“We can’t – we cannot – give up on our kids.”
– District court judge Larry Brown, Jr.
More than two dozen Alamance County officials in law enforcement, education, courts, social services, and nonprofit organizations gathered at Graham Civic Center on Tuesday afternoon to discuss the reasons why children end up in the juvenile justice system and what can be done to deter them from reoffending.
The roundtable discussion was moderated by Alamance County district court judge Larry Brown, Jr. and Alamance County commissioner Pam Thompson, who serves on the county’s Juvenile Crime Prevention Council (JCPC).
Statistics show that children who end up in the juvenile court system are 40 percent more likely to reoffend as adults, Brown said at the outset of the discussion.
Several Alamance-Burlington school officials also attended the roundtable discussion Tuesday afternoon, including: superintendent Dr. Aaron Fleming; Greg Holland, executive director of school administration, who oversees school assignment for ABSS students; school board chairman Sandy Ellington Graves and vice chairman Dan Ingle, who represents the board on JCPC; and school board member Avery Wagoner.
Corporal W.D. Lowe of the Alamance County sheriff’s office, who also serves as a School Resource Officer for ABSS, was also present for the discussion, along with Alamance County assistant district attorney Morgan Whitney, who handles most juvenile court cases; Amanda Farris, a chief court counselor for the state division of juvenile justice; and representatives from more than a dozen local agencies and nonprofits that serve children who end up in the juvenile crime system.
In 2025, a total of 623 criminal complaints (i.e., charges) were filed against juveniles in Alamance County. The county had a total population of 18,482 juveniles between the ages of 10 and 17, which are the age ranges at which children who break the law may be subject to the juvenile justice system, according to the North Carolina Department of Public Safety (DPS), which oversees the Division of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
The number of criminal complaints filed against juveniles in Alamance County in 2025 reflected a 46 percent reduction from 2024, when 1,145 complaints were filed against juveniles in the county, according to DPS. (There were 965 complaints filed in 2023, and 630 in 2022).
A state law that took effect in December 2021 increased the minimum age at which children may be subject to the juvenile justice system from six to 10 years old, though there are exceptions for offenses committed by eight- and nine-year-old juveniles who are charged with felonies or have previously been “adjudicated delinquent” (i.e., convicted of a criminal offense), according to the School of Government at UNC-Chapel Hill.
Tuesday’s discussion also focused on other dimensions of juvenile justice such as: whether state and county funding should be directed toward juvenile crime prevention, versus punishment; factors that lead to involvement in the juvenile justice system; and how children as young as six years old are struggling with substance abuse.
Among the complaints filed against juveniles in Alamance County in 2025, 16 involved “violent” Class A to E felonies, such as: first-degree murder; rape and other types of sexual offenses; armed robbery; and assault with a deadly weapon, according to DPS. A total of 189 cases involving juveniles under the age of 18 involved “serious class” offenses such as assault with a deadly weapon.
Another 189 complaints filed against juveniles in Alamance County in 2025 were for Class H and Class I felonies (such as felony larceny, breaking and entering, and drug possession) and Class A1 misdemeanors, which include offenses such as assault with a deadly weapon, assault inflicting serious injury, and sexual abuse , according to DPS.
Four cases against Alamance County juveniles were tried in superior court in 2025, according to DPS.
In a subsequent interview with The Alamance News, Brown said that a court diversion program for first-time juvenile offenders that multiple agencies started several years ago appears to have led to a subsequent reduction in recidivism.
Program for first-time juvenile offenders shows signs of reduction in recidivism
Since its inception, a total of 42 juveniles have successfully completed the program, and of those, only two juveniles (or about 5 percent) have subsequently reoffended, Brown said in the interview Tuesday afternoon.
The county’s district court system joined with the Alamance County’s sheriff’s office, the county’s municipal police departments, Alamance Community College, Roots and Wings of Person County, and ABSS in 2023 to establish the Alamance Juvenile Opportunity Bridge (AJOB) program.
AJOB enables first-time juveniles 14 and 17 who are either on probation for or charged with misdemeanor offenses to take up to 20 hours’ of courses at ACC in lieu of community service. The program consists of eight-week “course modules” in ACC’s electrical, HVAC, plumbing, nursing, cosmetology, automotive technology, and horticultural programs, as well as soft skills such as resume drafting, Brown told the newspaper Tuesday.
AJOB enables juvenile defendants to earn professional certification and finish the program with marketable skills that are in high demand among employers in Alamance County, as it was outlined when it was established.
AJOB was originally funded by a $60,000 grant from Impact Alamance. The program recently received a state grant of approximately $100,000 through the Governor’s Crime Commission, Brown told the newspaper.
By comparison, it costs $141,000 for every juvenile who is detained at one of 13 juvenile facilities (which DPS terms “youth development centers”) in the state, Farris said Tuesday.
Last year, 27 juvenile defendants from Alamance County were detained at one of the state’s juvenile detention centers, according to the latest available data from DPS.
‘Our juvenile problem is a family problem’
Several of the discussion’s participants said part of the reason why children end up in the juvenile justice system is they don’t feel seen or heard by adults.
Jocelyn Williams, a systems of care coordinator for Vaya Health, said Tuesday, “They are leaning on each other because they don’t feel like they have adults to listen.”
Thompson pointed out that because adolescent brains are still developing, they lack impulse control that would enable them to grasp the consequences of criminal behavior.
“Do people really understand the cost of youth in trouble? We hear ‘taxpayer’ all the time, especially during election years. At the same time, we can never put a cost on a kid’s head and think that is normal.”
– Alamance County commissioner Pam Thompson
“Do people really understand the cost of youth in trouble?” Thompson asked. “We hear ‘taxpayer’ all the time, especially during election years. At the same time, we can never put a cost on a kid’s head and think that is normal.”
Ronnie Dunevant, who is the director of Roots & Wings of Person County, which has an office on South Mebane Street in Burlington, said his organization is seeing children as young as six years old who are vaping. “It is deep in the culture of the school,” he said.
Lowe said that kids originally started with nicotine vapes, or battery-operated smoking devices, but now they’re using vapes to smoke tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the primary psychoactive compound in cannabis. “We’re starting to find more and more of THC, or marijuana, vapes,” he said.
Dunevant cited ease of access – via the internet, where children can get almost anything they want – as part of the root of that problem. “They often indicate it hides the pain,” he said.
“We have received calls from schools that have found six-year-olds in the bathroom vaping. We have been in homes that look like they should’ve been condemned. . . The number one complaint in the state [is] related to gun violence.
“Gun violence isn’t being thought of as seriously as it should be. What used to be fists are now guns.
“Our juvenile problem is a family problem, bottom line,” Dunevant told the group.”
– Ronnie Dunevant, director of Roots & Wings
“We have received calls from schools that have found six-year-olds in the bathroom vaping,” Dunevant said.”We have been in homes that look like they should’ve been condemned. . . The number one complaint in the state [is] related to gun violence.”
Another trend in juvenile crime is what Dunevant termed “popping locks,” whereby juveniles go into apartment complexes and housing developments and try car doors, looking for unlocked vehicles, and sometimes get guns that way.
Gun violence isn’t being thought of as seriously as it should be,” he said. “What used to be fists are now guns.”
That mindset is reinforced by music videos and other media that show “celebrities brandishing” guns, which glamorizes and normalizes it, he said. “Our juvenile problem is a family problem, bottom line,” Dunevant told the group.
“We don’t think about where these kids live every day. . . We think they’re just some bad [expletive] kids. That’s not it at all.”
– Jocelyn Williams
‘You can tell when a parent just does not give a damn’
“We don’t think about where these kids live every day,” said Williams. If a parent isn’t there to tell a child to get out of bed, to go to school, to tell a child she looks beautiful, or to care about the child’s basic hygiene needs, “then that’s their baseline,” she said. “We think they’re just some bad [expletive] kids. That’s not it at all.”
She and other participants agreed that lack of communication, particularly face-to-face conversations, creates isolation that can lead children down the wrong path.
“Kids don’t have that one person they can turn to and say, ‘I’m having a bad day,” Williams said. She said feedback gathered during wellness groups that Impact Alamance recently hosted had revealed some of the issues that children worry most about: “Not being killed or robbed”; being seen; and having someplace to go in a crisis.
“You’re exactly right,” said Ingle, who is a retired Elon police chief with more than 40 years’ experience in law enforcement. “You hit the nail on the head. If you think back to 2020, 2021, where were they then? They lost their teachers [when classes went online]. They were sitting in front of a computer. . . And it hurt them.”
Whitney, the assistant D.A., said some of the reasons are self-evident in juvenile court, which is held on Tuesdays in the second-floor courtroom inside the county office building along West Elm Street in Graham.
“I go home most Tuesdays [AFTER BEING IN JUVENILE COURT] in a funk. It’s a lack of family structure that’s a problem. Most of the time, when you get into court, you can tell when a parent just does not give a damn.”
– AsSISTANT DISTRICT ATTORNEY mORGAN WHITNEY
“I go home most Tuesdays in a funk,” Whitney said. “It’s a lack of family structure that’s a problem. Most of the time, when you get into court, you can tell when a parent just does not give a damn.”
“We are dealing with some complex issues. . . These kids, as you mentioned, allegations of rape, of guns and robberies – these are serious issues. [Juvenile court] is packed all day.”
– District court judge Larry Brown, Jr.
Brown, for his part, encouraged leaders to come to juvenile court on Tuesdays. “We are dealing with some complex issues…These kids, as you mentioned, allegations of rape, of guns and robberies – these are serious issues,” he said. “[Juvenile court] is packed all day.”
Teresa Cuthbertson, program manager for the Guilford County Juvenile Detention Center, who was asked to participate because she helps oversee the juvenile facility closest to Alamance County, also weighed in.
“Punishment has proven not to be that effective,” Cuthbertson said Tuesday. “You’re in a box, dealing with the grief, trauma…There has to be another measure. You can’t just push them off.”
School board member Avery Wagoner recalled that he had “made some really bad choices” while growing up in a single-parent home. He credited his athletic coaches and school mentors with setting him on the right path. “Those problems are magnified now,” he acknowledged.
In a subsequent interview with the newspaper, Thompson, who organized the roundtable discussion, said she wanted ABSS officials to “hear what children are experiencing and how important education is.” She said she hopes to continue the conversations at least once a quarter, if not bimonthly, to identify strategies and resources that could reverse existing trends in juvenile crime.
Brown said he believes public funding should be invested on the front end rather than the back end – meaning prevention rather than punishment – but stressed that juveniles must be held accountable if they do commit a crime.
“We can’t – we cannot – give up on our kids,” Brown told the group Tuesday afternoon.
