Bronx: Older man with gray beard, mustache in dark jacket, ballcap, has arm around young man in blue T-shirt.

Bronx Program Wins $1 Million to Replicate Detention Alternative in Another City

A Bronx nonprofit will receive a $1 million grant from The Rockefeller Foundation and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to research, document and expand its youth violence prevention and alternative-to-incarceration programming to another U.S. city. Supporters of the model hope it will set a new standard for the rest of the nation.

trauma: Police officers reads law to female driver

From Trauma to Trust: New Approaches to Police Accountability

A Newark, N.J., police officer talks about the hostility she experiences from local residents. She is pained that the community won’t look past her uniform — and the assumptions they attach to it — to see that she’s a good person wanting to help.

Young woman speaking at lectern

Equipping Youth to Be Advocates Cannot Be Optional, Baltimore Experience Shows

I vividly remember the Maryland State Senate hearings on Feb. 1, 2018. I was hardly three weeks into my first legislative session, preparing to give my first-ever testimony against a bill egregious to youth justice reform, while simultaneously teaching myself how one even becomes an “Annapolis advocate.”

raise the age: Young people sit in small courtroom.

New York Raise The Age Is Making Strides Where It Counts

Four days after New York’s new Raise the Age law began to be implemented in October, I was fortunate to be invited to observe the Youthpart in Brooklyn. The Youthpart is a hybrid court that was created to address 16- and 17-year-olds charged with felonies.

Stressed african-american man holding his head, sitting alone on stairs with notebook and pen.

Making Sense of an Utterly Senseless World

As I try to grapple with the effects of PTSD and other effects of trauma I wanted to paint a very vivid picture of what a soul on fire looks like and feels like. Through poetry I am able to do this, so far after the actual experience of living in hell and chaos.

Schedule statistics data, analytical indicator sci-fi background

Data Collection, Sharing Crucial in Developing School-justice Partnerships

The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges released a bulletin last October that details the importance of data in developing effective school-justice partnerships. In the report, NCJFCJ laments that “poor data collection and management strategies” often hamper the effectiveness of school-justice partnerships aimed at disrupting the school-to-prison-pipeline.

cropped image of african american prisoner reading book

Higher Education in Prison Crucial to Teaching About Oppression, Society

Current conversations about the benefits of providing higher education in correctional facilities revolve primarily around the notion that a postsecondary credential will improve a formerly incarcerated person’s chances of finding employment post-release. There is copious research that demonstrates this phenomenon.

police shootings: Man in denim jacket over dark suit sniffs flower next to casket covered with flowers.

New York Activist Against Police Shootings Laid to Rest

On Sept. 27, 1994, Nicholas Heyward Sr.’s life changed. His 13-year-old son, Nicholas Naquan Heyward Jr., was playing cops-and-robbers with a toy gun in the Gowanus Houses in Brooklyn when he was shot and killed by Brian George, a New York Police Department housing authority officer.