Advocates Decry Provisions Amended into LB 530

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Advocates Decry Provisions Amended into LB 530 

Media Contact:  

Voices for Children: Samantha Livermore at slivermore@voicesforchildren.com or (308) 870-2964 

ACLU of Nebraska: Sam Petto at spetto@aclunebraska.org or (402) 476-8091, ext. 402 

RISE: Jasmine Harris at jharris@seeusrise.org or (402) 321-0933  

LINCOLN, NE – Advocacy groups spoke out against the Legislature's vote today to move a criminal and juvenile justice package from general file to select, with amendments expanding felony offenses and allowing the detention of children as young as 11 and youth at risk of self-harm.    

“Expanding felonies, harshening penalties, and detaining children as young as 11 will not build safer or stronger communities,” said Jason Witmer, policy fellow with the ACLU of Nebraska. “We are grateful to Senators Dungan, McKinney, Spivey, and others who have been putting in long hours to address community concerns and limit the harms of this bill. Despite those efforts, LB 530 is very clearly still a step backward on smart criminal and juvenile justice policy. We will keep urging lawmakers to oppose this bill and focus their efforts on prevention, not punishment.”  

Jasmine Harris, director of public policy and advocacy at RISE, states, “The solution that the government is proposing to detain children as young as 11 years old is not the answer to trying to keep them safe. They are still young enough that we should be doing all that we can to ensure they are receiving preventive and primary care to address the underlying mental, behavioral, and environmental conditions that put them in contact with the juvenile justice system. When parents ask for help with their children, our legislature should focus on and do all it can to ensure that resources are available to address these underlying conditions, not detention. Detention facilities are not mental health or healthcare facilities or safe havens. Our children deserve better. We cannot continue to fail them.”  

"Overuse of detention harms both young people and communities, by increasing recidivism and decreasing educational and vocational attainment,” said Juliet Summers, executive director of Voices for Children in Nebraska. "The data makes clear that Nebraskans have grown safer over the past decade because we got smart on youth justice. By allowing detention of 11-year-olds and young people at risk of self-harm, the Legislature just took a vote to make both kids and Nebraska communities less safe.”  

"This is personal for me,” she added. “I have an 11-year-old. His room is filled with LEGO dragons and stuffed animals. We are talking about jailing elementary school kids who still have two feet firmly planted in childhood.”   

The groups thanked a coalition of state senators leading a filibuster of the bill, including Senators Spivey, McKinney, Dungan, John Cavanaugh, Wendy DeBoer, Danielle Conrad, John Fredrickson, Machaela Cavanaugh, and others.    

They urge Nebraska’s leaders to prioritize investments in prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation rather than punitive measures that disproportionately harm children and fail to create safer communities.  

About Voices for Children in Nebraska:  

Voices for Children in Nebraska is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to building pathways to opportunity for all children. Our mission is to advocate for equitable opportunity for Nebraska kids through research, policy advocacy, and community engagement.   

About ACLU of Nebraska:   

The American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, legal and advocacy organization — a state affiliate of the national ACLU. For nearly 60 years, we have been working in Nebraska's courts, the Capitol, and our communities to protect and expand our rights and freedoms.  

About RISE:   

RISE is the largest nonprofit organization in Nebraska focused solely on habilitative programming in prisons and reentry support. At RISE, transformation starts pre-release and continues post-release. Our inside/out model bridges incarceration to the community and considers all the critical steps in that journey.