Every year in West Virginia, around 4,000 juveniles appear before a judge for alleged offenses such as missing too many days of school or running away from a foster home. Many of these kids become entangled in West Virginia’s juvenile justice system for years. Just a decade ago, West Virginia children were confined at the highest rate in the nation: 330 of every 100,000 children – well above the national average of 152. There are additionally vast racial inequities for children who are justice-involved in the state, which are growing rapidly and demand attention.
In response to this crisis, then-Governor Earl Ray Tomblin convened a task force to reform the state’s juvenile justice system. That task force made a series of recommendations, some of which turned into SB393, a popular bipartisan bill that prioritized community-based services and diversion programs as an alternative to incarceration. SB393 includes requirements for state agencies to collect data about juvenile justice outcomes in West Virginia to help policymakers ensure reforms are data-driven and based on evidence.
West Virginia state agencies, however, have not been collecting the juvenile justice data as required by law, making it harder to know if the state’s efforts to address its crisis of incarcerated youth is working as intended. On August 15, 2024, the West Virginia State Conference of the NAACP, represented by Democracy Forward and Mountain State Justice, filed a lawsuit before the West Virginia Circuit Court of Kanawha County to compel state agencies to establish procedures to collect the data as required by law.
