For months we have been investigating problems associated with troubled youth in the state of Wyoming. Recently we published a series of reports on How to Keep Kids Out of Jail. Within this series is a piece focusing on the presence of School Resource Officers increasingly in schools. An inflammatory news article appeared in the press just before C...

According to juvenile justice advocates such as the ACLU, the School to Prison Pipeline prioritizes incarceration over education due to several factors including failing public schools, zero tolerance policies, increased reliance on police for school discipline, "alternative schools" for disciplinary problem students, court involvement and juvenile...

The juvenile justice system in Wyoming is unique in the country. It would be pleasing to have a juvenile justice system unique due to its stellar qualities, but unfortunately, Wyoming stands alone based on its failure to achieve even the most basic expectations standard in juvenile justice systems in the rest of the country. One of Wyoming's diverg...

I intended this to be an upbeat resource-rich article highlighting success stories, strategies and promising new approaches to keep children out of the juvenile justice system. In the course of researching for this paper I certainly did find some promising trends and programs and I will mention them and explain why they offer exciting possibilities...

The Legislative Service Office continues to post bills that will be introduced next month when the Wyoming Legislature convenes for the 2015 General Session. Recent appearances include some proposed joint resolutions. On the House side so far there is a proposed amendment to the Wyoming Constitution that would make the Wyoming superintendent of sch...

Steve Klein and Glenn Woods from Boldrepublic.com discuss civil asset forfeiture in Wyoming and Senate File 14 (2015), which would reform Wyoming law to only allow for forfeiture of property after owners are convicted of a crime. 

In October, comedian John Oliver discussed the practice of civil asset forfeiture on his HBO program "Last Week Tonight." His bit closed with a parody of the show "Law & Order," featuring a police detective interrogating a pile of money and another running in dramatic slow motion with a seized toaster. Unfortunately, in real life civil forfeitu...

Jason Gay and Glenn Woods from Boldrepublic.com discuss the federal debt and whether the U.S. can continue to spend nearly $4 trillion annually without the debt finally crushing the economy. 

In late September I submitted comments to the Wyoming Department of Administration and Information ("A&I") opposing two proposed changes to the State of Wyoming Personnel Rules. My memo discussed two vague and overbroad provisions, one which could lead to unconstitutional abridgements of free speech and the other which unequivocally punished ap...

The state government's pending revenue problems, which I pointed to recently, are now beginning to make real headlines. On Sunday the Casper Star Tribune made its contribution: Dear rest of the country: Spare a thought for oil country. Your cheap gas comes at a cost. The national average gas price hit $2.75 a gallon last week, the lowest price for ...