By Zoheb Hassandi for WACH FOX

COLUMBIA, SC -- Teenagers like Maximiliano Rodriguez are getting a second chance; thanks to the Department of Juvenile Justice's new Store of Hope.

The store officially opened to the public on Wednesday. It is a new, youth-driven, enterprise program for teens at DJJ.

"When I came here, people were telling me about how great it was. So I said I wanted to join", said Rodriguez.

By Brian Heller de Leon for California Progress Report

Just days after the deadline, the Governor signed the $92 billion 2012-13 California budget into law on June 27th. The budget includes some of the most significant reforms in state juvenile justice policy since the passage of Senate Bill 81 in 2007.

In his May 14th revised budget proposal, Governor Brown had retracted his plan to close the state’s youth correctional facilities, Division of Juvenile Facilities (DJF), under intense and well-coordinated law enforcement and county pressure. As an alternative he proposed several smaller reforms such as a much higher per ward fee structure for counties. Although short of a staggered realignment that CJCJ and other groups were calling for, the Governor’s proposal implements significant reform that result in a reduced reliance on the state’s youth correctional system.

By Joe Palazzolo for The Wall Street Journal

A divided Supreme Court ruled last week that mandatory sentences of life without parole for juveniles violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments.

That issue settled, courts are split on another question that the Supreme Court could be asked to answer: are juvenile sentences that are functionally equivalent to life in prison without parole also cruel and unusual?

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday was the latest to weigh in on the issue. The court considered a petition by Chaz Bunch, who was convicted in Ohio state court of robbing, kidnapping, and repeatedly raping a young woman when he was 16 years old. He was sentenced to consecutive, fixed terms totaling 89 years’ imprisonment.

By Susan Ferriss for iWatch News

At the first-ever congressional hearing on the subject of solitary confinement, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois recently observed that it’s not always “the worst of the worst” who are subjected to the practice. Mentally-ill inmates, immigrants and juvenile offenders are put in solitary as well. And perhaps, said a series of witnesses at the hearing, the time has come to rethink the issue.

Many states are now doing just that. But the debate is not devoid of its own unique politics.

By Kurt Erickson for The Southern Illinoisan

SPRINGFIELD — Juvenile justice advocates are praising Gov. Pat Quinn’s decision to close two youth prisons this year, but the fate of the lock-ups in Murphysboro and Joliet remains in limbo.

Under Quinn’s plan, which became law Saturday when he signed the new state budget, the youth centers will be shuttered, with offenders being moved into the state’s remaining six juvenile prisons.

Groups backing the move said 18 other states have closed more than 50 juvenile facilities since 2007 to free up money to rehabilitate youth in their own communities.

By Ronald De Rosa for Patch.com

Starting Monday, 17-year-olds who get arrested for non-felony crimes will no longer be tried as adults.

Instead, these teenagers will be treated through the juvenile court system, meaning they will be subjected to the same, less-severe penalties of their 16- or 15-year-old counterparts.

Created by: Criminology.com

By Efren Paredes Jr. for LatinaLista.com

(Editor’s note: Efren Paredes, Jr. is a Michigan prisoner sentenced to life without parole as a juvenile in 1989. Learn more about Efren)

Today the U.S. Supreme Court issued an opinion abolishing life without parole (LWOP) sentences for the 2,500 prisoners across the U.S. who were condemned to die in prison for crimes they were convicted of as juveniles.

Efren at the time of this trial in 1989.