case arose out of a student search when “administrators at the Dearborn School in the Roxbury section of Boston learned that a student might be in possession of a weapon. School administrators performed an administrative search, which revealed that the juvenile possessed a nine millimeter Glock pistol with six rounds of ammunition inside his “fanny pack” on his person. Consequently, Boston police officers arrived at the school and the juvenile was arrested and taken into custody.” It was noteworthy that “although the juvenile did not possess a license to carry the firearm outside of his home or place of work, he did possess a valid firearm identification (FID) card.” State law allows “a person from the age of fourteen to seventeen may apply for an FID card with a parent or guardian’s permission… to possess certain nonlarge capacity firearms and ammunition.” Even so, however, a “delinquency complaint (was) issued in the Juvenile Court, charging the juvenile with unlawful possession of a firearm…;carrying a loaded firearm without a license…; and unlawful possession of ammunition.” The student requested a formal diversion of the charges (Continuance Without a Finding (CWOF)) in which the court postpones a formal finding of guilt to allow the juvenile to successfully complete a probationary period with set conditions to justify dismissal of the case. The juvenile court agreed that a CWOF was a lawful disposition of the case. The government appealed. On appeal the appellate court ruled that “the Legislature has granted Juvenile Court judges broad discretion to render individualized dispositions consistent with the best interests of the child…(such that) the aims of correction and redemption of delinquent children are to be accomplished in part by the very broad discretion allowed Juvenile Court judges with regard to disposition to avoid attaching to juveniles the stigma of a criminal.” As to the CWOF diversion policy, the appellate court ruled that “a juvenile may request a CWOF upon tender of a plea or admission — unless the complaint alleges one of the enumerated offenses, which are all sex offenses.” Therefore, the juvenile court judge “had the authority” to approve the diversion of the case. Commonwealth v. Quahir Q.
— In Illinois, a “Chicago Public Schools (CPS) policy allows illegal immigrant students excused absences if they or their family members are afraid of federal immigration enforcement activities in the area.”
— In Tennessee, Wilson County are reporting lower levels of citations and arrests arising out of school incidents. This is a continuing statistical trend from prior school years. One official states that “the goal is to always have a decrease in the number of arrests and citations issued and to focus on proactive prevention and de-escalation, so I believe that number reflects the great work that the school resource officers are doing.”
— In California, a revision in state policy now “criminalizes targeted threats to institutions, buildings and campuses.” The old policy “was ambiguous as to whether someone could be criminally prosecuted if the threat was made against an institution rather than a specific person.” Going forward, schools are protected against threats “even if an individual person is not specifically threatened.”