By The U.S. Surgeon General
  Social media use by youth is nearly universal. Up to 95% of youth ages 13–17 report using a social media platform, with more than a third saying they use social media “almost constantly.”  Although age 13 is commonly the required minimum age used by social media platforms in the U.S., nearly 40% of children ages 8–12 use social media. Despite this widespread use among children and adolescents, robust independent safety analyses on the impact of social media on youth have not yet been conducted. There are increasing concerns among researchers, parents and caregivers, young people, healthcare experts, and others about the impact of social media on youth mental health.5, 6 More research is needed to fully understand the impact of social media; however, the current body of evidence indicates that while social media may have benefits for some children and adolescents, there are ample indicators that social media can also have a profound risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents. At this time, we do not yet have enough evidence to determine if social media is sufficiently safe for children and adolescents. We must acknowledge the growing body of research about potential harms, increase our collective understanding of the risks associated with social media use, and urgently take action to create safe and healthy digital environments that minimize harm and safeguard children’s and adolescents’ mental health and well-being during critical stages of development. 
  
Washington DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2023. 25p.

By Andrea R. Coleman  
Involvement with the juvenile justice system may result in collateral consequences—sanctions and disqualifications that can place an unanticipated burden on rehabilitated youth transitioning back to their communities following out-of-home placement. Collateral consequences can negatively impact a youth’s access to higher education, employment, housing, and ability to serve in the military. Although states continue to pass new laws and increase public awareness efforts, expunging juvenile records is still a complicated process. State laws vary widely and it is not always clear exactly what expungement, sealing, or confidentiality covers. Fortunately, there are emerging practices that are helping youth, families, and professionals expunge juvenile records. Successful reentry reduces recidivism and increases public safety. It is our hope that the information contained in this bulletin will help court personnel, service providers, and youth advocates mitigate the effects of collateral consequences. Balancing public safety with the needs of juvenile offenders seeking to lead productive lives without unnecessary encumbrances is a challenge.

Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 2020. 12p.

By Christina A. Sorenson

Screaming Into The Void: Youth Voice in Institutional Placements is a report written by 2019 Soros Justice Fellow Christina K. Sorenson. This comprehensive report includes a personal anthology, a historical analysis, a review of the current state of affairs, an in-depth look at Pennsylvania, and a 51- jurisdictional research survey of youth grievance protections in institutional placements across the dependency and delinquency systems. The historical analysis is limited but essential to understanding the current system's failures and the need for system re-imagining.

The regularity of out-of-state placement necessitates a national perspective. The complicated intersection of federal and state laws exists ostensibly to protect the children we incarcerate. However, the research in this report unequivocally proves that nationwide, our oversight systems systematically dis-empower youth, hide abuses and limit liability.

Organized around three core components: See Youth, Hear Youth, and Protect Youth, this report weaves an existing analysis of protections across the county with multi-disciplinary recommendations and approaches. Finally, there is a curriculum developed by expert Antonio Thomas, to help jurisdictions work directly in partnership with youth to develop youth-centered grievance protections.

The purpose of this report is not to offer an answer, a model, or a template for grievance protection. Instead, the history, state statutory and regulatory review, and curriculum aim to supply the resources necessary for policy-makers and advocates to empower and include local youth with lived experience in imagining and implementing effective youth-centered grievance protections.
Philadelphia: Juvenile Law Center, 2023. 108p.

By   Ilya Klauzner, Suzanne Poynton, Don Weatherburn and Hamish Thorburn

Youth on Track is an early intervention scheme that was introduced in 2013 to help reduce the risk of young people re-offending. The scheme assigns young people to caseworkers for up to 12 months. Caseworkers administer interventions to the young person, including cognitive-behavioural and family interventions. They can also refer young people to external services to address criminogenic needs and engage with schools to increase attendance. Youth on Track is only available in seven sites in NSW and for young people who have never had a supervised order.
Between August 2017 and June 2020, a randomised controlled trial (RCT) was implemented to evaluate the Youth on Track program. A brief intervention called Fast Track was created as the control arm to ensure some level of treatment for all young people participating in the RCT. Fast Track was capped at six weeks of case management. Caseworkers did not deliver any structured interventions to the young person, but could refer them to external services.
We examined whether there were any differences in recidivism, education, employment, community activity, and housing outcomes between Youth on Track and Fast Track participants.

Sydney: NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research. (Crime and Justice Bulletin No. 249).  

By  Aisha Ofori, Carmen Robin-D’Cruz, Bami Jolaoso and Stephen Whitehead

  Youth diversion is a set of informal, non-statutory practices in which children and young people are provided the opportunity to avoid a statutory out of court disposal or a court prosecution if they complete community-based interventions. It offers children and young people a crucial alternative, allowing them to avoid the damaging consequences of formal justice processing and the likelihood of becoming deeper entrenched into the youth justice system. However, at present, there are concerns that diversion is not equally available to all, potentially exacerbating the racial disparities that already mar the system. As the House of Commons Justice Select Committee reported, ‘race disproportionality is significant and fundamental, visible in every part of the youth justice system’.  Given the significant and potentially life-long harms which come with unnecessary involvement in the justice system, ensuring equal access to diversion is essential. This project explores the experiences of children and young people, some of whom had been diverted and some of whom had not, with a particular focus on how they perceived their ethnicity to have impacted the youth justice process and outcomes. Eleven children and young people currently in the youth justice system participated in face-to-face interviews about their experiences with the police, solicitors and youth justice services, and how they perceived these experiences to have been influenced by their ethnic background. This research, funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, follows on from our previous project ‘Equal diversion? Racial disproportionality in youth diversion’ and is a crucial step towards expanding the limited evidence base on youth diversion in England and Wales.  

London: The Centre for Justice Innovation, 2022. 21p.

By Patricia Soung

The dramatic growth of prison populations in the United States during the latter half of the twentieth century, as well as the problems of over-policing and police misconduct, have been well documented and decried.1 But the related expansion and problems of community supervision receive far less attention. Across the nation, reform efforts have increasingly included a focus on probation, especially juvenile probation, as an actor that both jails and polices youth in the community while also trying to rehabilitate them and promote their well-being. This Article studies the juvenile probation system, with a focus on California as one important system aiming to both surveil and care for individuals. It draws together two frameworks: 1) law and policy which describe the juvenile probation system as intended, and 2) juvenile probation practices and attitudes which reveal the day-to-day translation of the system’s formal intentions. Ultimately, where a system’s approach to rehabilitation and accountability become synonymous with or too reflexively able to adopt surveillance, containment, and punishment orientations, its ability to deliver meaningful help and support through that same system is improbable. Thus, this Article discusses the need in the United States to reform, dismantle, or replace probation with youth development-focused systems and uses Los Angeles as an example of a government already doing this important work

.112 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 549 (2022).

By Ben Finholt, Brandon L. Garrett, Karima Modjadidi, and Kristen M. Renberg 

Life without parole (LWOP) is “an especially harsh punishment for a juvenile,” as the U.S. Supreme Court noted in Graham v. Florida. The United States is the only country in the world that imposes juvenile life without parole (JLWOP) sentences. Many of these individuals were sentenced during a surge in LWOP sentencing in the 1990s. In the past decade, following several Supreme Court rulings eliminating mandatory sentences of LWOP for juvenile offenders, such sentencing has declined. This Article aims to empirically assess the rise and then the fall in JLWOP sentencing in a leading sentencing state, North Carolina, to better understand these trends and their implications.

We examine the cases of ninety-four North Carolina juveniles, aged thirteen to seventeen at the time of their offenses, who were sentenced to JLWOP. Of those, forty-nine are currently serving LWOP sentences. In North Carolina, JLWOP sentencing has markedly declined. Since 2011, there have been only five of such sentences. Of the group of ninety-four juvenile offenders, forty-four have so far been resentenced to non-LWOP sentences—largely pursuant to the post-Miller v. Alabama legislation passed in North Carolina. These JLWOP sentences are primarily concentrated in a small group of counties. A total of 61% (fifty-seven of the ninety-four) JLWOP sentences in North Carolina were entered in one of the eleven counties that have imposed more than three JLWOP sentences. We find a path dependency to these sentences: once a county has imposed a JLWOP sentence, it has a higher probability of imposing a JLWOP sentence again in the future. In contrast, homicide rates are not predictive of JLWOP sentences. We question what goals JLWOP serves, given what an inconsistently used, uncommon, geographically limited, and costly sentence it has been in practice. In conclusion, we describe alternatives to JLWOP, including the model adopted in states such as California and Wyoming, in which there is periodic review of lengthy sentences imposed on juvenile offenders.

110 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 141 (2020).

By Ashley Nellis and Niki Monazzam

  Beginning at age 18, U.S. laws typically require persons charged with a crime to have their case heard in criminal rather than juvenile court, where penalties are more severe.1 The justification for this is that people are essentially adults by age 18, yet this conceptualization of adulthood is flawed. The identification of full criminal accountability at age 18 ignores the important, distinct phase of human development referred to as emerging adulthood, also known as late adolescence or young adulthood.2 Compelling evidence shows that most adolescents are not fully matured into adulthood until their mid-twenties.3 The legal demarcation of 18 as adulthood rests on outdated notions of adolescence. Based on the best scientific understanding of human development, ages 18 to 25 mark a unique stage of life between childhood and adulthood which is recognized within the fields of neuroscience, sociology, and psychology. Thus, there is growing support for providing incarcerated people who were young at the time of their offense a second look at their original sentence to account for their diminished capacity. A 2022 study found similar levels of public support for providing a second look at prison sentences for crimes committed under age 18 as for those committed under age 25.4 This brief proceeds in three sections: • Analysis based on a newly compiled nationally representative dataset of nearly 30,000 individuals sentenced to life without parole (LWOP) between 1995 and 2017. • Research review on adolescent brain development revealing that emerging adults share more characteristics with youth than adults. • Judicial, legislative, and administrative reform updates in nine jurisdictions: California, Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts, Michigan, Vermont, Washington, Washington, DC, and Wyoming.

Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2023. 22p.  

By Charles Puzzanchera, Sarah Hockenberry, and Melissa Sickmund  

  Youth and the Juvenile Justice System: 2022 National Report is the fifth edition of a comprehensive report on youth victimization, offending by youth, and the juvenile justice system. With this release, the report series has adopted a new name (the series was previously known as “Juvenile Offenders and Victims”), but the focus of the report remains unchanged: the report consists of the most requested information on youth and the juvenile justice system in the United States. Developed by the National Center for Juvenile Justice (NCJJ) for the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and the National Institute of Justice, the report draws on reliable data and relevant research to provide a comprehensive and insightful view of youth victims and offending by youth, and what happens to youth when they enter the juvenile justice system in the U.S. The report offers—to Congress, state legislators, other state and local policymakers, educators, juvenile justice professionals, and concerned citizens— empirically based answers to frequently asked questions about the nature of youth victimization and offending and the justice system’s response. The juvenile justice system must react to the law-violating behaviors of youth in a manner that not only protects the community and holds youth accountable but also enhances youth’s ability to live productively and responsibly in the community. The system must also intervene in the lives of abused and neglected children who lack safe and nurturing environments. To respond to these complex issues, juvenile justice practitioners, policymakers, and the public must have access to useful and accurate information about the system and the youth it serves. At times, such information is not available or, when it does exist, it is often too scattered or inaccessible to be useful. This report bridges that gap by pulling together the most requested information on youth and the juvenile justice system in the United States. The report draws on numerous national data collections to address the specific information needs of those involved with the juvenile justice system. The report presents important and, at times, complex information using clear, nontechnical writing and easy to-understand graphics and tables. It is structured as a series of briefing papers on specific topics, short sections that can be read independently   

 Pittsburgh, PA:  National Center for Juvenile Justice, 2022. 226p.

By Amanda B. Gilman , Sarah Cusworth Walker , Kristin Vick, and Rachael Sanford  

  While there is ample research examining the short- and long-term effects of juvenile incarceration (broadly defined), less is known about the specific consequences of the most common form of youth incarceration, juvenile detention. We conducted a Rapid Evidence Review (RER), limiting our search to the past 10 years to include studies that captured modern juvenile justice practices, to assess the body of literature evaluating the effects of juvenile detention on youth outcomes. Our initial search yielded over 1,800 articles, but only three ultimately met criteria for inclusion in our review. We conclude that there is a profound lack of research regarding the consequences of juvenile detention, an issue that affects a large number of youth in the United States.

Crime and Delinquency, 67(11) : 1792-1813, 2021

By Vicky Kemp, Nicola Carr, Hope Kent and Stephen Farrall

  The criminal law is supposed to treat children, being those aged under 18 years, less harshly than it treats adults because of their developmental differences. Children also have particular legal rights due to their age, needs and circumstances. While the number of children arrested by the police has fallen by two-thirds over the past ten years, there were just under 53,000 people under 18 years old brought into police custody in England and Wales during the year ending March 2022. For children who come into conflict with the law, particularly those detained and questioned by the police, special protections are required to ensure that their legal rights are protected. In addition to legal safeguards under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE), children arrested and detained by the police have legal protections under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Within the secure environment of police custody, however, children’s experiences are rarely heard, making them almost invisible during these early stages in the criminal process. This study, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, explores the impact of PACE on the detention and questioning of child suspects. For the first time in England and Wales, this included researchers engaging with child suspects about their legal rights while detained. Talking to children about their experiences in police custody provided researchers with greater insight into the processing of child suspects by the police.  

Nottingham, UK: University of Nottingham, 2023. 121p

Lorraine Mazerolle, Sarah Bennett, Emma Antrobus, Stephanie M. Cardwell, Elizabeth Eggins & Alex R. Piquero 

Truancy in adolescence is related to detrimental developmental outcomes over the life-course, including a greater risk for delinquency during adolescence and offending in adulthood. This paper presents results from the Ability School Engagement Program (ASEP): a Third Party Policing partnership between schools and police that sought to disrupt the relationship between truancy and delinquency by communicating, in a procedurally fair dialogue, the legal responsibilities of parents to ensure their children attend school. This paper examines the impact of ASEP on antisocial behavior and the modifying effects of ASEP on the relationship between willingness to go to school and antisocial behavior.

 Journal of Quantitative Criminology volume 35, pages663–689 (2019

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.

United States. Public Health Service. Office Of The Surgeon General

From the document: "This Advisory calls attention to the growing concerns about the effects of social media on youth mental health. It explores and describes the current evidence on the positive and negative impacts of social media on children and adolescents, some of the primary areas for mental health and well-being concerns, and opportunities for additional research to help understand the full scope and scale of social media's impact. This document is not an exhaustive review of the literature. Rather, it was developed through a substantial review of the available evidence, primarily found via electronic searches of research articles published in English and resources suggested by a wide range of subject matter experts, with priority given to, but not limited to, meta-analyses and systematic literature reviews. It also offers actionable recommendations for the institutions that can shape online environments--policymakers and technology companies--as well as for what parents and caregivers, young people, and researchers can do."

United States. Public Health Service. Office of the Surgeon General. 2023. 25p.

By Josh Rovner

 Youth arrests and incarceration increased in the closing decades of the 20th century but have fallen sharply since that time. Public opinion often lags behind these realities, wrongly assuming both that crime is perpetually increasing and that youth offending is routinely violent. In fact, youth offending is predominantly low-level, and the 21st century has seen significant declines in youth arrests and incarceration. Between 2000 and 2020, the number of youth held in juvenile justice facilities fell from 109,000 to 25,000—a 77% decline.  

Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2023. 9p.

By Richard Mendel

Though the number of youth confined nationwide has declined significantly over the past two decades, our country still incarcerates far too many young people.

It does so despite overwhelming evidence showing that incarceration is an ineffective strategy for steering youth away from delinquent behavior and that high rates of youth incarceration do not improve public safety. Incarceration harms young people’s physical and mental health, impedes their educational and career success, and often exposes them to abuse. And the use of confinement is plagued by severe racial and ethnic disparities.

This publication summarizes the evidence documenting the serious problems associated with the youth justice system’s continuing heavy reliance on incarceration and makes recommendations for reducing the use of confinement. It begins by describing recent incarceration trends in the youth justice system. This assessment finds that the sizable drop in juvenile facility populations since 2000 is due largely to a substantial decline in youth arrests nationwide, not to any shift toward other approaches by juvenile courts or corrections agencies once youth enter the justice system. Most youth who are incarcerated in juvenile facilities are not charged with serious violent offenses, yet the United States continues to confine youth at many times the rates of other nations. And it continues to inflict the harms of incarceration disproportionately on Black youth and other youth of color – despite well-established alternatives that produce better outcomes for youth and community safety.

Washington, DC: Sentencing Project, 2022. 34p.

By Texas Center for Justice and Equity

During Youth Justice Action Month, we launched a new campaign focused on closing Texas’s 5 remaining prisons and investing in kids instead. After reports revealed dangerous and inhumane conditions in the Texas Juvenile Justice Department (TJJD), the “solution” has been to raise employee salaries. We know this will not fix the systemic abuse and neglect of incarcerated youth, and we demand something better for Texas kids. Along with the release of a policy brief and webpage explaining our policy goals, we’re convening the Finish the 5 Coalition — a group of advocates, organizations, impacted people, and other individuals. 

Austin, TX: TCJE, 2022. 9p.

By Emily A. Vogels

Nearly half of U.S. teens have been bullied or harassed online, with physical appearance being seen as a relatively common reason why. Older teen girls are especially likely to report being targeted by online abuse overall and because of their appearance

Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, 2022. 24p

By The National Governors Association

Youth involved in the juvenile justice system routinely face a variety of repercussions beyond detention. Although some of these may be directly related to the violation that occurred, there are many other secondary effects that can result from their system involvement. These secondary repercussions, or collateral consequences, can negatively impact youth and their families upon even the lowest level of engagement with the juvenile justice system. Such side effects can restrict a youth’s ability to recover and develop into a productive and self-sustaining adult citizen.

To better understand the range of collateral consequences youth may face, NGA conducted a series of learning calls and hosted a virtual roundtable titled “Strategies to Address the Needs of Juveniles Impacted by Collateral Consequences” during the fall of 2022. This roundtable convened national, state, and local subject-matter experts to explore the breadth of collateral consequences faced by justice-involved youth, the challenges and barriers policymakers face when addressing these consequences and policy options state leaders may consider to mitigate the negative effects that may result when youth interact with the juvenile justice system. This publication documents these high-level discussions and highlights key policy strategies for Governors’ offices to consider addressing this issue.  

Washington, DC: NGA, 2023. 12p.

By The National Juvenile Justice Network

Realizing true youth justice means ensuring youth live in a well-resourced ecosystem of community-based, trauma-informed and healing-centered responses to youth needs that create a pathway to opportunity, success and thriving for young people. An integral part of that ecosystem is a positive school environment that honors who young people are, pushes them to do their best, helps them when they encounter challenges, and extends grace when they miss the mark. When young people have access to positive school environments, they are better equipped to come to school with enthusiasm for learning, discover their dreams and passions, find ways to positively impact their school environment and learn from mistakes when they arise.
Unfortunately, a “surveillance” culture permeates too many of today's schools where students are penalized instead of encouraged to achieve their highest goals. Black, Brown, Indigenous, LGBTQIA+, and disabled students more often experience these types of surveillance school environments, which cause young people stress, trauma, and alienation and detract from their ability to learn and grow. Ultimately, it can lead students to become so disaffected that they drop out of school or are forced out through suspension, expulsion, or arrest.

Washington DC: NJJN, 2022. 45p.