By Jasmine J. Jackson, Amber Nogelmeier, and Erica Bower, with assistance from Valerie Meade and Amanda Coscia

The intended purpose of the youth justice system is to maintain public safety by balancing accountability with rehabilitation and provide youth with opportunities that foster positive development and long-lasting behavior change. Over the past two decades, youth justice systems across the country have shifted their approach, embracing community-based alternatives to more costly, harmful, and unavailing carceral responses to youth behavior. Increasingly, leaders recognize effective, evidence-based approaches to minimize justice system exposure by diverting young people from formal system involvement when possible, limiting out-of-home placement to only the most serious cases, and connecting young people

with resources, services, and supports in their own communities. To enhance staff-client interactions and reduce a youth’s likelihood to re-offend, youth-serving systems are leveraging research to incorporate evidence-based and data-driven practices into every aspect of the system. When used effectively, these practices establish the foundation for improving long-term success for the youth they serve. Using individualized approaches informed by research on adolescent development, tailored to a youth’s identified needs, emphasizing strengths, and holistically involving their family and community, as well as holding youth accountable in developmentally appropriate manners fosters a young person’s growth, and creates opportunities for positive behavior change. To effectively make this shift, youth justice systems are taking a comprehensive look at their policies, practices, and data to gain a better understanding of the youth being served and the impact of the various system responses. That information is then utilized to inform policy changes, training needs, and strategies for system improvement. Shelby County is Tennessee’s largest county in population and size. Its county seat, the City of Memphis, is the second most populated city, behind Nashville. According to the 2022 Census figures, the population estimate of Shelby County is 926,440 people,8 while Memphis makes up approximately 68 percent of the County’s population.9 The largest racial group, representing just over half of the population in Shelby County, is Black or African Introduction Background American (54%), followed by white (37%).10 Almost 25 percent of the population in Shelby County is under 18 years of age,11 with nearly 24 percent of the children in this age group living in households with incomes below the poverty level, higher than the percentage of children in poverty overall in Tennessee.12 During the last decade (2012 to 2022), Shelby County was among Tennessee’s 10 counties that saw the largest declines in the overall crime rate for youth under age 18, but the current rate is still higher than the Tennessee crime rate for the same group.13 In 2022, 3,301 Shelby County children ages 10 to 17 were referred to court for delinquent, status, and / or unruly offenses.14 According to the most up-to-date figures, the rate at which Black or African American children under the age of 18 were brought into court for the same offenses was significantly higher than the rate for white youth.15 It should be noted that the 2020 rate for Black or African American youth brought into court in JCMSC was 19.1 per 1,000 youth, while the rate for white youth was 6.1 from the same population. The mission of the Juvenile Court of Memphis and Shelby County (JCMSC) is to provide interventions that result in positive outcomes for families and children, by addressing family matters with dignity and respect, and when necessary, holding youth accountable in developmentally appropriate ways.16 In August 2022, after nearly a decade of his predecessor’s leadership, the Honorable Judge Tarik B. Sugarmon was elected to serve as the new juvenile court judge. A transition team was established to support Judge Sugarmon, his leadership staff, and their goals of having a more data-driven, trauma-informed court. To further support this transition, JCMSC established an implementation team (a subgroup of the transition team) and solicited the Crime and Justice Institute (CJI) for assistance. In October 2023, JCMSC requested CJI to conduct a comprehensive system assessment of their Court Services Division which encompasses the following Bureaus: Children’s Services, Youth Services, Evaluation and Referral, and Detention Services as well as the Youth Court Program. The Court Services Division serves the community by working with children under the age of 18 who are court-involved and alleged to be delinquent, unruly, and/or dependent and neglected. The purpose of this system assessment is to understand the Court Services Division’s current

practices, the impact of those practices, and inform recommendations for court improvement, as well as implementation strategies for meeting JCMSC’s mission and improving outcomes for justice-involved youth in Memphis and Shelby County. At the time of the system assessment, Shelby County Sheriff’s Office provided oversight to Detention Services; therefore, limited analysis was completed as it pertains to the interworking of this Bureau. System Assessment To better determine where the Court Services Division should focus its improvement efforts, CJI used a systematic, multi-pronged approach to perform a system assessment, including a qualitative assessment and quantitative data analysis. This process allowed CJI to thoroughly evaluate the Court Services Division’s policies and practices and their impact on outcomes relevant to the youth justice population, thus helping inform research-based considerations for system improvement in court processes, data collection practices, and supervision practices. The following sections describe CJI’s system assessment methodology.

Boston: Crime and Justice Institute, 2024. 52p.

By The City of New York Department of Investigation

This report examines the impact of Raise the Age (“RTA”) legislation and Bail Reform on the City Administration for Children’s Services’ (“ACS”) two juvenile detention centers: Horizon Juvenile Center in the Bronx and Crossroads Juvenile Center in Brooklyn, operated by ACS’s

Division of Youth and Family Justice (“DYFJ”). The Report explains that these legislative changes pose significant challenges for these juvenile facilities, including managing an older population facing more serious and violent charges; and describes some of the specific incidents that have occurred at Horizon and Crossroads that demonstrate the safety risks to both residents and staff. The Report also explores key issues that include a troubling pattern of resident misconduct, criminal activity and lack of staff control over the facilities since the implementation of RTA and Bail Reform, as well as deficiencies in the behavior management systems ACS uses. DOI issued 15 recommendations to ACS in key areas including behavior management and disciplinary systems in the facilities, and staff training. ACS has accepted seven of these recommendations, two have been already implemented; five are either partially accepted or partially implemented; and three recommendations were declined.

The Report examines three main areas of concern: 1: STRIVE – A Behavioral Management Tool Used by ACS STRIVE, which stands for Safety, Teamwork, Respect, Integrity, Values, and Engagement, is a tool used to manage and document resident behavior and maintain a safe environment. DOI determined that STRIVE is inadequate to deter behaviors such as youth-on-staff assaults, security breaches, and contraband possession. DOI also found flaws in the daily management of STRIVE documentation. 2: Safe Crisis Management When violence or misconduct occurs within the facilities, ACS seeks to restore order and maintain the safety of youth and staff in detention using the least intrusive and least restrictive intervention necessary. In response to an incident, staff employ Safe Crisis Management (“SCM”), a comprehensive crisis intervention behavior management system that promotes non-physical intervention. Based on DOI’s SCM training observations, as well as the incidents and discussions with staff described in the Report, DOI concludes SCM is insufficient to maintain order in the facility. 3: Staffing Challenges With the increase in the number of residents in juvenile detention facilities, ACS has worked to increase the number of YDS who are part of a team of direct care staff at the facilities. Despite this effort, staffing issues continue. DOI’s investigation indicated an urgent need for additional hires and better working conditions at both facilities, as under-staffing poses a significant challenge to order, morale, and safety. Staffing challenges are also due in part to the relatively high number of YDS who are unable to work as a result of an injury sustained on the job, resulting in a Workers’ Compensation claim. During this investigation, DOI also heard concerns from staff about a lack of control over resident behavior and a lack of support from DYFJ management. Nearly every staff member with whom DOI spoke consistently stated, in substance, that ACS was ill-prepared for the new demographics of the RTA population, particularly the residents’ age, physical size, and violent criminal history. Staff members have asserted that now, some five years later, ACS remains unable to properly assess and handle the RTA population. Staff consistently cited a lack of physical safety for staff and residents, facilities controlled by residents rather than by staff, a lack of consequences for violent behavior and a lack of support from facility and DYFJ management.

New York: The City of New York Department of Investigation , 2024. 75p.

By Haley Walker,

This article explores the intersect between mentally ill youth and the juvenile justice system. Mentally ill youth are disproportionately represented at every stage in the juvenile justice system due to their symptoms being mistaken for delinquent behavior. This stems from the legislators

reforming the juvenile justice system from rehabilitative to punitive over the years in an attempt to hold delinquent youth accountable for their actions. Federal statutes have been enacted and federally funded programs have been implemented that seek to address the mental health crisis in today’s youth and keep mentally ill youth out of the juvenile justice system. This article discusses the goals, regulations, and guidelines set forth by these statutes and programs along with the shortcomings that are faced when they are actually put into practice. This article then gives suggestions to improve these statutes and programs based on current research that has proven to be successful

22(2) Marq. Ben & Soc. Welfare L. Rev. 147 (Spring 2021)

By Stephen Case , Kathy Hampson and Andrea Nisbet

This Child First research project was commissioned by the Nuffield Foundation to gain a greater understanding of what children think about their collaboration in youth justice decision-making processes. Participation and engagement of children in youth justice processes and practice is vital, particularly since the Youth Justice Board’s adoption of Child First justice as its guiding principle and key strategic objective. Child First is an evidence-based framework for working with children incorporating four tenets: see children as children; develop pro-social identity for positive child outcomes; collaboration with children and promoting diversion away from the justice system. The focus for this project is the third tenet, ‘collaboration with children’. Purpose Children’s voices have traditionally been neglected within youth justice policy, practice and research, which have mainly been undertaken and developed by adults for adults. Consequently this project sought to readdress this imbalance with its child-focus of facilitating children to share their genuine perspectives and experiences of their involvement in decision-making processes. The study explored children’s collaboration in decisions affecting them at allstages of the Youth Justice System and focused on four interconnected research questions relating to: collaboration understandings, collaboration objectives, collaboration effectiveness and collaboration practise development. Methodology The qualitative methodological framework of Participatory Interpretivism was chosen, which prioritises coconstructing the research with justice-involved children to ensure child-centric, Child First, co-creation of all research elements. Two different sample groups of justice-involved children were identified from a range of community and custodial settings, in order to address the research questions through participatory and cocreated methods and analyses: Project Reference Group (PRG) of justice-experienced children (n= 22) collaborating together with researchers throughout the life of the project to co-create the project design (including exploring creative methods), implementation processes and interpretation of findings, recruited from one hosting Youth Justice Service (YJS). Research Participant Children (n = 66) recruited from six geographically and institutionally diverse research sites to take part in system journey interviews and complete digital/paper diaries for reflecting on involvement within- and between-stages

of the Youth Justice System (3 x youth justice services, 2 x youth offending institutions and 1 x secure children’s home).

Summary of Findings and Discussion Findings provided a rich description and interpretation of children’s views from the PRG sessions and interviews undertaken with participant children at the research fieldwork sites. PRG session observations highlighted the development of the project methodology throughout the fieldwork to: ✓ ensure child-friendly, child appropriate ways of communicating with children about the research concepts and questions ✓ trial creative activities/methods to neutralise power dynamics and encourage engagement ✓ interpret research findings from the participant sample to provide an opportunity for children to discuss, challenge and validate emerging themes and sub-themes ✓ disseminate research findings – children chose a pre-recorded rap backing track and, using quotes from participants and their own words, recorded a full rap song in a professional studio. Participant children sample findings in relation to the research questions: ✓ identified what children considered to be the essential elements of ‘collaboration’, summarised as being encouraged to engage in respectful conversations, being spoken to appropriately, being provided with clear information and having their views considered and taken into account ✓ revealed that children wanted professionals to ask them about their aspirations, listen to what they were saying and offer support to help them to achieve their goals so they could move forward with their life ✓ indicated that effective collaboration practice needs to be based around building authentic, positive, nonhierarchical relationships with professionals who cared about them, in a comfortable environment, to facilitate the development of effective and relevant support ✓ identified the main areas for practice development which they believed would improve Child First practice as: o wanting professionals to listen to children and their ideas for improvement o acknowledging and breaking down power imbalances by creating child-friendly environments o keeping children continually informed throughout their involvement with youth justice agencies o involving children in decision

trategic and practice levels to benefit their experience and improve outcomes across the whole of the Youth Justice System. Furthermore, findings revealed that children’s experiences of Child First collaboration practice are inconsistent, with some parts of the Youth Justice System better than others. For YJSs, collaboration experiences were generally positive; within custody, it varied depending on the establishment and incentive scheme level; whilst interactions and engagement with the police, courts and children’s social care services were mostly negative. A discussion of the findings provides an overview of the main themes/sub-themes developed and an exploration of how they consolidate and extend existing knowledge related to children's collaboration and youth justice decision making and children's views of effective youth justice collaboration practice.

Loughborough, UK: Loughborough University. 2024. 130p.

By Lars Trautman

The success or failure of our criminal justice system hinges in large part on the quality and capabilities of the prosecutors operating within it. If they wield the powers of their office with precision, restraint and competence, they have the potential to right wrongs and even redress inequitable outcomes created elsewhere in the system. On the other hand, if they are unable to live up to the burdens of the office, incarcerated populations can swell and undeserving individuals can be unnecessarily tarred with a criminal record. Increasing prosecutorial capacity and effectiveness should therefore be of paramount concern, yet all too often, prosecutors must labor under far from ideal conditions. A typical prosecutor operates under a crushing caseload and in an information vacuum. She is expected to find effective and equitable justice for hundreds or thousands of cases a year, despite having little-to-no information on which prosecutorial recommendations have proven successful in the past or how her peers have treated similarly situated defendants. Likewise, her bosses may not only share her ignorance on prosecutorial performance and outcomes but must also consider how the average prosecution fits in with larger issues like community relations and how the office should respond to structural inequities such as unequal arrest rates. These demands and pressures can be aggravated in many prosecutor’s offices by a continued reliance on paper files and gut-level decisions rather than digital information and statistically sound policies. Often, prosecutorial offices have neglected to develop strong data due to a lack of resources and buy-in from prosecutors. Whereas the costs of new data investments are easily tallied, the benefits can be more difficult to identify and measure. The problem is also exacerbated by the healthy dose of skepticism with which many prosecutors view data. One study, for example, found that line prosecutors—the individuals actually prosecuting cases—overwhelmingly remain wary of data. They believe that it will either highlight issues over which they have no control, or worse, be taken out of context to pillory them and make their jobs even harder. Given the incredible power of prosecutors and the plethora of problems afflicting our justice system, this reticence is a shortcoming we cannot afford to ignore. Accordingly, the present study will address how data can be harnessed as a tool to reveal the extent of, and then help mitigate, many of the challenges facing prosecutors in their pursuit of justice. It will highlight promising existing programs and strategies as well as suggest how these efforts could be expanded in the future for even greater gains. It will conclude with a short argument in favor of additional data investment.

R STREET POLICY STUDY NO. 169 April 2019

Washington, DC: R Street, 2019. 7p.

By Emily Mooney and Jesse Kelley

Each year, hundreds of thousands of youth are referred to the justice system and placed on probation, which makes probation the most common sanction for young people. Yet despite its prevalence as a response to youth misbehavior, in its current form, probation is often an ineffective long-term intervention. For example, approximately 63 percent of Texas youth adjudicated delinquent and sentenced to probation in 2013 were rearrested within three years and 28 percent were re-adjudicated or convicted of a new offense within that same period. Similarly, in one study of Nebraska’s youth probation system, in the period between 2010 and 2015, one in four youth who successfully completed probation was adjudicated for a new offense within the following year. These trends are explained, in part, by the juvenile justice system’s failure to completely embrace the principles of adolescent development. Developmental research suggests that it is normal for young adults to make poor decisions during this period in life. Experimentation and risk-taking are often symptoms of a struggle to regulate one’s own emotions, anticipate the consequences of future actions or an attempt to impress one’s peers. In most cases, research also shows that adolescents will grow out of these habits on their own as they age. Thus, in many cases, youth currently placed on probation may do just as well or benefit more from local community-based interventions, such as diversion, or from dismissal from the justice system altogether. In contrast, formal justice interventions, such as probation or incarceration, may actually serve to increase the likelihood of future crime. For example, a 2013 report by the National Research Council notes: “[U] nduly harsh interventions and negative interactions between youth and justice system officials can undermine respect for the law and legal authority and reinforce a deviant identity and social disaffection.” In other cases, youth are appropriately served by youth probation but nonsensical probation practices, such as long lists of conditions or the use of incarceration as a response to technical violations, set them up for failure. Given the fact that youth are constantly developing, probation plans and services should be individualized and dynamic rather than stagnant. Further, incarcerating youth for actions that pose no substantial threat to public safety is a waste of time and resources, and jeopardizes the likelihood of future success. There have been some positive developments. Over the last decade, the total number of youth on probation has substantially declined. In 2008, approximately 540,000 youth cases led to the sanction of probation. By 2016, that number had decreased to approximately 282,000. And, in states like Virginia, the average daily youth probation population has decreased by more than half. While these trends, along with the decreasing number of youth behind bars overall, suggest positive movement away from “lock ‘em up” policies of old, there is more work to be done if we are to better serve our youth and their communities. Accordingly, the time has come for a new vision for youth probation. To achieve such a vision, states and localities must return to the core aims of juvenile justice involvement: namely, improved public safety and youth rehabilitation. They must also reassess the current paradigm regarding what probation looks like and whom it should serve. Accordingly, the present study provides an overview of the current state of youth probation and articulates a new paradigm, wherein localities limit government intervention, promote the role of families and—by better reflecting the principles found in developmental research—improve public safety; and finally, it presents a practical guide for how jurisdictions can improve their youth probation systems today.

R STREET POLICY STUDY NO. 168 April 2019

Washington, DC: R Street, 2019. 9p.

By Noella Sudbury

The incarceration rate for youth is steadily declining, and so is youth crime. Over the past decade, the number of minors committing violent crimes and property offenses has dropped by over 50 percent. In 2019, the number of youth arrests throughout the country was at an all-time low. Combined, these statistics show us that it is safe for communities to keep youth in their homes and to effectively address youth behavior through community-based programs. While these figures show significant progress, the confinement of youth in costly, out-of-home placements is still far too common. On any given day, approximately 43,580 children are confined in detention centers and secure residential treatment programs across the United States. At an average annual price tag of $148,767 per child, the cost of this intervention to U.S. taxpayers is more than $6 billion per year. While juvenile justice stakeholders around the country uniformly express an intent to use out-of-home placements as a last resort, the data shows that the vast majority of children in out-of-home placements are there for relatively minor offenses. According to the most recent numbers, 72 percent of young people in out-of-home placements have a non-violent offense as their highest charge. Research demonstrates that in most of these cases, a costly out-of-home placement is not useful, and leads to more recidivism than community-based alternatives. The term “out-of-home placement” is used in this piece to refer to a situation in which a child is ordered to complete some type of residential programming outside of his or her home. Out-of-home placements can be publicly or privately run and broadly include juvenile detention centers, residential treatment facilities, long term secure facilities and other settings like diagnostic centers or boot camps. While these interventions vary widely in shape, size and programming, most are large—housing between 20 and 200 kids—and most are locked, meaning that those housed there are not free to leave. This paper argues that for states to reduce their reliance on out-of-home placements, policymakers need to take more direct legislative action to limit the use of these costly interventions. To accomplish this goal, this study recommends three actionable solutions that will cost states less money, keep kids with families and make communities stronger and safer for everyone.

R STREET POLICY STUDY NO. 233 June 2021, 7p.

By The Justice Policy Institute

Punitive sentencing policies and restrictive parole release practices in Maryland have resulted in a deeply racially disproportionate criminal justice system that is acutely impacting those serving the longest prison terms. This is true despite a declining prison population and state leadership in Maryland having undertaken criminal justice reform in recent years. As recently as July 2018, more than 70 percent of Maryland’s prison population was black, compared to 31 percent of the state population. The latest data from the Department of Justice show that the proportion of the Maryland prison population that is black is more than double the national average of 32 percent. These disparities are rooted in decades of unbalanced policies that disproportionately over-police under-resourced communities of color, and a criminal justice system focused on punitive sentencing and parole practices. Disparity Most Pronounced Among Emerging Adults, Especially Those with Long Sentences Racial disparities persist despite the fact that the Maryland prison population has declined by 13 percent since 2014, resulting in nearly 2,700 fewer people incarcerated. These inequalities affect the entire population but are most pronounced among those individuals who were incarcerated as emerging adults (18 to 24 years old) and are serving long prison terms. Nearly eight in 10 people who were sentenced as emerging adults and have served 10 or more years in a Maryland prison are black. This is the highest rate of any state in the country. To be Effective, Solutions Must Focus on the Emerging Adult Population To reverse these racially disparate outcomes—the result of decades of failed policies—Maryland needs to rethink its approach to 18- to 24-year-olds and join a growing number of jurisdictions exploring reforms related to emerging adults. This policy brief will provide perspective on why this population is unique and reforms are critical to improving outcomes in the justice system. Going forward, Maryland’s leadership can look toward examples of successful, evidence-based, and promising alternatives in other jurisdictions that can reduce the impact on emerging adults, racial disparities, and criminal justice involvement.  

Washington, DC: Justice Policy Institute, 2019. 18p.

By Revolving Doors

Revolving Doors was commissioned by the Youth Justice Board (YJB) to produce a review of good and promising local practices that is tackling ethnic disparity and over-representation in youth justice across England and Wales. The table below summarises the examples covered as case studies in the report. The focus is on community-based practice which aligns with anti-racist and the Child First evidence base about what improves outcomes for children in youth justice. The examples included are not exhaustive and we recognize that changes to practice need to be accompanied by wider policy and cultural change for the persistent issues of overrepresentation to be addressed in the long-term. We aim to show that a range of interventions can be introduced, working directly with children, or influencing specific parts of the system, and to encourage youth justice services and their partners to consider whether such practice could be adapted or adopted elsewhere. The monitoring and evaluation that underpins the learning or outcomes reported here are usually measured via self-report before and after recipients engage in the program. In most cases, therefore, even where external evaluation has been conducted, findings are only able to tell us about a program or intervention’s potential or promise to improve outcomes. In most cases, the outcomes reported cannot be used as confirmation of whether engaging in the program is effective relative to not receiving the program, or receiving an alternative program, or whether the intervention has had a direct impact on addressing racial disparities in that area.  

London: Revolving Doors, 2024. 54p.

By Garner Clancey, Sindy Wang and Brenda Lin

The administration of youth justice systems in Australia is a state and territory responsibility. Almost all states and territories have in recent years undertaken extensive reviews of their youth justice systems. In addition, various oversight bodies (such as ombudsmen, inspectors of custodial services, children’s guardians and advocates), Commonwealth agencies (such as the Australian Law Reform Commission), and non-government organisations (such as Amnesty International) have also completed reviews and published reports in this area. The catalysts for some of these reviews were incidents in youth justice detention centres which captured national (and international) attention. A key theme arising from many of these reviews is the need for youth justice detention to be a measure of last resort. Detention, especially for young people who have been victims of abuse and neglect or who have mental illness and intellectual disabilities, is often detrimental and has little benefit in reducing recidivism. This paper explores this and other key themes arising from the recent reviews into Australian youth justice systems.

Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 605. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology.2020. 19p.

By Spark Inside

We believe that well-being support for young men in prison — particularly for young Black men — should be prioritized and should be tailored to meet their specific needs.

Why is this important?

Young people in prison have untapped potential but have different needs from older people in prison, and are less likely to be able to access the support they need to flourish and build new lives. In addition, psychological maturity is essential for young people’s success in and after prison. Therefore, we know that young people in prison have distinct needs that must be met to enable effective rehabilitation. Furthermore, we know that young Black men, who are over-represented in the prison system, face further barriers to their rehabilitation. This is due to their experiences of social and economic inequalities, institutional racism, and a lack of services that take into account different cultures and Black identity. Black men in prison suffer from worse outcomes and experiences than white prisoners. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated many of the challenges facing young people in prison, but with proper support from specialists working in prisons, young people make positive choices that lead to better rehabilitative outcomes and improved wellbeing, including better physical, mental and social health.

The call to action

The Being Well Being Equal campaign is calling for urgent action from the Government, prison policy-makers and practitioners to:

• Prioritise wellbeing services in prisons for young men and young Black men;

• Tailor wellbeing services to take into account and meet the specific needs of young men in prison and young Black men in prison;

• Provide better support and guidance for professionals in prison working with and caring for young men and young Black men.

The report presents a consolidation of the research, policy, and practice concerned with the wellbeing of young men in custody, as well as insight from expert organizations and, most importantly, young men themselves. It is hoped, that by bringing together the evidence, this report will enable practitioners, policymakers, and commissioners to have a more informed understanding of how to promote Being Well and Being Equal amongst young men in custody. Practice examples throughout the report provide tangible solutions to meeting the needs of young men, developed by voluntary sector organizations that bring significant knowledge, skills, and experience. Young adults make up 15% of the prison population, (around 12,000 individuals), with 18-20 year-olds representing the highest level of Black and ethnic minority over-representation in the adult prison estate.Prison population projections suggest that there will be a 50% increase in the number of 18 to 20 year olds in custody between 2021 and 20264 . The Health Foundation states ‘the health of a country’s young people is one of the greatest assets it holds’5 and yet for the 0.4% of young adults in prison in England and Wales, their distinct wellbeing needs are often overlooked. Well-being, as defined by the Department of Health, is ‘about feeling good and functioning well and comprises an individual’s experience of their life and a comparison of life circumstances with social norms and values’. Repeat evidence presented by HM Inspectorate (2021), the Justice Select Committee (2016), and the Harris Review (2015) demonstrates that young adult well-being in the prison system is significantly poorer than for older prisoners – with more negative experiences of relationships, physical environments, mental health and safety. This experience is often exacerbated for Black and minority ethnic prisoners with fewer feeling safe, supported, or respected. Alongside the fundamental difference in cognitive maturity between adult men and young adult men, 18-25-year-olds in custody represent some of the most vulnerable individuals in our communities. They account for 22% of incidences of self-harm in the prison estate8 and are more likely to have experienced poverty, childhood trauma, and being in care than the general population. In addition, young Black men experience the social, emotional, economic, and structural impact of racism. While in custody there is an opportunity to ensure that young men have access to the support they need to flourish and build new lives. In order to unlock their potential and improve their well-being, prison policy, practice, and commissioning must differentiate between the needs of 18-25-year-olds and the older prison population. There are only three distinct young adult establishments in England and Wales with a total operating capacity of around 1000. Almost 90% of young adults reside in the wider adult estate where HM Inspectorate of Prisons has found little differentiation between meeting the needs of 18-25-year-olds and older prisoners  

London: Spark Inside, 2023. 73p.

 By The Southern Poverty Law Center

Florida routinely pushes Black children out of schools and into a legal system with well-documented harms. In recent years, the state has made significant investments in school law enforcement and self-proclaimed “tough love” youth legal system policies, purportedly in the name of public safety. However, these investments have yielded a system that disparately disciplines, arrests, prosecutes and incarcerates Black youth more harshly than their counterparts. Florida’s well-developed school-to-prison pipeline has thus created an easy entryway for children into its legal system – even for those as young as 7 years old and children dealing with mental health issues. This report explores the scope and impact of this system and ways Florida can disrupt it.

 Montgomer, AL: Southern Poverty Law Center, 2024.