Two States, Two Directions: Juvenile Justice Reform in 2026
Illinois just became the first state to end detention of children under 13. Two new laws signed this month reform the state's juvenile system: one ends detention for children under 12 immediately, under 13 next year. The other establishes a Child First Reform Task Force. Vermont, meanwhile, is proposing an indefinite pause on the landmark law that made it the first and only state to raise the age of majority for some nonviolent crimes. The Scott administration wants the reform stopped. Same month. Opposite directions. Illinois is moving toward what the research has been saying for decades: locking up children doesn't interrupt a cycle, it manufactures one. The younger the child, the more the system becomes the primary formative experience — not the corrective one, the FORMATIVE one. A kid who spends his developmental years learning that he is defective, that adults in authority are threats, and that violence is the appropriate response to perceived disrespect doesn't age ou...