By Jessica Feierman

Youth justice advocates, including lawyers, organizers, and other youth and adult movement builders, want to replace the current damaging, discriminatory, and ineffective juvenile and criminal legal systems1 with better approaches. We envision approaches that support children, help them flourish, and contribute to a safe, equitable, and healthy community. How do we do it? And what role can the law – with its history of and ongoing role in racial oppression – play in realizing our shared goals? This publication suggests that lawyers must work hand in hand with leaders in the field with direct experience in juvenile or criminal court — those who have appeared as defendants, witnesses, or survivors or who have been incarcerated or had family members incarcerated. People with these lived experiences know better than anyone where it falls short, and what not to do. These leaders have also begun creating something new – a system that works by building, not destroying. Even as other institutions falter, this community - centered work creates cause for hope. The current system’s problems are deeply rooted in its history. Despite a valid goal of treating children differently from adults, the U.S. youth “justice” system carries with it the imprint of cruel and discriminatory practices that date back to slavery and have been reinforced decade after decade.2 The juvenile legal system purports to offer rehabilitation and support adolescent development. The constitution establishes unique procedural protections for youth. Ultimately, however, both systems disproportionately pull Black, Indigenous, and Latine young people and other youth of color, as well as LGBTQIA+ youth, young people with disabilities, and youth living in poverty from their families3 and expose them to abuse and other damaging conditions of confinement. While teenagers are highly resilient, the juvenile and criminal legal systems interfere at a moment of important brain development and, rather than playing to youth strengths, they cause physical and emotional distress, interrupt education, take resources away from communities, and silence youth voices.4 The system also overwhelmingly fails to meet the needs of victims and survivors.5 Legal advocacy to date has curtailed some of the worst abuses of the juvenile and criminal legal systems, but it has also fallen short of creating an equitable and restorative approach. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that children cannot be punished with the death penalty or certain life without parole sentences,6 and that children deserve some unique procedural protections during police interrogations7 and a right to an attorney and other due process protections in juvenile delinquency proceedings.8 Federal district courts have limited the use of solitary confinement and other harsh conditions for youth, in at least some circumstances.9 While these cases have conferred significant practical benefits, they have tempered the harshest treatment in the system rather than promoting transformation. Even these holdings, however, are now at risk with a new U.S. Supreme Court focused on interpretations of the Constitution based on narrow, and sometimes incorrect,10 historical interpretation of constitutional rights.11 Amidst this legal backlash, leaders who have survived these failed systems are shaping advocacy to focus on equitable and restorative responses to youth, responses that protect and value young people’s childhood, bodies, communities, voices, and resources.12 These insights can play a key role in shaping the transformation of the system The vision of justice set forth in this publication emerged at a convening on Weaving Life and Law hosted by Juvenile Law Center. The convening centered the insights and vision of a powerful group of transformative leaders: Jeannette Bocanegra, the Executive Director of Justice for Families, an expert in transforming the system so that it is driven by the insights and input of youth and families; Hernan Carvente, the Founder and CEO of Healing Ninjas and Executive Director of Alianza for Opportunity; Johnny Perez, Director of U.S. Prison Program for the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, and a leading voice against solitary confinement; Amir Whitaker, Senior Policy Counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and author of Project Knucklehead. Juvenile Law Center staff, fellows, and alums also contributed their leadership to this project: Anahi Figueroa, who was serving as a Youth Advocacy Program Fellow; Marcus Jarvis, who was serving as the Debt Free Justice Communications and Outreach Associate; and current Juvenile Law Center Stoneleigh Youth Advocacy Fellows Aqilah David and Jihid. This publication relies heavily on this group’s discussion at the convening as well as each member’s previous writing, interviews, and other contributions. The insights of these leaders are not meant to be broadly representative. They do, however, offer crucial insights to inform the work. The ideas in this publication also build upon the expertise of abolitionist leaders, movement lawyers, and youth justice advocates who have been crafting alternatives for years. They borrow from the vision, inspiration, and hard work of abolitionist movements, largely led by Black, Latine, and Indigenous community members who have long recognized the failings of our existing legal system and the need for alternatives.13 While inspired by the actions of movements, this publication seeks to develop litigation strategies that support transformation of the system and to clarify when and how lawyers need to step up and when we should step back or offer our support for organizing, policy advocacy, and other social change strategies. The questions about the role of litigation are rooted in the work of movement and community lawyers who have pressed the legal field to recognize our place in larger efforts for liberation, and in the insights of scholars who pose questions about whether and how a legal system, built on racial oppression, can be used as a tool for liberation. The approaches highlighted here also expand upon the movement for a developmental jurisprudence – a history of legal advocacy and resulting case law that recognizes the importance of childhood and adolescent development to youth culpability and capacity, and on key legal advocacy for civil rights and racial justice.14 Section II of this report, co-authored with Mustafa Ali-Smith, provides a brief overview of the history of our juvenile legal system, recognizing that without a clear-eyed understanding of the roots of the system, our reforms may miss the mark. Section III highlights the harms of the system. Section IV, co-authored with the transformative leaders mentioned above, sets forth a shared vision of fairness and dignity. Section V highlights concrete legal strategies, focused on new approaches to advocating against harsh conditions of confinement that can ultimately contribute to divestment from the current system and investment in youth and families. The report aims to set the stage for legal advocacy to support restorative, equitable, and effective responses to youth.   

Philadelphia: Juvenile Law Center, 2025. 49p.

By Carla McDonald-Heffernan

  The purpose of this briefing is to provide practitioners with practice principles to improve the use of out of court resolutions for young adults, aged 18–24. These good practice principles are developed in this paper through an exploration of the evidence context, current policy, case studies and lived experience research. Evidence context Young adults represent a group with increased potential for desistance, as per the age–crime curve, if the right support is in place, and if they are protected from unnecessary criminalisation. The literature highlights that this group is still in the process of maturation, with brain functions still in development, resulting in a lack of impulse control, greater susceptibility to peer influence and decreased ability to consider consequences. Social factors in this transitory period of life also mean that relationships, education pathways, employment and finances can be unstable. These elements contribute significantly to a young adult’s likelihood of offending, and thus effective support in addressing these needs and challenges lowers the likelihood of recidivism. The literature around effective practice for young adults in the justice system emphasises the importance of several key approaches. Trust and relationship-building, specially trained practitioners, provision of holistic support that includes skills and basic support through multi-agency working, and interventions tailored to intersectional needs are all central to effective practice. Policy context Out of court resolutions (OOCRs) aim to provide a proportionate response to low-level offending. The past decade has seen conditional cautions make up a growing proportion of OOCRs, a shift which has coincided with forces moving towards the two-tier OOCR framework. Conditional cautions can include rehabilitative, reparative and punitive conditions. The practice around conditional cautions differs significantly between adults and children. Needs assessments are carried out less often for adults, and the type of conditions imposed on adults is determined by the police rather than through a multiagency process. As a result of the discretion available, practices around adult conditional cautions varies significantly between police forces. Case studies The case studies explored in this briefing are examples of good practice approaches to working with young adults in the justice system. The Gateway Project is a conditional caution programme developed specifically for 18–24-year-olds. It provides useful insights into key features that create effective conditional cautions for this group including external ‘navigators’ who carry out needs assessments and adopt mentorship roles, peer group courses focused on behaviour, and tailored support. The Devon and Cornwall Enhanced Prosecution Scheme highlights the centrality of partnerships with service providers and third-sector organisations to implementing personalised interventions for young adults. The Newham Youth to Adult Probation Hub accentuates the benefit of multi-agency working and services such as mentoring, speech and language therapy and basic provisions of food and clothing in supporting young adults out of offending.

London: Centre for Court Innovation,  2025. 23p.

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.

Edited by Gordon Bazemore and Mara Schiff

This book, based on a large-scale research project funded by the National Institute of Justice and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, provides an overview of the restorative justice conferencing programs currently in operation in the United States, paying particular attention to the qualitative dimensions of this, based on interviews, focus groups and ethnographic observation. It provides an unrivalled view of restorative justice conferencing in practice, and what the people involved felt and thought about it. The book looks at four structural variations in the face-to-face form of restorative decision making: family group conferences, victim-offender mediation/dialogue, neighborhood accountability boards, peacemaking circles. The authors address two issues that have received limited research emphasis in restorative justice: the lack of clear and consistent standards, and the absence of testable theories of intervention that reflect what has become a rather diverse practice. In response the authors conclude with a proposed structure for principle-based evaluation designed to test emerging theories of restorative decision making.

Cullompton, UK: Willan Publishing, 2005. 400p.