On Sunday, August 10, 2014, at the Annual Meeting of the American Bar Association (ABA), the ABA Commission on Youth at Risk presented an important panel to frontline legal practitioners on the latest research and legal developments related to the adolescents offenders. The forum addressed the following questions:
- What is reasonable juvenile behavior under the law?
- What does research tell us about teens’ brains and how it influences their behavior?
- How is a young person affected long term when the legal system harshly treats and places stigmatizing labels on him or her?
- How do we ensure the legal system does not further traumatize or inappropriately punish juveniles who enter the courts?