Health and Mental Health
This report, written by the Sentencing Project, highlights the harmful practice of direct file, or “auto-charging” youth in adult court. This national analysis looks at the practice of direct file and the pervasive harms that it has on the wellbeing and future thriving of young people and makes recommendations for states to limit pathways for…
In October 2025, the Gault Center convened over three hundred youth defense lawyers and advocates at our annual Youth Defender Leadership Summit. Together, we practiced the cultivation of community in service of building a more just, more liberated, and more human humanity for all children and for us all. This resource captures the shared learnings…
This article focuses on the policies and practices of community supervision programs, and the impact they have on individuals with disabilities, including discriminatory practices that prevent disabled individuals from successfully completing probation or parole. From the introduction: ” This Article addresses disability discrimination in community supervision programs, a large—but frequently overlooked—component of the criminal legal…
This “Fast Facts” Publication from UCLA’s Center for the Developing Adolescent provides insight on how to support young people five years after the COVID-19 pandemic. From the publication: “In 2020, COVID disrupted nearly every aspect of education, work, and social connections. Students who were in the earliest years of their education when schools first closed…
This resource from Lambda Legal and the American Bar Association Children’s Rights Litigation Committee gives attorneys an overview on how to approach client interviewing and relationship building in a respectful and trauma-informed way. The page discusses the importance of identity for young people’s well being and on their legal cases. It also reviews basic interview…
From the abstract: “Attorneys who can recognize and respond to trauma and stress, in both their clients and in themselves, are better positioned to provide effective advocacy and help shape a more restorative legal practice. As clients and communities face mounting pressure amid growing social, economic, climate, and systemic challenges, legal education must evolve to…
“Do criminal courts meaningfully accommodate psychiatric disability? A review of competency proceedings across the United States suggests not. In competency to stand trial (CST) proceedings, criminal courts offer a narrow vision of psychiatric disability that excludes many defendants. Ultimately, the institutional context of criminal court under-mines even the meager accommodations that the competency framework provides.…
“For decades, in the summertime, America has confined certain of its youth in what are essentially open-air heat camps. In city after city, camp-form is established through the enactment of warm-weather juvenile curfews which keep the youth at home or in state-sponsored centers during summer nights and, increasingly, during days as well. Local governments justify…
This resource offers a brief overview of how children are transferred or bound over to adult court in Ohio and discusses what is at stake in the case of State v. D.T., 2024-Ohio-4482 (Ohio Ct. App. 2024) pending before the Ohio Supreme Court. The Gault Center filed an amicus in this case here. Oral arguments were…
This article featured on the Frameworks Institute website offers research-based communication strategies for combating the manufactured controversy of a “crime emergency” caused by adolescents in Washington D.C. The article provides a topline nonpartisan message for responding to the relentless, toxic messaging around adolescent crime and outlines five framing recommendations for discussing the harmful policies being…
The Health and Reentry Project highlights promising Medicaid policy changes that promote continuity of care for young people returning to their communities following incarceration. The changes will support reentry for young people who are eligible for Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program by introducing them to services that would start 30 days before release…
This report from the National Center for Youth Law examines the emerging policies across the United States that are likely to reverse the downward trend of youth incarceration rates.
From the abstract: “The discipline of public health has begun to recognize the structural inequities of the carceral system as drivers of poor individual and population health. Thenumberofpeopleincarceratedandthelengthoftheirincarcerationdeterminethescopeandgravityoftheirexposureto these individual and public health effects. Plea bargains all but guarantee a period of incarceration, often for many years, because prosecutors have significant bargaining power against defendants…
