[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 108 (Tuesday, June 22, 2021)]
[House]
[Pages H2958-H2961]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       JUSTICE FOR JUVENILES ACT

  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the 
bill (H.R. 961) to exempt juveniles from the requirements for suits by 
prisoners, and for other purposes, as amended.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The text of the bill is as follows:

                                H.R. 961

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Justice for Juveniles Act''.

     SEC. 2. EXEMPTION OF JUVENILES FROM THE REQUIREMENTS FOR 
                   SUITS BY PRISONERS.

       Section 7 of the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons 
     Act (42 U.S.C. 1997e) is amended--
       (1) in subsection (h), by striking ``sentenced for, or 
     adjudicated delinquent for,'' and inserting ``or sentenced 
     for''; and

[[Page H2959]]

       (2) by adding at the end the following:
       ``(i) Exemption of Juvenile Prisoners.--This section shall 
     not apply to an action pending on the date of enactment of 
     the Justice for Juveniles Act or filed on or after such date 
     if such action is--
       ``(1) brought by a prisoner who has not attained 22 years 
     of age; or
       ``(2) brought by any prisoner with respect to a prison 
     condition that occurred before the prisoner attained 22 years 
     of age.''.

     SEC. 3. DETERMINATION OF BUDGETARY EFFECTS.

       The budgetary effects of this Act, for the purpose of 
     complying with the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010, shall 
     be determined by reference to the latest statement titled 
     ``Budgetary Effects of PAYGO Legislation'' for this Act, 
     submitted for printing in the Congressional Record by the 
     Chairman of the House Budget Committee, provided that such 
     statement has been submitted prior to the vote on passage.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from New 
York (Mr. Nadler) and the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Bishop) 
each will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New York.


                             General Leave

  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members 
have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include 
extraneous material on H.R. 961.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from New York?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 961, the Justice for 
Juveniles Act.
  This bipartisan bill would eliminate the administrative exhaustion 
requirement for incarcerated youth before they may file a lawsuit 
challenging the conditions of their incarceration.
  By passing this bill today, the House would correct the manifest 
wrong currently present in Federal law and would continue bipartisan 
efforts to support incarcerated youth.
  This bill recognizes the same conclusion that has been embraced by 
the Supreme Court and experts for decades, that incarcerated young 
people have different cognitive abilities than adults, are less mature, 
and have a higher chance of being assaulted while incarcerated.
  In recent years, our Nation has finally come to the realization that 
youth and adults have fundamentally different decisionmaking abilities. 
The Supreme Court has repeatedly cited adolescents' lack of maturity as 
a reason why they are not as culpable as adults for their actions or 
able to recognize certain dangers.
  Yet, in current law, there are no allowances for these differences in 
cognitive abilities when it comes to addressing deficiencies in 
conditions of confinement.
  Complying with current law, which requires an understanding of 
detailed grievance procedures and timelines, is nearly impossible for 
most incarcerated youth. Compliance with grievance procedures not only 
requires an understanding of the grievance process but, on a more basic 
level, it requires that an incarcerated person be able to read, which, 
sadly, many incarcerated people cannot do.
  According to one study, among incarcerated youth, 85 percent are 
functionally illiterate, and the baseline reading levels vary from 
grade one to grade six. In addition, approximately 70 percent of 
incarcerated juveniles have at least one learning disability.
  Youth are, furthermore, less likely than adults to recognize as risks 
the circumstances they face in a correctional facility. Youth may not 
recognize the impending or imminent danger of some of the risks they 
face.
  Compounding these challenges, incarcerated youth, as a group, 
experience extraordinarily high rates of mental illness. Nearly 50 
percent of incarcerated 16- to 18-year-olds suffer from a mental 
illness. Juveniles housed with adults are 10 times more likely to have 
psychotic episodes, and they have a suicide rate that is 7.7 times 
higher than those housed in juvenile facilities.
  In recent years, the public has become more aware of the many dangers 
that lurk in correctional facilities. Hurricanes have flooded 
facilities; cold snaps have left prisoners freezing to death; and heat 
waves have killed prisoners when they lacked proper ventilation or air 
conditions. These conditions pose a special danger to youth, who do not 
have the ability or experience to recognize that they are in immediate 
danger.
  While natural disasters can pose an extraordinary risk to youth, 
prison life itself may also pose life-threatening dangers. Adolescents 
incarcerated with adults are also more prone to both physical and 
mental abuse. Youth are 50 percent more likely to be physically 
assaulted when they are housed in adult facilities than in juvenile 
facilities.
  Taken together, most incarcerated youth are simply not able to 
recognize or to effectively communicate when their prison conditions 
become dangerous or unconstitutionally deficient.
  There remains little doubt that the current process needs to be 
changed.
  This bill proposes a modest reform to the Prison Litigation Reform 
Act. It simply exempts youth in correctional facilities from having to 
comply with technical grievance procedures before they can go to court 
to challenge the unconstitutional conditions of their confinement. 
While I would like to see us do much more to protect incarcerated 
youth, this bill is a necessary first step.
  I thank Ms. Scanlon and Mr. Armstrong for introducing this bipartisan 
legislation, and I urge all Members to support it.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time 
as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 961, the Justice for Juveniles 
Act. This bill eliminates some of the administrative hurdles for 
juvenile prisoners seeking relief in Federal court.
  Juvenile offenders often lack the knowledge to pursue and exhaust all 
the complex administrative rules and grievance procedures in 
correctional facilities. H.R. 961 will address that problem by 
providing juvenile offenders with quicker access to courts when they 
feel they are being abused or mistreated.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this bill, 
and I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
Pennsylvania (Ms. Scanlon).
  Ms. SCANLON. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to be here today to advance the 
Justice for Juveniles Act. I thank Chairman Nadler, Leader Hoyer, and 
my colleague, Congressman Armstrong, for their support and 
partnership on this effort.

  The Prison Litigation Reform Act, or PLRA, was passed in 1996 in an 
effort to decrease so-called frivolous lawsuits brought by prisoners. 
Chief among the PLRA's mandates was a requirement that before seeking 
relief for civil rights violations in court, a detained person must 
exhaust administrative remedies.
  Whatever the merits of that underlying legislation, we now have broad 
bipartisan agreement that the language is overbroad in its application 
to juveniles.
  Studies have consistently shown that juveniles are both more likely 
to be abused while in detention and less likely to navigate the 
administrative remedies that bar them from seeking relief.
  For those of us who have kids or who have worked with children, it is 
easy to imagine the difficulty a young person in detention might have 
navigating complex legal systems necessary to raise a complaint.
  Young people in the criminal or juvenile justice system are more 
likely than not to be functionally illiterate, and science has shown 
that the brain is not fully developed until a person is in their mid-
twenties. It is one of the many reasons our justice system makes a 
distinction between juvenile and adult offenses.
  That is what we hope to acknowledge with the Justice for Juveniles 
Act by exempting juveniles from the requirements of the PLRA.
  In addition, the PLRA also limits the kind of relief that juveniles 
might seek for civil rights violations while in detention. They cannot 
seek relief now for emotional injuries without physical ones as well, 
but studies show that youth are especially prone to psychological 
injury and abuse, which they often face in detention.
  Finally, the PLRA limits the recovery of attorney's fees in such 
cases. Again, juveniles are less likely to have

[[Page H2960]]

independent resources to fund an attorney, so that makes it harder for 
young people to find an attorney to vindicate their rights.
  To those who might question whether we need to correct the PLRA, I 
offer the story of the Glen Mills Schools, which inspired this bill.
  For almost 200 years, youth from across the United States were sent 
to Glen Mills when they ran afoul of the law. But the school's bucolic 
campus and renowned athletic teams masked serious daily violence 
inflicted upon children placed there.
  An explosive 2019 report by The Philadelphia Inquirer revealed years 
of sexual, physical, and psychological abuse of the young residents, 
including broken bones, threats of retaliation, and sustained physical 
assaults at the hands of staff members. Although the stories from Glen 
Mills are heartbreaking, they are not unique.

                              {time}  1615

  Reports show that mistreatment of young people in juvenile facilities 
happens all the time across the country.
  Just this past March, despite the recent example of Glen Mills, 
children were removed from yet another juvenile detention facility, 
just a few miles away, after horrifying new allegations of abuse.
  This commonsense, bipartisan legislation passed unanimously on the 
House floor last Congress and has the support of over 60 organizations.
  I, again, thank Chairman Nadler and the committee members and staff 
who helped advance this bill, and I thank the dedicated leadership team 
who brought the bill to the floor.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this important 
legislation again.
  Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of 
my time.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished 
gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the manager and the chairman of 
the full committee, Committee on the Judiciary, and to the manager for 
our friends on the other side of the aisle.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 961, the Justice for 
Juveniles Act.
  This is very close to my heart as the chair of the Judiciary 
Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security working on 
these juvenile justice issues. And this is a necessary and important 
bipartisan bill that will save incarcerated young persons' lives.
  As indicated, chairing the subcommittee, we recently held a hearing 
titled, ``Juvenile Justice Pipeline and the Road Back to Integration.'' 
I thank the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Scanlon) for this very 
effective and important initiative.
  During the hearing, we heard testimony from witness after witness who 
acknowledged the body of scientific research that has been embraced by 
experts and the Supreme Court--and that I have known and seen over the 
years as we have written legislation--demonstrating that juveniles do 
not have the same cognitive and emotional maturity as adults.
  In fact, there is data that says that the brain does not fully mature 
until age 25. This bill makes a good change to the Prison Litigation 
Reform Act to take into account that the overwhelming majority of 
juveniles cannot comply with the law's complex grievance procedures by 
themselves. This bill is an important bipartisan step to ensuring 
incarcerated juveniles are rehabilitated and given the best chance 
possible to reintegrate into society.
  Just some statistics that I saw recently when I received a note about 
a graduation of foster children from high school, saying about 60 
percent of those children not having a complete opportunity in life did 
not graduate from high school. And so these children wind up in these 
facilities. They should not; they should have a life. And therefore, we 
should be able--not associating foster care children with those 
incarcerated--but we do know the susceptibility to these children and 
others who don't have a steady hand in their life. So this is an 
important step.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague on the Subcommittee on Crime, 
Terrorism, and Homeland Security, Representative Mary Gay Scanlon, for 
authoring this bill.
  As I worked on this legislation, it is important to note that to deal 
with a grievance system, it requires an understanding of the grievance 
process. But on a more basic level, it requires that an incarcerated 
person be able to read.
  According to one study, we know that incarcerated youth are 
functionally illiterate in many instances, and the baseline reading 
levels vary from grade 1 to 6. That is a plague, if you will, on 
children in our society that can have a bright and wonderful life.
  In addition, approximately 70 percent of incarcerated juveniles have 
at least one learning disability. And we know that because of what 
happens in schools in the recently changed State laws where juveniles 
have been sent from the schoolhouse to juvenile detention.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the 
gentlewoman from Texas.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, this alone justifies the changes in the 
bill, which simply allow incarcerated juveniles to go directly to court 
to have serious deficiencies in their incarceration, including 
allegations of assault, corrected.
  As I said, I thank my colleague, Representative Mary Gay Scanlon. As 
I work on legislation to achieve more extensive juvenile justice 
reform, I support the passage of this bill--commonsense, overdue--and 
ask that my colleagues support this as well.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 961, the ``Justice for 
Juveniles Act.'' This is a necessary and important bipartisan bill that 
will save incarcerated young people's lives.
  The Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security Subcommittee, which I 
chair, recently held a hearing titled the ``Juvenile Justice Pipeline 
and the Road Back to Integration.''
  During the hearing, we heard testimony from witness after witness who 
acknowledged the body of scientific research, that has been embraced by 
experts and the Supreme Court, demonstrating that juveniles do not have 
the same cognitive and emotional maturity as adults.
  This bill makes a modest change to the Prison Litigation Reform Act 
to take into account that the overwhelming majority of juveniles cannot 
comply with the law's complex grievance procedures.
  These requirements not only require an understanding of the grievance 
process, but on a more basic level, require that an incarcerated person 
be able to read. According to one study, among incarcerated youth, 85 
percent are functionally illiterate, and the ``baseline reading levels 
var[y] from grade 1 to grade 6.''
  In addition, approximately 70 percent of incarcerated juveniles have 
at least one learning disability.
  This alone justifies the changes in the bill, which simply allow 
incarcerated juveniles to go directly to court to have serious 
deficiencies in their incarceration, including allegations of assault, 
corrected.
  This bill is a small but important bipartisan step to ensuring 
incarcerated juveniles are rehabilitated and given the best chance 
possible to reintegrate into society.
  I thank my colleague on the Crime Subcommittee, Representative Mary 
Gay Scanlon, for authoring this bill.
  As I work on legislation to achieve more extensive juvenile justice 
reform, I support passage of this bill today and ask that my colleagues 
do the same.
  Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time 
as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I take a moment to note my agreement with the 
gentlewoman from Texas' point, that the cognition of juveniles is not 
fully developed and that they should not be called upon to make 
unalterable, lifelong decisions under those circumstances.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Cicilline).
  Mr. CICILLINE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, our prison systems are ideally meant to rehabilitate, 
but all too often, they do exactly the opposite. They are frequently 
home to widespread, horrible abuse, including physical and sexual 
violence and unsanitary living conditions.
  It is unacceptable to subject any person to such conditions--but, 
particularly, our youth to this kind of mistreatment. Our system makes 
it incredibly difficult for young people to

[[Page H2961]]

file a legal complaint with huge burdens imposed if they want to file a 
lawsuit, and major barriers to legal representation.
  Mr. Speaker, I was a public defender here in Washington, D.C., at the 
start of my career, and I am certain that this is no way to treat 
children that we are trying to rehabilitate and prepare for society and 
prepare for success in their communities.
  These circumstances only make it more difficult for young people and 
children and, in fact, they keep them in abusive and delinquency 
cycles.
  This legislation, however, will remove some of those barriers for 
incarcerated juveniles to take their abusers to court and to seek 
remedies for mistreatment by their correctional institutions. This bill 
will take us one step closer to desperately needed reform in our 
criminal justice system and will help to protect our incarcerated 
youth.
  Mr. Speaker, I really thank and applaud Congresswoman Scanlon for 
this important and bipartisan legislation, and it is my honor to 
support it today.
  Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of 
my time.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers, and I reserve 
the balance of my time.
  Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to 
support this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I join the gentleman in urging Members to 
support this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler) that the House suspend the rules 
and pass the bill, H.R. 961, as amended.
  The question was taken.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds 
being in the affirmative, the ayes have it.
  MR. ROSENDALE. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to section 3(s) of House Resolution 
8, the yeas and nays are ordered.
  Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further proceedings on this motion 
are postponed.

                          ____________________