Racial and Ethnic Disparities
Human Rights Watch conducted a study on New Jersey’s waiver mechanisms, finding that the state is effectively operating a prosecutorial waiver system that is disproportionately harming Black and Latine youth, sidelining judicial oversight, and prioritizing punishment over treatment. This report offers recommendations for a wide range of system professionals to ultimately end the prosecution of…
In August 2024, the Office for Access to Justice hosted a convening on youth defense, calling attention to the urgent need to invest in youth defense specialization. “Such investments from the state and federal level are essential to safeguarding young people’s constitutional rights. Well-trained and specialized counsel help young people understand their rights as they…
In this amicus brief (and a companion brief filed in Michigan v. Andrew Czarnecki), Fair and Just Prosecution urges the Michigan Supreme Court to extend 19- and 20-year olds its finding that life without parole sentences for young people violate state and federal constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment.
This report is the latest in a series of Juvenile Justice Initiative (JJI) reports on juvenile detention, building on prior research in concluding the time is ripe for a complete overhaul of the juvenile detention system in Illinois.
This report challenges the notion that Georgia’s youth legal system is built to rehabilitate and suggests measures that protect the health and humanity of all the state’s children. First, this report will explore the myth of the “superpredator” and its impact on perceived Black youth criminality. Second, it will detail the state’s school-to-prison pipeline and…
This report details the results of the first-ever state-wide Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) survey administered to people currently incarcerated for crimes they committed as children (under eighteen). The trauma measured from ACEs surveys include physical, sexual, and emotional abuse; physical and emotional neglect; separation from parents; mental illness or substance abuse in the home; parent…
The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and the National Institute of Justice released a fact sheet highlighting key delinquency caseload trends from 2021. There were 437,300 delinquency cases in the United States, down by 39% from 2020, contributing to an overall decline in delinquency cases since its peak in 1997. In 2021, 44%…
The Center for Native American Youth (CNAY) at the Aspen Institute released a report detailing survey results of nearly one thousand Native youth on their needs and priorities across issues that matter most to them. This survey was built and disseminated by Native youth leaders who worked in partnership with CNAY staff to practice and…
This one-page infographic from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention illustrates trends in delinquency cases in 2022.
The Court of Appeals of Washington remanded a transfer case to the superior court and offered the following language in support. “Our Supreme Court has made clear that trial courts must be vigilant in addressing the threat of explicit or implicit racial bias that affects a defendant’s right to a fair trial. We hold that…
Florida routinely pushes Black children out of schools and into a legal system with well-documented harms. In recent years, the state has made significant investments in school law enforcement and self-proclaimed “tough love” youth legal system policies, purportedly in the name of public safety. However, these investments have yielded a system that disparately disciplines, arrests,…
