By Emily Mooney

Children are uniquely risk-loving, adaptive and vulnerable to outside influences. Their minds and bodies are still developing, and their identity has yet to be firmly defined. For these reasons, they are traditionally considered less culpable for poor decisions than adults and are more capable of behavior change as they mature. As one saying goes: “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” Yet, while our society broadly recognizes this truth—we mandate education, for example, and have a different system of justice for the young—we sometimes forget it when crafting policy. In Maryland, there is no clearer example of this than when youth are automatically charged in the adult system. Accordingly, this brief provides an overview of the current context of this issue in Maryland, as well as a short argument against the practice, and concludes with policy recommendations that can encourage positive change.

R STREET SHORTS NO. 76 October 2019

Washington, DC: R Street, 2019. .5p.

By Nila Bala and Emily Mooney  

The youth justice system in the United States is rightly shrinking. And yet, the historic disproportionality between white youth and youth of color in the system remains. Indeed, when it comes to the arrest rate of youth of color relative to that of white youth, the gap has actually widened over time. For this reason, more reform is needed to further limit youth involvement in the justice system overall and to ensure that those of all racial and ethnic backgrounds are held accountable in the most equitable manner possible. For this reason, Congress closed 2018 with the reauthorization of the Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention Act  (JJDPA), a key piece of juvenile justice policy. One of its provisions guides states and localities to locate and address racial and ethnic disparities (RED) in the juvenile justice system, which according to the law, occur when: “Minority youth populations are involved at a decision point in the juvenile justice system at disproportionately higher rates than non-minority youth at that decision point.”5 Too often, the issue of addressing racial disproportionality in the juvenile justice system has become a partisan issue. But, the problem should concern us all, as it can directly affect the rule of law and procedural justice, and can undermine the efficacy of the system’s responses. Furthermore, disparities in how youth are treated at the beginning can compound into disparities further down the line, such as ultimate commitment to the juvenile justice system. And moreover, reforms to the juvenile justice system will not be meaningful unless we address the reasons youth of color are disproportionately involved in the system today and often face harsher outcomes. While RED can occur at many decision points in the system, a useful place to focus our attention is at the point of diversion. As shown by developmental research, many youth who make poor decisions today will naturally grow out of these patterns as they age. Given this reality and the potential negative effects of system involvement,8 diversion from the juvenile justice system altogether can be an effective solution both to reduce juvenile system involvement overall and to promote racial and ethnic equity. Indeed, even those who have committed more “serious” offenses can benefit from diversion.9 Accordingly, the present study will first consider diversion and its overall goals, and how—when best practices are followed—it can be an intervention that supports individual dignity, limited government and the preservation of community. It will then address the need to promote racial and ethnic equity and identify a few causes of disparities at the point of diversion. And finally, it concludes with policy solutions that aim to promote equity and the proper use of diversion. 

R STREET POLICY STUDY NO. 178 July 2019 

Washington, DC: R Street, 2019. 8p.

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-making about them at both strategic 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 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 Southern Poverty Law Center

When it comes to Georgia’s approach to its youth legal system, the past is prologue. Policies that emphasize youth incarceration over rehabilitation have political roots going back decades in the state. Rather than providing young people with needed services, this approach has led to vast racial disparities, systematic school pushout, well-documented harms meriting federal intervention, and significant fiscal waste. This report explores the policies and practices of Georgia’s youth legal system, as well as the political culture that undergirds it. Georgia has a youth legal system that is designed to incarcerate and punish, not restore or rehabilitate children.

• Georgia has a history of “tough on crime” laws, even though youth crime decreased by 80% in the state between 2000 and 2020. • Georgia is one of the few states in the U.S. that prosecutes 17-yearolds as adults and prosecutes children as young as 13 as adults for certain offenses – detaining them in adult facilities. • Georgia’s youth detention facilities have a well-documented history of physical and sexual abuse – including the death of three teenagers within weeks of each other in 2022. • Georgia’s Macon Youth Development Campus for incarcerated girls is the fourthmost sexually abusive detainment facility in the U.S., according to a national survey. 4 Georgia has a school-to-prison pipeline that is fueled by a reliance on zero-tolerance policies and alternative schools. • While Black children in Georgia’s schools make up 37.5% of students, they also make up well over half of all out-of-school suspensions, expulsions, and assignments to alternative schools. • Several Georgia alternative schools, designed to educate students deemed too “disruptive” for traditional school, have dropout rates higher than their graduation rates. • Georgia’s zero-tolerance policies often lead to the suspension of students for minor infractions like vaping, which produced over 22,000 disciplinary actions in the 2022-23 school year. • Only 4.8% of incarcerated children educated in Georgia’s detention facilities tested as “proficient” or better on their 2022-23 end-of-grade assessments, with 29.9% dropping out of school that same year. Georgia’s youth legal system is fiscally wasteful and disproportionately impacts Black children. • Black youth in Georgia are more than twice as likely to be charged with an offense compared to their white counterparts, and more than three times as likely to be charged in court as an adult. • Black youth make up 35.5% of youth in Georgia, but comprise over 60% of all youth court referrals, delinquent adjudications, youth that are incarcerated, and youth sentenced in adult court. • Georgia spends $217,517 annually to incarcerate a child in its system, only to produce a threeyear recidivism rate of 35.1%.Policy reforms in Georgia should commit to a system designed to disrupt the schoolto-prison pipeline, reduce harm to children, and rehabilitate young people in a costproductive way. The Southern Poverty Law Center recommends: 1. Georgia should raise the minimum age of youth incarceration and prosecution to at least 14 years old, while ending the practice of charging and prosecuting 17-year-olds as adults. 2. Georgia schools should enforce fair and consistent due process hearings and end the use of zero-tolerance policies. 3. Georgia should make nonviolent offenses, especially technical violations and minor drug offenses, nonjailable for children. 4. Georgia should prohibit the assessment and collection of court fines and fees against children. 5. Georgia should create more opportunities for diversion and invest greater resources in community-based alternatives to incarceration. 6. Georgia should ban the practice of incarcerating youth in adult facilities and sentencing youth to life without parole.

Montgomery, AL: Southern Poverty Law Center, 2024. 26p.