DMC: Two young men in sweatshirts, smiling, pose with smiling blonde woman in black suit and woman in white jacket, black pants with red braids.

OJJDP’s New Definition of DMC Raises Many Questions for Harp at Conference

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By the time she was posing for pictures on the stage of a Hyatt Regency Washington ballroom just blocks from the Capitol with two teenagers with oversized black hoodies that had the words “We Are Not Gang Members” emblazoned on them, the Trump appointee to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention had done a lot of explaining.

POPS: Man with white hair, glasses, light blue shirt standing against whiteboard talks to high school students sitting at individual desks.

Young Family of Prisoners Find Safe Space at POPS in LA High Schools

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It’s lunchtime on a recent Wednesday at Venice High School. Twenty or so students are sitting at their desks with full plates of food looking up at the teacher. No one is looking at their phones. They listen attentively to the man up front, who is giving them a writing prompt.

Homelessness: Smiling young woman with short dark hair, dark patterned T-shirt and dark pants sits partly in sun on stoop; open mailbox, white fence, street visible on left.

How Homelessness Crisis in LA Affects Aged-out Foster Youth

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Doniesha Thomas is in her bedroom, crouching on the floor and peering into a pet carrier that appears empty. “He’s in there, all the way back,” she said, reaching in to find the kitten she rescued from a nearby vacant lot the day before, though she says she dislikes cats.

Fewer DACA Students Enrolling in California Colleges

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With President Donald Trump announcing his intent to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, college students in California fear this will affect their status in the United States.

Gun control: Colorful mural shows positive slogans, young man holding up tiny people on his hands, young woman blowing the seeds off a puffball.

Brooklyn Students Use ‘Theatre of the Oppressed’ to Explore Solutions to Gun Violence

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It’s early evening on a warm Tuesday in March, and a handful of teenagers are commanding rapt attention in a corner of a Chelsea art gallery. They’ve just performed a short theater piece of their own devising, an exploration of gun violence and the twisting, ricocheting trajectory that one bullet can follow through a community.