Takedown of DOJ Juvenile Justice Office Webpages About Still-Active Initiatives Highlights its Shift Towards a More Punitive Approach
The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), a division of the Department of Justice (DOJ), has removed a number of webpages related to ongoing programs and policy guidance, and altered messaging on its website in ways that indicate a shift toward a more punitive approach to juvenile justice under the Trump administration.
Information related to girls in the juvenile justice system and the use of solitary confinement among youthful offenders were among the materials removed from its website without notice. Changes have been made to the terminology used to describe juveniles that come into contact with the justice system and the types of programs and services OJJDP supports and provides. The Sunlight Foundation’s Web Integrity Project documented those removals and significant language shifts, through an analysis of pages preserved by the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, in a pair of reports released today.
