room confinement: The door to a cell.

Reducing Room Confinement of Youth in Custody: A Roadmap

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In recent years, juvenile justice practitioners, researchers and advocates have raised awareness of the harms of room confinement or isolation of youth in detention and residential facilities. Research and empirical knowledge teach us that the practice can negatively impact youth’s developing brains and emotional health, impair youth’s relationships with staff, limit youth’s access to important programming and treatment, and ultimately lead to unsafe facility environments.

Florida: emotional Image of a beautiful woman of color

Florida Mother Asks Why We Pull Out the Adult Card For Crimes

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My daughter Taylor has been raised in adult jails and prisons since she was 15. She is now 19 and it will be another six years before she can come home. At that point, as she navigates being an adult in a world she’s never known, she’ll carry the burden of probation until she’s 35.

marijuana: young guy smoking a rolled joint

Myths About Marijuana Use Among Public Need to Be Dispelled

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As the United States grapples with how to best address juvenile and youthful offenders, criminal justice reform is focusing on the best avenues for dealing with low-level drug possession offenses. Organizations that research best practices with youthful offenders, such as the National Institute on Drug Abuse, suggest that the most effective approach is to reduce incarceration in favor of family- and community-based interventions.

CSJ’s Founder Leonard Witt Retires

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It’s been a week of major transitions for the Center for Sustainable Journalism (CSJ), which publishes the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (JJIE) and Youth Today.

Florida Death Penalty, Trying Children As Adults Means Not Believing People Can Redeem Themselves

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One of the basic questions we must ask ourselves when considering criminal justice reform is: Do we really believe that people are redeemable? Our response drives our personal philosophies on how justice systems should look. As long as there is debate about humans’ ability to reform, we will not have agreement as a society about what constitutes justice.

Arizona: Hopeless teen sitting on steps

Arizona’s Gault Progress Varies Greatly By County, But Reforms Underway

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In 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that children in juvenile court must receive due process protections, including the right to counsel. The case, In re Gault, which originated in Gila County, Ariz., created the foundation of juvenile defense as we know it today. No longer would children face the awesome power of the state and the prospect of losing their liberty without benefitting from “the guiding hand of counsel.”

Netflix: 5 young men with arms around each other in front of curtain.

Netflix Show an Inside Look at Power of Prosecutors, Media in Youth Justice Cases

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Netflix’s highly anticipated limited series, Ava DuVernay's "When They See Us" is now out. It chronicles the story of the infamous Central Park Five case: how five teenage boys of color from Harlem were wrongly convicted of the rape of a white woman in 1989 and their 25-year fight for justice.

As California Youth Crime Plummets, Need For Innovative Re-engagement Strategies Rises

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I’ve argued that notions demeaning the “teenage brain,” “adolescent risk,” and “crime-prone youth” are just simplistic adult prejudices with no scientific basis that hamper understanding of the root conditions and individual situations that drive challenges affecting youth. However, youths do deserve singular considerations in the justice system.

girls and women: Sad teenage girl looking thoughtful leaning head against wall

Measuring the Wrong Things: Incarcerated Girls Are Not ‘Statistically Insignificant’

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Last month the Stoneleigh Foundation and the Maternity Care Coalition held a policy forum intended to highlight the extent to which the U.S. overincarceration crisis is defined in terms of boys and men, often giving short shrift to the plight of justice-involved girls and women. The plenary sessions and workshops challenged attendees to think about how practice and policy might be altered to better serve women and girls.