Research: Effective Juvenile Justice/
Juvenile Justice Reform
Supporting Youth in Transition to Adulthood:
Lessons Learned from Child Welfare and Juvenile Justice
This paper, published by the Center for Juvenile Justice Reform at Georgetown and the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative, discusses the successes and challenges that juvenile justice and child welfare agencies face in preparing the youth they serve for a successful adulthood. It also highlights organizational and legislative changes that have positioned these agencies to provide effective and appropriate services to older youth and their families. PDF, 406 KB
The Future of Children Journal: Juvenile Justice
The latest volume of The Future of Children Journal, published by The Brookings Institute and Princeton University, examines juvenile justice policies and practices with the goal of promoting justice system reform. These reforms are based on solid evidence and encompass a wide range of juvenile justice issues. PDF, 946 KB
The Future of Children Summary Report:
Best Practices in Juvenile Justice Reform
This report discusses the benefits of evidence-based programs, examines successful prevention programs that reach the larger population, community-based interventions that work with at-risk youth, and effective institutional settings for youth who are detained. PDF, 52 KB
Models for Change Report: Making Court the Last Resort
This paper, by The Vera Institute for Justice, describes the new paradigm of referring at-risk youth and their families to community-based services rather than into the juvenile justice system. By highlighting successful nationwide reform, including here in Connecticut, these studies highlight an approach to status offenders that is yielding positive outcomes in disparate jurisdictions. PDF, 328 KB
Annie E. Casey Foundation Issue Brief:
Reform the Nation’s Juvenile Justice System
This brief outlines what the Obama administration could do in order to implement much needed and long overdue reforms to our nation’s juvenile justice system. The Foundation recommends a variety of reforms related to federal funding, addressing racial disproportionality, reducing the number youth tried as adults, and improving training for those who work within the juvenile justice system, among others. PDF, 8 KB
NJJN Report: Advances in Juvenile Justice Reform 2007-2008
The National Juvenile Justice Network is offers this compilation of advances in juvenile justice reform from across the country. This document gathers together significant laws, administrative rule changes, and judicial opinions; the breadth and scope of its contents are a testament to the great number of positive changes that have occurred over the course of the past year. PDF, 946 KB
NCCD Report: Rebuilding the Infrastructure for At-risk Youth
In the past eight years, the infrastructure for at-risk youth has been severely weakened. Federal funding for youth programs has been cut, and states and localities have also faced hard budgetary choices. This report outlines several important changes under the Bush Administration that have negatively impacted the support system available to at-risk youth, their families, and their communities, as well as recommendations to improve opportunities for at-risk youth under the Obama Administration. PDF, 166 KB
Confidentiality Statutes of Child Protection Proceedings
In the 2004 General Assembly session, a bill was introduced to open to the public all juvenile proceedings, including cases involving child abuse and neglect. Yale Law School students under the supervision of CT Voices for Children prepared background materials on other states’ positions on this issue, including interviews with key stakeholders in states that have opened proceedings in whole or in part. web site
Sentencing Our Children to Die in Prison
A report by the University of San Francisco School of Law. PDF, 973.81 KB
Alliance Presentation on Bridgeport Detention Center
Alliance presentation on Bridgeport Detention Center. PowerPoint slide show, 186.5 KB
Beyond the Tunnel Problem: Addressing Cross-Cutting
Issues that Impact Vulnerable Youth
Call them silos, tunnels, or fragmentation, we know that when a young person has trouble, the kind of services he or she receives has little to do with the underlying needs of that young person and much to do with how they first enter the system – school, juvenile justice or child welfare. This means responses are often inappropriate or arbitrary. This briefing paper, the first in a series sponsored by the Youth Transition Funders Group in partnership with The Annie E. Casey Foundation, identifies some of the challenges and what can be done about them. PDF, 174 KB
C4YJ Report: Jailing Juveniles
CDC Report on Juvenile Transfers to Adult System. PDF, 245.45 KB
Changing Lives: Delinquency Prevention as Crime-Control Policy
Executive Summary of Peter Greenwood’s recent book. PDF, 254.33 KB
Chapin Hall Report on Positive Youth Development
in Juvenile Justice Programs
This issue brief examines how juvenile justice agencies might draw from the growing body of evidence on positive youth development to improve services for youthful offenders. web site
Child Welfare League of America Juvenile Justice Newsletter
Check out the Winter 2005 issue of the Child Welfare League of America’s newsletter, “The Link: Connecting Juvenile Justice and Child Welfare.” PDF, 462 KB
Cost-Effective Interventions for Juvenile Offenders
Dr. Peter Greenwood gave this presentation before the Judiciary, Childrens, and Appropriations committees on March 9, 2007 for Educate the Legislature Day. PowerPoint, 311.5 KB
Do You Know Where the Children Are? A Report on Massachusetts Youth Unlawfully Held Without Bail
By Barbara Fedders and Barbara Kaban, September, 2006. PDF, 158 KB
Improving Conditions for Girls in the
Justice System: The Female Detention Project
The Female Detention Project sought to create a profile of the typical girl in detention. Our goal in doing so was to draw attention to the common needs of girls, to identify gaps in services – both past and present – available to this population, and to identify strategies to compel the system to improve the quality of services offered to girls in Philadelphia’s Juvenile Justice System. PDF, 161 KB
Justice Cut Short: An Assessment of Access to Counsel and Quality of Representation in Delinquency Proceedings in Ohio
This 2003 study states that the Ohio juvenile justice system suffers from a lack of resources and other systemic barriers. The study also points out that African-American youth appear to be among those who are pushed into the system in largely disproportionate numbers. To obtain reports for other states, visit the National Juvenile Defender Center web site. PDF, 1.2 MB
Focus on Youth Sentences
Los Angeles Times Article on the California Juvenile Life Without Parole Reform Act. web site
Models for Change: Building Momentum
for Juvenile Justice Reform
A Justice Policy Institute report. PDF, 1.85 MB
Advances in Juvenile Justice Reform
The National Juvenile Justice Network’s second compilation of juvenile justice reforms thoroughout the country. The report features legislation that has been enacted, outcomes of legal challenges to existing conditions, and significant administrative and regulatory changes. PDF, 377.98 KB
NPR Story Highlights Missouri Juvenile Justice
Missouri sees teen offenders as kids, not inmates. All Things Considered, October 30, 2007. web site
New York Times Article on CT Juvenile Facilities
Secure Centers That Don’t Show It. December 23, 2007. web site
New York Times Editorial on JJDPA
Revitalizing the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act. November 20, 2007. web site
New York Times Editorial: Back Where They Belong
Gov. M. Jodi Rell vaulted Connecticut to the forefront of the juvenile justice reform movement when she signed a bill that removes 16- and 17-year-old offenders from the adult courts and puts them back into the juvenile justice system where they clearly belong. July 5, 2007.web site
OJJDP Model Programs Guide
The OJJDP Model Programs Guide is a comprehensive source of information about proven programs to address the entire spectrum of juvenile justice issues from prevention to re-entry. The guide also provide a detailed and easy-to-undersatnd explanation of the juvenile justice system itself and the jargon those within the system tend to use. One of the most useful features is the ability to search the guide’s database for sample model programs in any area of interest. web site
Overview of Evidence-based Practices for Youth in Connecticut
Bob Frank gave this Powerpoint presentation to the Judiciary, Childrens, and Appropriations committees on March 9, 2007 for Educate the Legislature Day. PowerPoint, 1.86 MB
Planning Community-Based Facilities for Violent Juvenile Offenders as Part of a System of Graduated Sanctions
OJJDP Report, August 2005. PDF, 668 KB
Potentials for Change: Public Attitudes
& Policy Preferences for JJ Systems Reform
A Center for Children’s Law and Policy Report. New polling data on Americans’ attitudes about youth, race and crime reveal strong support for juvenile justice reforms that focus on rehabilitating youthful offenders rather than locking them up in adult prisons. The public also believes that African American and poor youth receive less favorable treatment than those who are white or middle class. PDF, 246.44 KB
Rehabilitation Versus Incarceration of Juvenile Offenders
A new survey supported by the MacArthur foundation shows a greater willingness of taxpayers to pay for rehabilitation programs than for the incarceration of offenders in jail. These findings indicate support for an approach to juvenile justice that runs contrary to the increasingly punitive policies adopted across the country in the 1990s. PDF, 219.89 KB
Report: A Sensible Model for Juvenile Justice, Summer 2008
The Youth Transition Funders Group argues that the current juvenile justice system addresses the causes, rather than the effects of crime and focuses too much attention on mental health, substance abuse, and family therapy, therefore ignoring the majority of the juvenile population who commit crimes because of the normal tendency of youth to defy authority, thrill-seek, and become involved in social environments that are accepting of illegal behavior. PDF, 287.99 KB
School Yard or Prison Yard:
Improving Outcomes for Marginalized Youth
A Justice Strategies working paper. PDF, 140.22 KB
Small is Beautiful: Missouri DYS
The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s report on the Missouri Division of Youth Services. Over 20 years ago, Missouri closed its large training schools and began to develop a statewide system of group-home-like facilities for its adjudicated youth. The result has been more effective programs, lower recidivism rates and lower costs. PDF, 538 KB
Smart on Crime: Recommendations for the
Next Administration & Congress, November 2008
After the 2008 elections, America’s policymakers will take a fresh look at the criminal justice systemn. To assist with that review, criminal-justice leaders and experts spent months identifying key issues and gathering policy advice into a comprehensive set of recommendations for the new administration and Congress. Juvenile justice reform recommendations are outlined in Chapter 13 of this report. PDF, 1.24 MB
Treated Like Trash: Juvenile Detention in New Orleans
Before, During, and After Hurricane Katrina
This report follows the journey taken by these trapped children – from Orleans Parish Prison to Louisiana’s Office of Youth Development. PDF, 676.25 KB
What are the Implications of Adolescent
Brain Development on Juvenile Justice?
Coalition for Juvenile Justice Emerging Concepts Brief. A presentation of research findings intended to inform and improve juvenile justice and delinquency prevention policy and practice. PDF, 697.57 KB
What Works, Wisconsin: What Science Tells Us about Cost-Effective Programs for Juvenile Delinquency Prevention
A Report to the Wisconsin Governor’s Juvenile Justice Commission
and the Wisconsin Office of Justice Assistance PDF, 839 KB