juvenile justice

Efforts by New Mexico lawmakers to contain violent crime took center stage Saturday at the conclusion of an annual legislative session — just hours after three people were killed and 15 injured in an outburst of gunfire at a public park in Las Cruces.

The recent arrests of juvenile suspects — including an 11-year-old boy — in connection with a 2024 hit-and-run homicide in Albuquerque have rattled the Roundhouse in the final days of this year’s 60-day session.

Following Friday night’s reported mass shooting in Las Cruces, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham lambasted lawmakers for what she described as a failure to take action on juvenile crime during the 60-day session ending at noon on Saturday.

Kids in juvenile detention facilities miss out on a lot going on in their communities and families. That includes grandma’s cooking. A program in Albuquerque is trying to mend that by bringing culturally relevant foods to a youth detention center. It’s not about teaching them how to cook, necessarily, but to help them maintain a relationship to their cultural heritage and learn about food as medicine.

In the wake of a so-called “riot” at New Mexico’s largest jail for kids, young people face charges and a parents' group is demanding changes.

Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham’s September public health order didn’t only call for a ban on open and concealed carry of firearms. It also has several measures aimed at reducing illegal drug use in adults and young people. Youth detention numbers have been rising since the order took effect, and while the governor said that could get more young people into addiction treatment, experts say otherwise.

A month and a half after Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham signed a public health executive order regarding gun violence and illegal drug use, the outcome for young people who are arrested remains unclear.The order suspends a set of guidelines for helping keep young people out of detention that have been in place for about a quarter of a century. But officials are still using those guidelines in New Mexico, even as more young people are put in detention centers.

State lawmakers just passed restrictions on solitary confinement, the first of their kind in the state. If Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signs them into…