Young people are raising their voices to create safer, healthier communities—even if they’re not old enough to vote yet. From #NeverAgain to #MeToo, young people have been at the forefront of advocacy movements for decades, their passion and idealism sparking millions of people to take action. How can we channel that energy in a way that can lead to concrete public policy change? We created Pathways to Policy to answer that question—and to support young people in their pursuit of a better...

For two decades, the number of children behind bars in the U.S. has been on the decline—but the racial disparity has been dramatically worsening, with black youth several times more likely than their white counterparts to be incarcerated. A little-known Justice Department agency is supposed to tackle this problem: the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention , which has been mandated by Congress since 1988 to try to shrink the racial gap by providing grants and training to local...

San Diego County’s four detention facilities can hold 855 young people. But on a recent Wednesday, just 311 youths were housed inside the county’s prisons and camps, said Chief Probation Officer Adolfo Gonzales. At least five to six wings of the county’s juvenile detention space are totally empty at present, he said. Just eight years ago, the number of incarcerated kids was three times as high: The average daily population in lockup stood at 1,008 for January 2010. Gonzales told me about a...

A bill that would largely exclude California youth under the age of 12 from prosecution is now headed to the desk of Gov. Jerry Brown (D) after passing out of both chambers of the state legislature. Senate Bill 439 would direct counties to seek alternatives to the juvenile justice system for children 11 and younger. State Senator Holly Mitchell (D), a co-sponsor of the legislation, hopes that the state could use a new pot of state money aimed at diverting young people from the justice system...

Skyrocketing incarceration rates, over-representation of ethnic minorities, a fixation on punishment rather than rehabilitation—this isn't describing the modern criminal justice system in the United States. It's New Zealand's in the 1980s. After watching its criminal justice system devour six times more indigenous Maori youth than their white counterparts, New Zealand passed the Children's and Young People's Well-Being Act in 1989. The legislation, which limited police power to arrest youth...

When asked to express himself through music for the first time, a 17-year-old spending seven months in the East Mesa Juvenile Detention Facility wrote a powerful song about what it felt like to miss his daughter's first steps and other milestones while detained. He was one of 24 students from San Diego SOAR Academy's East Mesa site who participated in a six-week program organized by the nonprofit group David's Harp Foundation . "The collaboration with David's Harp is more than music...

Bill Dorsey works as a shift supervisor at the Ada County Juvenile Justice Detention Center in Boise, Idaho. Outside of his daily duties, Dorsey also provides a valuable service to the youths held in detention — he teaches music. By providing guitar, mandolin and drumming lessons, Dorsey creates a space for kids to learn skills and find their passion by engaging in healthy, communal activities. Since Dorsey began his informal musical instruction, the detention center now incorporates a...

Nat ionally, researchers have found that people are less likely to end up back in the criminal justice system if they meet educational milestones, and that adults with higher levels of education have better employment rates, less incidence of homelessness and better health outcomes. But a 2015 survey by the Council of State Governments Justice Center found that only 13 states provided educational services for kids inside juvenile justice facilities that were comparable to those provided for...

Leaders from across the Sunshine State will take part in a “Think Tank” in Naples, FL, on Monday, August 6, to help create a more trauma-informed Florida. The estimated 350 attendees will include policy makers and community teams made up of school superintendents, law enforcement officers, judges, hospital administrators, mayors, PTA presidents, child welfare experts, mental health and substance abuse treatment providers, philanthropists, university researchers, state agency heads, and...

Youth involved in both the child welfare and juvenile justice systems—a specific high-needs population—often experience a host of negative outcomes beyond those experienced by their peers involved in only one (or neither) system. These outcomes include higher rates of homelessness, mental health problems, and joblessness. These “dually involved” youth are also more likely to engage in both nonviolent (such as stealing) and violent (such as fighting) delinquent or criminal behaviors in...

Inside an aging brick facility ringed by a chain-link fence and agricultural fields, 14 young people convicted of violent crimes are trying to program a better future for themselves. For the past two months they’ve been learning to write code through a first-of-its-kind pilot program at the Ventura Youth Correctional Facility in Camarillo, California, about 50 miles northwest of Los Angeles. They’re looking to break that streets-to-prison cycle by picking up new skills – JavaScript, HTML,...

In the weeks before they leave the juvenile detention center, incarcerated children in Connecticut meet with counselors from the Wheeler Clinic, a nonprofit that works with high-risk youth as they transition back into their community. They talk about social connections, they talk about family support. They also talk about vaccinations. “If their immunizations aren’t up to date, they can’t go back to school,” says Kim Nelson, senior vice president for services at the Wheeler Clinic. That’s a...