By The Annie E. Casey Foundation, October 14, 2021
Who are some of the national nonprofit organizations at the forefront of youth justice reform? How can someone support efforts to ensure that young people exposed to the legal system are able to realize their potential?
The Annie E. Casey Foundation supports organizations that are exploring alternative visions for how our country responds to youth misbehavior. The following are advocates for replacing a culture of surveillance, punishment and confinement with more effective responses when young people violate the law, even in serious and violent ways. These responses would keep more young people away from the formal juvenile justice system and support those youth who do enter the system with opportunities and connections related to their personal growth, positive behavior change and long-term success.
The organizations on this list work nationally or in multiple jurisdictions and are part of a movement to make youth justice better and more equitable, especially for the Black, Latino and Indigenous young people who are consistently overrepresented in the nation’s courtrooms and juvenile facilities. Several began as locally focused nonprofits and have grown to help people outside their jurisdictions. “Innovation happens in communities, and one way innovation spreads is when once-local organizations bring new models and ways of thinking to other places,” says Nate Balis, director of the Foundation’s Juvenile Justice Strategy Group.
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