Better data collection, improved efforts to attract juvenile defenders and well-funded, well-organized defense systems are among the ways to ensure youth charged with an offense have a lawyer by their side when they enter a courtroom, a new report says.
The National Juvenile Defender Center released an analysis that details how the group believes federal, state and local officials, as well as law schools and others, could help ensure more juveniles have access to legal counsel.
The recommendations include appointing counsel for all juveniles without requiring a finding of indigence, requiring a juvenile to meet with an attorney before waiving their right to counsel and implementing new training standards for juvenile defenders.
The report also highlights why the current system isn’t working, including lack of funding, an insufficient number of attorneys who understand adolescents and a complicated judicial process that means juveniles often waive their right to counsel before ever speaking with an attorney.
[For more of this story, written by Sarah Barr, go to http://jjie.org/report-youth-l...se-attorneys/346863/]
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