Photo by PoPville flickr user philliefan99
Via MPD, From an Andrew Fois, Office of the Attorney General, District of Columbia Government:
I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding of the law regarding the penalty structure for juvenile offenders. There is no one sentence for each crime and certainly not a two –week maximum for robbery. The possible disposition (sentence in juvenile) for any offense is the same – whether the offense is robbery, shoplifting, UUV (aka Stolen Vehicle), burglary, murder, etc. The court may place a delinquent juvenile on probation for a period of up to one year (which can be extended), or the court may commit the delinquent juvenile to DYRS for a period up to the juvenile’s 21st birthday. When the court commits a juvenile to DYRS, DYRS may place him in any number of placement types – it could be secure, a group home, the juvenile’s own home, etc. How long all this can last, of course, depends on the age of the juvenile adjudicated delinquent.