By Veronica Frisancho,  Alejandro Herrera and Eduardo Nakasone

This paper analyzes the relationship between the presence of LGBTQI students in the class-room and the prevalence of violence in the school setting. We rely on a representative sample of secondary schools in Uruguay and exploit variation in the share of LGBTQI students across classrooms to study how their presence affects the individual experience of violence. Our results show little support for the contact hypothesis: a larger share of LGBTQI students in the classroom has no impact on the individual experience of violence. On the contrary, a greater share of female LGBTQI students in the classroom is associated with greater psychological and physical violence among girls, irrespective of their gender identity or sexual orientation.

Washington, DC: Inter-American Development Bank, 2022. 31p.

By Liz Kroboth, Sukhdip Purewal Boparai and Jonathan Heller

In 2017, Los Angeles County established an Office of Youth Diversion and Development to advance a collaboratively designed pre-booking diversion initiative that prevents youth from getting formally arrested or referred to probation during encounters with law enforcement. Human Impact Partners and the Los Angeles (LA) County Office of Youth Diversion and Development (YDD) partnered to develop this evaluation framework to assess and prevent racial inequities in this program. LA County’s pre-booking diversion program is part of a broader effort to reduce mass incarceration of Black and Brown youth . In LA County and across the US, Black and Brown youth are arrested and detained by law enforcement at disproportionately greater rates compared to White youth. Organizing by local youth advocates and policy changes at the local, state, and national level have created opportunities for community-based pre-booking diversion in LA County to reduce the excessive and unfair criminalization and incarceration of Black and Brown youth and equitably improve outcomes for youth.

Oakland, CA: Human Impact Partners, 2019. 54p.

By Josh Rovner

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.1 However, youth incarceration is typically measured via a one-day count taken in late October.2 This metric vastly understates its footprint: at least 80% of incarcerated youth are excluded from the one-day count. This undercount is most prevalent for detained youth, all of whom have been arrested but have yet to face a court hearing.

Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2022. 27p.

By Antoinette Davis, Andrea Gentile and Caroline Glesmann

Over the past three decades, States have enacted legislation making it easier to transfer youth to the adult criminal justice system. Although the process occurs with male and female youth, this document specifically addresses the challenges of transferring girls to adult court and correctional systems. Mechanisms developed to move youth into adult systems include Judicial Waiver/Transfer Laws, Prosecutorial Direct Filing, Statutory Exclusion Provisions, the “Once an Adult, Always an Adult” Provisions and Age of Jurisdiction Laws. When making those transfer decisions, less consideration may be given to the idea that adult jails and prisons are not designed for the confinement of youth, and as a result most are not equipped to meet the inherent and specific needs of adolescents.

While not intended as a research document, this bulletin highlights challenges when transferring juveniles to the adult criminal justice system for administrators and the individual justice involved girls. It is hoped that the audience for this document will extend beyond that of adult and juvenile correctional administrators and reach other related stakeholders who are involved in the decision-making regarding the transfer of juveniles to the adult criminal justice system

Washington, DC: National Institute of Corrections, 2016. 16p.