Prison detainees work at desk in a prison classroom with a chalkboard.

Analysis: Former juvenile lifers cite strengths and weaknesses of reentry preparation

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Researchers found almost all of 112 Philadelphians who have been released from lifetime prison sentences said they participated in some form of prison programming, but 53 percent reported having been restricted from vocational programs such as barbering (Pennsylvania prioritizes people who have less than five years left on their sentences for vocational training). “A lot of these guys who did end up taking advantage of the college programming were able to enroll through their perseverance as opposed to these programs being allocated for them,” said study co-author Tarika Daftary-Kapur, professor of justice studies at Montclair State University in New Jersey, which conducted the survey.

Young man wears goggles and tinkers with lab equipment

Opinion: Apprenticeships should be part of programming for juvenile offenders

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A stolen bike. A schoolyard tussle complete with shiners. A neighbor’s garage door graffitied. These seemingly minor incidents can start a young person down the road to delinquency. And once down that road, some young people will find themselves in the juvenile justice system.

Too many locked doors report: young minority youth leaning sadly against chainlink fence

Report: The scope of youth confinement is vastly understated

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"The United States incarcerates an alarming number of children and adolescents every year. Disproportionately, they are youth of color.

Given the short- and long-term damages stemming from youth out of home placement, it is vital to understand its true scope. In 2019, there were more than 240,000 instances of a young person detained, committed, or both in the juvenile justice system. However, youth incarceration is typically measured via a one-day count taken in late October. This metric vastly understates its footprint: at least 80% of incarcerated youth are excluded from the one-day count..."

LOGO Natinal Urban League red on white

Career Opportunity: National Urban League, Education and Youth Program, director of education

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The National Urban League (NUL) Education and Youth department seeks a Director of Education and Youth Development (EYD). Under the general supervision of the Vice President for Access & Opportunity, with latitude to exercise independent judgment, the Director of  Education and Youth Development provides leadership, guidance, and overall direction to enhance the college and career readiness of African American/Black youth and similarly situated young people in urban settings. DEADLINE: April 21.

Juvenile detention rough in La. illustration of persn's silhouette sitting with head in hands in jail cell

Shackles and Solitary: Inside Louisiana’s Harshest Juvenile Lockup

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Scrambling to respond to a wave of violence and escapes from other juvenile detention facilities, Louisiana state officials quietly opened the high-security lockup last summer to regain control of the most troubled teens in their care. Instead, they created a powder keg, according to dozens of interviews, photo and video footage and hundreds of pages of incident reports, emergency response logs, emails and education records.

White woman with long dark hair sits at a round table, teaching juvenile offenders, whose faces are not fully shown, inside a New Jersey juvenile facility.

At detention facilities offering high school diplomas, college classes are seen as a next step

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Four years ago, a social worker from the Middlesex County Juvenile Detention Center asked English professor Alexandra Fields, of nearby Middlesex College, if she would be able to provide college programming for youth incarcerated at that New Jersey facility. Beyond helping them earn their high school diplomas, it offered nothing more  educationally to those graduates. In mid-February 2022, 20 young men across eight of the facilities started working on an associate’s degree from Middlesex, becoming the first such cohort in New Jersey to be on a path toward a college degree.

Person in a dark, hooded sweatshirt leans on a black outdoor fence railing,

Opinion: Effective anti-violence efforts are trauma-informed

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The past couple of years have been some of the deadliest for many major U.S. cities. Murder rates have spiked and gun sales have surged.

We want the violence to stop. However, our chosen means of addressing violence prevention are shaped by who's leading that conversation. Too often, the results of those discussions have tended to be punitive in nature, resulting in over-policing and mass incarceration. 

Gang-banger reform: Closeup profile of Kennebrew - Black man in dark-framed glasses wearing multi-color geometric print mask

A gang-banger since 8th grade, former Blood sets a new course with a former prosecutor’s help

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There is no recent official count of how many individuals have departed gang life. In 2012, the most recent year that the U.S. Department of Justice National Gang Center estimated the data, roughly 850,000 members were in some 30,700 youth gangs across the country. Those numbers decreased from 1996 through 2002, then increased steadily over the next decade. A 2014 study in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology found that 70% of gang members joined as adolescents and left before adulthood. 

Why do young people join, why do they leave and how do they stay away?

Q&A raise the age: Giselle Castro headshot - young woman with short brown hair wearing off-white suit

Q&A: Exalt’s Gisele Castro on the importance of New York’s “raise the age” law 

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Before Gisele Castro became executive director of Exalt, a New York nonprofit working to stem what she and others refer to as the school-to-prison pipeline, she spent 25 years at the Center for Alternative Sentencing and Employment Service. There, for adults convicted of crimes involving crack cocaine, she worked to arrange alternatives to incarceration. Read our interview with this "staunch supporter of New York state's 'raise-the-age' law."

Teen facilities: Young teen crouches in garden bed wearing heavy overcoat and garden gloves prepping soil.

Lawmakers, federal investigators target teen facilities billed as therapeutic but accused of abuse

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Separate investigations by the federal Government Accountability Office and Department of Health and Human Services' inspector general that were launched in 2021, are the first inquiries of their kind in more than a dozen years. Those probes target farms, boot camps and similar residential programs whose proprietors claim are therapeutic. Critics call many of those business owners profiteers, operating under the guise of treating teens with mental and/or behavioral disorders and those at-risk for involvement in the juvenile justice system.