News & Blog Posts
The Gault Center’s Mary Ann Scali Interviewed for a Story on Conditions in an Ohio Correctional Facility
Executive Director Mary Ann Scali was interviewed by USA Today regarding conditions of confinement concerns at Ohio’s Indian River Juvenile Correctional Facility. Staffing shortages, extensive use of solitary confinement, and staff conducting rounds via video instead of in person are a just a few of…
Spring 2026 Resource Library Updates
The Gault Center has been regularly updating our Resource Library, where you will find a broad range of youth defense resources to enhance your practice and advocacy. Below are some notable publications from the past few months that may be of interest to youth defense…
New Report: Revolutionizing Probation from Punishment to Community-Led Safety
We are delighted to share Part I of our new report and executive summary, created in partnership with Youth Empowerment for Advancement Hangout (YEAH Philly), as part of our Juvenile Probation Accountability Coalition (JPAC). Part I of our report summarizes youth perspectives on juvenile probation based…
Players Coalition Supports Maryland’s Limiting Automatic Charging of Youth as Adults
The Gault Center is so grateful to partner with Players Coalition to strengthen youth rights in Maryland! Players Coalition “exists to end social injustices and racial inequality so future generations have the opportunity to thrive without barriers.” Players Coalition has been supporting youth justice advocacy…
Op Ed on Public Defense Day and The Gault Center’s Work in Kansas
In 2020, the Gault Center was invited by the Kansas Supreme Court to conduct a Statewide Assessment of its youth defense delivery system. Since that time, the Gault Center has been working with partners in Kansas to build a statewide Youth Defense System, and in…
2026 Ambassadors for Racial Justice
We are excited to introduce the 2026 Ambassadors for Racial Justice (ARJ). During the year-long program the Gault Center and Georgetown Juvenile Justice Initiative partner with a cohort of 10 youth defenders selected as Ambassadors for Racial Justice to lead and develop strategies to combat racial inequities…
JPAC in the Philadelphia Inquirer
The Gault Center and Youth Empowerment for Advancement Hangout (YEAH Philly) are partnering together to launch the Juvenile Probation Accountability Coalition (JPAC). JPAC will focus on exposing the harms of juvenile probation, amplifying alternative models, and advancing local policies and practices that move us beyond…
2025 End of Year Resource Library Updates
The Gault Center has been regularly updating our Resource Library, where you will find up-to-date youth defense resources to enhance your practice and advocacy. In this post, our summer 2025 update, you will find some notable publications from the past couple of months that may be of interest to youth defense advocates.
Summer 2025 Resource Library Updates
The Gault Center has been regularly updating our Resource Library, where you will find up-to-date youth defense resources to enhance your practice and advocacy. In this post, our summer 2025 update, you will find some notable publications from the past couple of months that may be of interest to youth defense advocates.
Spring 2025 Resource Library Updates
The Gault Center has been regularly updating our Resource Library, where you will find up-to-date youth defense resources to enhance your practice and advocacy. In this post, our spring 2025 update, you will find some notable publications from the past couple of months that may be of interest to youth defense advocates.
Winter 2025 Resource Library Updates
The Gault Center has been regularly updating our Resource Library, where you will find up-to-date youth defense resources to enhance your practice and advocacy. In this post, our winter 2025 update, you will find some notable publications from the past couple of months that may be of interest to youth defense advocates.
Fall 2024 Resource Library Updates
The Gault Center has been regularly updating our Resource Library, where you will find up-to-date youth defense resources to enhance your practice and advocacy. In this post are some notable publications from the past couple of months that may be of interest to youth defense advocates.
Summer 2024 Resource Library Updates
The Gault Center has been regularly updating our Resource Library, where you will find up-to-date youth defense resources to enhance your practice and advocacy. In this post are some notable publications from the past couple of months that may be of interest to youth defense advocates.
Spring 2024 Resource Library Updates
The Gault Center has been regularly updating our Resource Library, where you will find up-to-date youth defense resources to enhance your practice and advocacy. In this post are some notable publications from the past couple of months that may be of interest to youth defense advocates.
Youth Defense System Standards
A specialized corps of zealous youth defenders can unlock young people’s constitutional rights and wield the power to challenge and dismantle institutionalized oppression. For youth defenders to effectively do this work, states must invest in well-resourced youth defense delivery systems to comply with their constitutional mandates. The National Youth Defense System Standards outline steps states must take to satisfy the minimum requirements of the U.S. Constitution to fully safeguard the rights of youth in the juvenile legal system.
Announcing: New Resource Library
Over the past few months, we’ve been rebuilding our resource library to make it easier for defenders to find what they are looking for in our library. We have now finished our rebuild, and we are happy to announce that the new Resource Library is now live!
2022 Summit Top 10
by Kristina “KK” Kersey, Sr. Youth Defense Counsel We broadcast Summit from Puerto Rico so we could dance bombas, drink pina coladas, and revolutionize youth defense, and I can confirm we did all of the above. If you missed Summit, well, you missed a…
Gault Center op-ed in Teen Vogue
In this piece, HyeJi speaks directly to adolescents, to provide young people with empowering information to make change.
ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT
Advocating for children to be treated like children What’s At Stake Children are different than adults. Despite this self-evident truth, many people in the juvenile legal system treat children as small adults-subjecting them to harsher penalties without considering their development and opportunities for growth. Several…
How to celebrate the Gaultiversary
by Kristina “KK” Kersey, Sr. Youth Defense Counsel This is not a drill. May 15 is Gault Day! Mark your calendars. Passover brings matzah, the Eid new clothes, Christmas brings my father commiserating with Ebenezer Scrooge while watching A Christmas Carol. Each holiday…
Casey KK’s American (Constitutional Right to Counsel) Top 10
by Kristina “KK” Kersey, Sr. Youth Defense Counsel How excited am I that we have our first Black female Supreme Court Justice who is a public defender? (Once a public defender, always a public defender; it’s blood in, blood out.) Very! But not…
Dear K.K.
Dear K.K., My dear client has a love-hate relationship with his school district. He is currently at an alternative school. One day in January, he left his school and entered the main high school. He was let in by another student and bypassed the…
Top 10 Reasons why Appellate Attorneys are Bae
by Kristina “KK” Kersey, Sr. Youth Defense Counsel Once upon a time, there was a curly-haired defender who hated having to play Go Fish about discovery before a transfer hearing: “Prosecutor, do you have the statement from the store clerk mentioned in the police…
10 New Year’s Revolutions
by Kristina “KK” Kersey, Sr. Youth Defense Counsel Hey, so that holiday break was . . . different. I spent New Year’s Eve doing shots of Pepto with flat ginger ale chasers—a bubble gum guts cocktail (TM pending)—after a truly regrettable, but unforgettable, chicken…
12 Days of Yuletide Youth-Tide
by Kristina “KK” Kersey, Sr. Youth Defense Counsel Christmas songs are weird. Between people demanding figgy pudding and refusing to leave until they get some, to the wildly problematic Baby, It’s Cold Outside. (This maiden aunt’s mind is, indeed, vicious, but it’s because of…
