Data Collection and Analysis
A decade after national protests catapulted the Black Lives Matter movement following the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and four years after a national racial reckoning triggered by Minneapolis police officers killing George Floyd, lawmakers are wavering on their commitment to making the criminal legal system more just and effective. Many are…
A new study by The Pew Charitable Trusts shows that young people assigned to probation after their first offense are more likely to be rearrested in the future, particularly for technical violations, than their peers diverted away from probation. The study, based on data provided by the Texas Juvenile Justice Department (TJJD) and analyzed by…
This research article explores the history of girls prosecuted as adults in courts across the United States. It explores the effects of childhood trauma and victimization on brain and physical development and the connection to involvement in the criminal legal system as children. The article describes the results of a survey of young women who…
Challenging the Status Quo: Mobilizing Youth Defense Teams to Uphold Youth Rights & Uproot Injustice
This Racial Justice Webinar was hosted by the Gault Center and Georgetown Law’s Juvenile Justice Clinic & Initiative on May 29, 2024. The webinar focused on a collective call to action for the youth defense community to transform the juvenile legal system by centering youth and their constitutional rights to freedom, liberty, and equality. This…
The work described herein articulates a way forward for the NIH to continue to improve youth mental health and to reduce YMHD through supporting rigorous, impactful research. However, the urgency of the youth mental health crisis and YMHD is so pressing that many NIH ICOs have already begun this important work, particularly through supporting research.…
This position paper reviews the research on disparities in justice system outcomes based on whether a person is represented by a public defender or by court-appointed private counsel finding that court-appointed counsel achieve less favorable outcomes due largely to differences in compensation and resources available to them. The paper also reviews the literature on the…
