The Massachusetts juvenile justice system stopped focusing on the bad things kids shouldn’t do and started promoting positive outcomes.
The Impressive Top-to-Bottom Makeover of the Massachusetts Juvenile Justice System
Congressional Quarterly Researcher
Reforming Juvenile Justice Should teens who murder be treated as adults? by Christina L. Lyons September 11, 2015 ... Americans have “a deep cultural instinct to punish as a way of changing behavior,” says Jeffrey Butts, director of the Research and Evaluation Center at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. “And... Continue Reading →
New York Nonprofit Media
CLOSE TO HOME A JUVENILE JUSTICE REFORM TRIES TO REBOUND FROM EARLY TROUBLES By GABE PONCE DE LEÓN ... A collaborative effort between the city and state, Close to Home is part of a larger “realignment” of New York’s juvenile justice system—a recent movement that favors community-based alternatives to placements in rural correctional facilities, and... Continue Reading →
Gangs of New York
Allegations in Harlem the latest blow to a celebrated anti-violence program by Simone Weichselbaum April 3, 2015 Kathy Buettner, the spokeswoman for Cure Violence, responded to the story Friday and wrote: "The issues about the management of a site are handled at the local level, not at the Cure Violence national level." New York City... Continue Reading →
Chronicle of Social Change
Positive Youth Justice: Curbing Crime, Building Assets By John Kelly February 9, 2015 Underneath the tension-laden surface of national politics, there is growing agreement that the United States needs to rethink criminal justice, that the nation is over-reliant on expensive and ineffectual incarceration and short on other strategies that would lower the likelihood of continued... Continue Reading →
Juvenile Justice Information Exchange
Evidence-Based 'Gold Standard': Coveted, Yet Controversial by Gary Gately, August 13, 2014 It seemed a throwback to the days of the country doctor: Go to the patients instead of having them come to you. As a young intern in the pediatrics department at the University of Virginia’s medical school in the mid-1970s, Scott Henggeler got... Continue Reading →
Juvenile Justice Information Exchange
At ‘Wit’s End’: Scared Straight Programs Remain Popular Among Parents Despite Warnings by Elly Yu, May 9, 2014 “I have parents saying, ‘I can’t do this anymore, you’ll need to come get her, come get him – I don't want him anymore.’" “I feel like I’m at my wit’s end,” says a mother about her... Continue Reading →
There is More than One ‘System’ in Juvenile Justice
Equating the deepest end of juvenile justice with “the system” distorts the significance of whatever problems affect the youth in secure care. Young people in secure facilities represent a small proportion of the entire youthful offender population.
Georgia’s Troubled Effort to Reduce Juvenile Crime
A new data analysis shows Georgia's juvenile system has turned out just as high a percentage of repeat offenders as its adult prisons.
Interpreting the Juvenile Incarceration Drop
Even if we observe a number of instances when state reforms are followed by lower incarceration, we have to test whether the causal hypothesis holds up in the absence of reform? If we lined up all the states according to whether they had enacted meaningful reforms in their juvenile justice systems, would their incarceration trends line up in the same way, with high reform states showing more decline and low reform states showing less? Moreover, does the relationship persist over time and under varying circumstances?
Are We Too Quick to Claim Credit for Falling Juvenile Incarceration Rates?
As we celebrate falling incarceration numbers, those of us who work in juvenile justice should take a few moments to contemplate the true origins of the decline. We venture onto thin ice — empirically — if we conclude that incarceration is down because of changes in practice and policy.
DC Reforms Offer Some Kids New Beginning
New center models holistic, age-appropriate, therapeutic approaches February 21, 2013 by Kaukab Jhumra Smith LAUREL, Md. — A few years ago, facilities manager Carl Matthews rounded a corner inside a residential unit of a secure juvenile center near Washington, D.C., and came across the dangling body of a boy who had, moments earlier, hung himself from... Continue Reading →
