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This week, the fourth season of the A&E TV show “Beyond Scared Straight” follows two young sisters to the adult jail in Douglas County, Ga., where one inmate tells one of the sisters how she could beat her up “and make you not so pretty no more.”
Plenty of critics pan the show, saying it publicizes a discredited, harmful practice. Neither Georgia nor the feds will fund such jail tour programs, citing both evidence that it doesn’t work and the liabilities jails take on when they invite minors to meet with inmates.

Youth from across the city joined us at the ABC7 studios Friday afternoon to discuss solutions to help stop the violence. The youth town hall is part of a joint effort with United Way of Metropolitan Chicago called the "positive image initiative." The goal is to engage young people from under-served neighborhoods in conversation about how to stem violence. They have some strong ideas.

Three Illinois lawmakers joined other members of the Congressional Black Caucus today in announcing a summit on urban violence July 25-26 at Chicago State University. Rep. Bobby Rush, a Chicago Democrat, spoke at a morning news conference in the Capitol Visitors Center, unveiling plans for the national summit, which is expected to draw participants from across the country.

The Illinois Juvenile Justice Commission has named Connie Kaiser, longtime superintendent of the Champaign County Juvenile Detention Center, as the 2013 recipient of the commission's Juvenile Justice Champion Award.

Reintroduced in Congress this March, the Youth PROMISE Act has been advertised as a common-sense, cost-saving measure to reduce the U.S. prison population by focusing on youth violence prevention and intervention. But some juvenile justice experts express concern about the impact the Act could have on policing in black and Latino communities and how effective the bill could be in the absence of broader structural change.

Late one night in November 2007, a student at the University of Chicago named Amadou Cisse was accosted by a young man named Demetrius Warren. Warren demanded Cisse's backpack and water bottle — at the point of a .22-caliber gun. When the bag and bottle were not forthcoming — or not forthcoming quickly enough — Warren shot Cisse at point-blank range, killing him. The 29-year-old Cisse was a month shy of completing his Ph.D. in chemistry. In 2011, Warren was sentenced to 120 years in prison.