Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/tag/restorative-justice/page/3/)
While we have made enormous progress in many states in reducing detention numbers and closing prisons, too many youth are still spending the night behind bars. Surprisingly, New Zealand provides the United States with a helpful model for effective ways to right size our system by limiting arrests.
Humans of Restorative Justice (HORJ) stories highlight the incredible individuals working to build and restore strong relationships in their communities. They are written and edited by David Levine based on interviews with real-world practitioners. This one is with Wilson Platt of Seattle.
Several years ago I wrote an opinion column about Marie Scott, a 19-year-old woman sentenced to life without parole in 1973 by the criminal justice system in Philadelphia.
Today, her co-defendant remains in prison waiting for his parole date. Leroy Saxton was 16 years old when he shot their victim to death.
The first lightbulb moment for me was when I got to attend a restorative justice training for high school students in Seattle.
From the federal level to state legislatures across the country, criminal justice reform measures are a hot topic of conversation and proposed legislation. What is often lost in those conversations are the views and voices of victims.
Humans of Restorative Justice (HORJ) stories highlight the incredible individuals working to build and restore strong relationships in their communities. They are written and edited by David Levine based on interviews with real-world practitioners. This one is with Keyonn of New York, New York.
At the end of a long week of classes, a 10th-grade girl from student government made an announcement in assembly over the buzz of 300 students. When she finished she passed the microphone to another student council member.
The juvenile justice system in the United States is ineffective, harmful and extremely expensive. It does not work, it makes youth worse, and it costs too much.
Several years ago I was running a reentry project in south Brooklyn supporting formerly incarcerated people returning to their communities. We were able to raise some funds to create a leadership development workshop.
Schools can be places of healing or they can be places of harm. There is no in-between. I came to learn this through my work as an attorney working at the intersections of youth justice and education equity. I worked in Philadelphia fighting to keep marginalized youth in schools, and to ensure that for the youth who were pushed into juvenile prisons, those prisons were held accountable for providing education.