By Raul Armenta

Despite accounting for 12 percent of the U.S. population, young adults ages 18 to 24 accounted for nearly 20 percent of the people arrested for all causes in the United States in 2019, and have a higher probability of being reincarcerated than older age groups when they leave jail or prison.1 California is a microcosm of these larger incarceration trends, with young adults overrepresented in its criminal legal system and likely to be reincarcerated after being released.2 In Los Angeles (LA) County, approximately 9,000 young people have been referred to probation, with a disproportionate number of Black and Latino young people affected compared with their White peers.3 Significant evidence indicates that young adults have not yet reached a state of full neurological and cognitive maturity, shaping their decision-making.4 This fact may partly explain their overrepresentation in the legal system. Yet these young people are routi nely processed by the same courts as older adults, overlooking their level of neurocognitive development―that is, their thinking and reasoning skills―and the extent to which they are able to make well-informed decisions. Additionally, young people’s involvement in the criminal legal system often leads to their growing distrust of the system when they perceive court outcomes as unfair.5 Various programs aim to reduce the involvement of young adults in the criminal legal system. These programs take into account the implications of standard court processes outlined above for young people as they attempt to implement the latest understanding of cognitive behavioral treatment, which asserts that helping young people change patterns of thoughts and emotions can support desired changes in behavior. Young people tend to respond pos the population they serve, including past involvement in the criminal legal system—who understand and respond appropriately to their different values, attitudes, and beliefs. Credible messengers also provide a sense of community and belonging that are critical at this stage of development.6 Programs employing credible-messenger mentors show promise for reducing reincarceration among young adults entangled in the criminal legal system.7 Youth Overcoming (YO!) is one such program aiming to serve young people who have been arrested, convicted, or incarcerated. It receives funding from the Senate Bill Community Corrections Performance Incentives Act (SB 678) and Assembly Bill 109. The LA County Justice, Care and Opportunities Department (JCOD), in partnership with the LA County Probation Department, invested these funds in YO! as a replacement for other programs for young people that were based on adult models of rehabilitation.8 MDRC conducted an exploratory study of two YO! program locations as part of a larger project that includes several implementation and outcome evaluations of JCOD’s reentry programs.9 This brief presents the findings from that study. It examines how program leaders, staff members, and participants experience the program, and describes successes and challenges across both program locations that could potentially inform program refinement and expansion going forward.

New York: MDRC, 2025. 12p.

By Christoph Engel | Sebastian J. Goerg | Christian Traxler

This paper studies a probation program in Cologne, Germany. The program, which has a clear rehabilitative focus, offers intensified personal support to serious juvenile offenders over the first 6 months of their probation period. To evaluate the program’s impact on recidivism,we draw on two research designs. Firstly, a small-scale randomized trial assigns offenders to probation with regular or intensified support. Secondly, a regression discontinuity design exploits a cutoff that defines program eligibility. The results suggest that the program reduces recidivism. The effect seems persistent over at least 3 years. Our evidence further indicates that the drop in recidivism is strongest among less severe offenders.

Journal of Empirical Legal StudiesVolume 19, Issue 2Jun 2022 Pages293-524

By Alliance for Youth Justice

Young people turning 18 while in the secure estate face a tumultuous transition between youth custody and adult prisons. The secure estate for children is, in theory, focussed on meeting the distinct needs of under 18s. The vast majority of young adults on the other hand are held in adult establishments where there is very little evidence of any provision designed with their distinct needs in mind. Young people transferring from youth to adult custody face a frightening cliff edge, and getting the transition right is critical to ensuring the safety, wellbeing, and rehabilitation of young people entering adulthood. The children’s secure estate has had long-standing arrangements to retain some young people aged 18 and over to finish out their sentence or aid smooth transitions. Two years ago, however, an interim policy change in response to a capacity crisis in adult prisons led to a rapid and significant increase in the number of over 18s held in the children’s secure estate, with concerning impacts on children, young adults, and the establishments themselves. The children’s secure estate has spent years stumbling from crisis to crisis, struggling to cope with the children in its care, and it was unprepared for this policy change imposed on it without due notice. The government’s decision to temporarily shift the presumed date a young person transitions from youth to adult custody from the 18th birthday to 19th birthday led to over a third of those held in the majority of Young Offender Institutions (YOIs) being over 18s, for the majority of 2023/24. Alongside the implementation of this policy, conditions in YOIs have been dire, putting the safety and wellbeing of children and young people at risk. Guard dogs and stun grenades have been used against children, a fifth Urgent Notification in five years was issued, a failing YOI has now been closed, and both the previous and current Government have been labouring over a decision to rollout PAVA incapacitant spray to staff. The Ministry of Justice carried out a review of the interim policy to determine its end date, focussed on tangible short-term impacts on areas like violence and safeguarding. The review has yet to be published but its findings led Ministers to confirm the policy would end from October 2024 in order that the children’s estate can “return to maintaining an unwavering focus on the specific needs and vulnerabilities that children present.” Beyond the short-term impact explored by the Ministry of Justice review, and its immediate implications for the policy’s end date, there is also a need to consider the full longer-term impact and implications. Learning must be gathered with regards to the adultifying of a children’s estate that already struggles to treat children as children, and how policy decisions have impacted children’s rights to a distinct youth justice system and ensured young adults’ needs are met. This briefing seeks to take a broad view of the impacts, on children and young adults, of the significant change in the population of YOIs. It aims to illustrate not just the impacts here and now, but consider wider implications and risks. These include the opportunity cost of the positive change that could have been achieved during this time, and the potential for a slippery slope towards the government increasingly adultifying youth custody and viewing the children’s system as back-up for a failing adult justice system. It considers the vital need for distinct treatment of children, and raises concerns that despite policymakers agreeing that a specific approach for young adults in custody is clearly needed, change is happening in the wrong direction. Rather than implementing much-needed improvements and distinct support for young adults, conditions and treatment in the children’s estate are at risk of being dragged closer to that in adult prisons. By bringing together perspectives from both the youth and adult justice systems, this briefing carefully considers what recent developments mean for the future of custody for children, and what lessons can be learnt for improving custody for young adults. A new government has an important opportunity to set out ambitious visions and plans for both.

London: Alliance for Youth Justice, 2025. 52p.

By Kathy Hampson, Anne-Marie Day

Children who offend generally receive community sentences, to help them overcome difficulties whilst naturally addressing offending behaviour; however, children can also receive custody, which has a plethora of known harms. Children’s rights instruments call for custody to be reserved as a ‘last resort’ response to extremely serious offending. However, in England and Wales this is demonstrably not the case, meaning that children still receive short custody orders (in the form of a Detention and Training Order [DTO]) for relatively minor offences. We argue that legislative change should abolish the DTO because of the harms custody wreaks, from several different perspectives (their rights, moral treatment of children, sentencing guidelines, practical and financial considerations), to leave the use of custody only possible for very serious offending, and thus reaching the goal of ‘last resort’.

The British Journal of Criminology, 2025, XX, 1–18p.

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 Richard Mendel

A detailed analysis of news coverage at six media outlets in the Baltimore area during the first half of 2024 finds that they have been providing their audiences with skewed and misleading information about youth crime. Problematic coverage has been more frequent at the four local TV news stations analyzed than the two newspapers reviewed and especially prevalent on one local station, WBFF Fox45.

For decades media scholars have noted that local news coverage is often sensationalized and framed in ways that heighten public fears of youthful offending. And this tendency has continued since the outset of the pandemic. This coverage has likely contributed to a shift in public opinion toward tough-sounding policies that conflict with the evidence on what works to reduce youth crime and promote youth success. Indeed, problematic coverage appears to have been a factor behind the bipartisan passage of a juvenile justice bill in Maryland in April 2024 that rolled back evidence-based reforms enacted only two years earlier. The new law imposes harsher responses on youth that are not grounded in research and that are likely to worsen crime, damage young people’s futures, and exacerbate the Maryland youth justice system’s already severe racial and ethnic disparities.

Specifically, this analysis of local news coverage in Baltimore reveals:

Disproportionate focus on crimes committed by youth. All six local media outlets in Baltimore, but especially TV news stations (and particularly Fox45), highlighted crimes by young people far out of proportion with their arrest rates.

Misleading representation of youth crime trends. Whereas the available data on youth offending rates in Baltimore show a mix of trends, most of them favorable, all six local media outlets repeatedly asserted a recent spike in youth crime and violence.

Failure to support assertions of rising youth crime rates with accurate and representative statistics. All six of the news outlets often made or echoed claims about rising youth offending rates either without providing statistical evidence, or – when they did offer statistics – doing so in problematic ways.

Widespread use of fear-inducing rhetoric about youth crime. All six outlets published stories that included rhetoric suggesting that youth crime in Baltimore was rampant or out of control.

Fox45, relative to other news outlets, was much more likely to air sensationalized coverage highlighting youth crime incidents and perceived leniency in the justice system. Each of the problems described above were an order of magnitude more intense on Fox45. On that station, viewers were presented with a steady stream of often lengthy stories offering graphic footage of youth crime incidents as well as sharp and fear-inducing rhetoric from select victims, witnesses, experts, and community residents.

The tone of the Fox45 coverage, and to a lesser extent the coverage at other news outlets, fostered an atmosphere of panic around youth crime during Maryland’s 2024 legislative session. The problematic media coverage in Baltimore (the state’s largest city and home to the State Senate President and the Speaker of the House of Delegates) likely contributed to a bipartisan rush to toughen juvenile justice policies that is unsupported by the evidence of what actually works to reduce youth offending and maintain community safety.

Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2024. 16p.

By Lisa Pilnik, Robert G. Schwartz, Karen Lindell, Jessica Feierman and Christina Sorenson

There is broad consensus that incarcerating youth in the juvenile justice system is both dangerous and ineffective. Secure facilities and other juvenile justice placements pose a high risk of short- and long-term harm to children. Placing young people outside their homes disrupts family ties, undermines educational continuity and developmental trajectory, and can cause trauma and undermine a child’s developmental trajectory. Recent research has shown that placement also leads to long-term mental and physical health consequences. Moreover, far too many youth sent to “treatment” facilities experience abuse or neglect and fail to receive needed behavioral health services. Pennsylvania stakeholders have taken important steps to decrease placement rates and improve outcomes for youth—and local and state leadership is already engaged in continuing the reform efforts. At the same time, the need to dramatically change our responses to young people in the justice system is obvious. Where Pennsylvania was widely recognized as a leader in the 1990’s and early 2000’s, we now lag behind other states in the extent to which we use placement and the extent of our racial disparities. Wordsworth. VisionQuest. Glen Mills. Luzerne. Year after year, facilities in Pennsylvania are sued or shut down after the horrific treatment of youth in their care comes to light. Each time, children are removed from the placement and additional oversight is imposed to try to prevent a recurrence, and then it happens again. Oversight isn’t enough. To meet its obligations to our children, Pennsylvania must re-examine its reliance on juvenile placements. Working in collaboration with youth in the system and their families, we must create a system that stresses high-quality community-based solutions that are safer for children, promote public safety, and more effectively and efficiently use our resources.

Philadelphia: Juvenile Law Center, 2019. 44p.

By Nadia Mozaffar, Kate Burdick, Maura McInerney, Kristina Moon, Katherine Dunn, Stephanie C. Burke and Naomi E. Goldstein

On any given day across the country, more than 48,000 youth are confined to juvenile justice facilities, where they are held for weeks, or even months at a time/

These youth are held in facilities that not only take them away from their homes, but also their schools. And while these facilities provide classes to prevent young people from falling behind in their schoolwork, many return to their schools to discover that they did not receive full academic credit for their work, that there is no record of their credits or that their credits will not count toward graduation. In other words, they discover that despite their best efforts to succeed, the juvenile justice system failed them. In fact, research spanning the last 20 years — including anecdotal reports from youth, families, advocates and others — describes rampant credit transfer problems. What’s more, the research in this report confirms that it continues to be a problem on a national scale, despite recently expanded mandates under the Every Student Succeeds Act and the Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention Act, federal laws requiring states to have procedures for timely assessment and transfer of credits. This report, Credit Overdue: How States Can Mitigate Academic Credit Transfer Problems for Youth in the Juvenile Justice System, is the first of its kind to analyze this problem from a national perspective, including the consequences youth experience due to the system's failure. The report also examines the legislative solutions necessary to ensure youth receive the academic credits they are due.

Philadelphia, PA: Juvenile Law Center, Education Law Center-PA, Drexel University and the Southern Poverty Law Center, 2022. 54p.