News & Commentary

When a chronically sick, honor roll student is referred to court for truancy, that’s a problem.

We have to enact reforms to current juvenile justice policies and programs that seek to engage and support struggling families rather than punish them for not complying with court rules

The ACLU of West Virginia is thrilled to announce that the members of the Our Children, Our Future Campaign have voted to make fixing West Virginia’s juvenile justice one of the Campaign’s top 5 issues in its 2015 legislative platform. Thank you to everyone who voted for this issue. We are excited to partner with the Campaign to work for much-needed changes of the state’s juvenile justice policies– especially with regard to our truancy laws.Every year, thousands of West Virginia students are caught up in the juvenile justice system for missing more than 5 days of school. In the last decade, West Virginia has seen a 124 percent increase in the number of children brought to court for a status offense – an offense that violates law only because of the offender’s status as a minor. In many West Virginia counties, status offenses (mostly for truancy) make up at least half of all juvenile cases referred to court, and in some counties, status offenses account for over 90 percent of all juvenile cases.