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...

Applications due April 8, 2022 at 11:59 pm. Click HERE for the application. The Center for Juvenile Justice Reform at Georgetown University, in partnership with the Center for Children’s Law and Policy (CCLP), the Justice Policy Institute (JPI), the Council of Juvenile Justice Administrators (CJJA), and Arnold Ventures, is pleased to announce a request for applications for the Ending Isolation in Youth Facilities Certificate Program. This will be the second time we are offering this...

By Julie Reynolds Martinez and Jeremy Loudenback, Photo: Josie Lepe, The Imprint, March 9, 2022 Katherine Lucero — a daughter of farmworkers and longtime juvenile court judge who calls for compassion and support rather than jail and foster care — is now leading the most populous state toward a once-unimaginable goal: a future without youth prisons. In a historic shift aimed at reversing decades of poor outcomes for youth offenders and public safety, California is closing its Division of...

Chronic stress, trauma exposure, frequent threats of violence and the relentless grind of gun crimes’ impact: A recently-released report from the University of Illinois Chicago reveals in stark terms the strain and struggles that many frontline violence prevention workers face as they try to combat gun violence. In 2022, Chicago is coming off another record year of homicides, similar to many other major cities across the U.S. 797 people were killed in 2021 with 3,677 non-fatal shootings—an...

From Equal Justice Initiative, February 4, 2022 The New Jersey Supreme Court has ruled that imposing a mandatory minimum sentence of 30 years on a child is unconstitutional. People sentenced when they were children are now entitled to have their sentences reviewed after 20 years. The court’s decision, issued in January, combined two cases in which children were sentenced under a New Jersey statute that required them to serve a minimum of 30 years without any chance for parole. James Comer...

In collaboration with the Annie E. Casey Foundation and Child Focus, Child Trends has developed the STRENGTH principles to serve youth in the child welfare and justice systems in positive, developmentally appropriate ways. The principles help systems that serve children and young adults apply Positive Youth Development approaches, focus on equity and inclusion, and involve communities and families. More information is available here: Integrating Positive Youth Development and Racial Equity,...

By JJIE Staff, Photo: Richard Oldroyd/Shutterstock, Juvenile Justice Information Exchage, January 26, 2022 Death rates were 5.9 times higher for previously incarcerated 11- to 21-year-olds in Ohio than in that state’s general population of youth enrolled in Medicaid health insurance for low-income people, according to a study recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association’s JAMA Open Network. In a finding researchers said was especially startling, formerly incarcerated...

Intro to Trauma Informed Care is for YOU! Designed to help you implement a trauma-informed approach throughout your organization, this live webinar provides an introductory understanding, and will equip you with tools you can use right away.

Free educational Webinar invite! Topic: Ending Mass Incarceration and Uniting families Join WashingtonCAN on 12/6 and 12/9 to learn about a tool that could help your loved one get resentenced and released early in Washington State! My name is Rashell and I’m the Lead Organizer with Washington Community Action Network (WashingtonCAN), a grassroots organization with 44,000 members that advocates for mass liberation and an end to mass incarceration, through lobbying, advocacy, and grassroots...

Hinton, Henderson, and Reed start at the beginning, showing how the abolition of slavery led to a certain insidious ingenuity for Southern lawmakers, who devised “unique forms of policing, sentencing and confinement” in order to “capitalize on a loophole in the 13 th Amendment that states citizens cannot be enslaved unless convicted of a crime.” The resulting Black Codes, Vagrancy Laws, and Convict Leasing ensured that law enforcement would aggressively target newly freed Black people. The...

Resource Description Is a virtual guide that walks through Making Think Trauma Stick: A Guide to Training and Implementation , developed by the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN). This guide helps support the process of implementation at your organization, introduces key factors and activities to engage in before, during, and after the full Think Trauma training, and includes tips and questions to utilize along the way. Please click HERE to access the National Child Traumatic...

Please join us for a new series entitled: Trauma-Informed Criminal Justice. This monthly virtual Zoom series will feature conversations facilitated by Porter Jennings-McGarity, PACEs Connection’s criminal justice consultant, with special guests to discuss the need for trauma-informed criminal justice system reform. Using a PACEs-science lens, this series will examine the relationship between trauma and the criminal justice system, what needs changing, and strategies being used in this area...