Racial and Ethnic Disparities

Why Youth Incarceration Fails: An Updated Review of the Evidence

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Misdemeanor Prosecution

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A More Grown-Up Response to Ordinary Adolescent Behaviors: Repealing PINS Laws to Protect and Empower D.C. Youth

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Centering Youth Voice in Juvenile Justice Reform: A Brief Summary Report of Youth Experiences

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Taking the Next Step in Miranda Evaluations: Considering Racial Trauma and the Impact of Prior Police Contact

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Does “Jamal” Receive a Harsher Sentence Than “James”? First-Name Bias in the Criminal Sentencing of Black Men

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Changing Course in Youth Detention: Reversing Widening Gaps by Race and Place

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The Annie E. Casey Found. (2023). The Annie E. Casey Foundation undertook a three-year analysis from January 2020 to January 2023 of the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on juvenile detention rates. The analysis concluded with three main findings: 1) Black youth were ten times more likely to be detained than white youth in 2023;…

Juvenile Court Statistics 2021

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In January 2024, the National Center for Juvenile Justice released their annual report detailing data trends in juvenile courts across the country from 2005 to 2021. This report provides a national snapshot of various trends in delinquency cases, including key demographic patterns across age, gender, and race at various stages of case processing. Notably, in…

The Probation Experience Project: Insights from Young People and Families

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Testimony of Josh Rovner Director of Youth Justice The Sentencing Project In Opposition to SB744 Before the Maryland Senate Committee on the Judiciary

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Toward Mercy: Excessive Sentencing and the Untapped Power of North Carolina’s Constitution

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Only Young Once: Alabama’s Overreliance on School Pushout and For-Profit Youth Incarceration 

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One in Five: How Mass Incarceration Deepens Inequality and Harms Public Safety

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Making Children Pay: The Hidden Cost to Kansas of Juvenile Fines and Fees

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From the introduction: “The goal of the Kansas juvenile legal system is ‘to promote public safety, hold juvenile offenders accountable for their behavior and improve their ability to live more productively and responsibly in their community.’ Evidence shows that juvenile fees and fines do the opposite. This report outlines the ways in which fees and…

Defend Children Executive Summary: A Blueprint for Effective Juvenile Defender Services

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An infographic outlining steps towards a more effective juvenile defense system.

United States Department of Justice Investigation of the Shelby County Juvenile Court

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Findings Regarding Department of Justice Investigation of Lauderdale County Youth Court, Meridian Police Department, and Mississippi Division of Youth Services

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Youth-Centered Strategies for Hope, Healing and Health

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From the executive summary: “In considering what serves young people well, it is imperative that we address these systemic barriers and develop innovative strategies, leaving space for healing outside of and in tandem with the traditional mental health system. We must be expansive in our thinking about what supports and strengthens youth mental health –…

Set Up to Fail: Youth Probation Conditions as a Driver of Incarceration

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Youth probation is the most common form of punishment for youth in the United States criminal legal system, with nearly a quarter of a million youth currently under supervision. Yet the role youth probation conditions play in the incarceration of youth has not been the focus of legal scholarship. Youth probation is a court-imposed intervention…

The Role of the Judge in Transforming Juvenile Probation: A Toolkit for Leadership

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From the introduction: “In the 2020 survey, an overwhelming majority of judges and probation administrators responded that efforts to promote probation practice changes should be grounded in research and be data-driven. In addition, most indicated that support for probation transformation would grow if reforms helped to address the challenge of improving racial/ethnic equity. More specifically,…

Young, Black, and Wrongfully Charged: A Cumulative Disadvantage Framework

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From the abstract: “The term wrongful conviction typically refers to the conviction or adjudication of individuals who are factually innocent. Decades of research has rightfully focused on uncovering contributing factors of convictions of factually innocent people to inform policy and practice. However, in this paper we expand our conceptualization of wrongful conviction. Specifically, we propose…

Eliminate Confinement as a Response to Probation Violations

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From the introduction: “This brief presents the research case for eliminating the use of correctional confinement or detention in response to technical violations of juvenile probation.”

The Construction and Criminalization of Disability in School Incarceration

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This Article explores how race functions to ascribe and criminalize disability. It posits that for White students in wealthy schools, disabilities or perceived disabilities are often viewed as medical conditions and treated with care and resources. For students of color, however, the construction of disability (if it exists) may be a criminalized condition that is…

Memorandum of Agreement Between the United States Department of Justice and the St. Louis County Family Court

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Locked Up: Fear, Racism, Prison Economics, and the Incarceration of Native Youth

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In the national conversation about youth overincarceration and disproportionate minority contact in the juvenile legal system, Native American youth are often statistically invisible. Closer attention, however, reveals that Native youth who come into contact with the juvenile legal system are more likely to be locked in secure confinement than other youth, with disproportionality rates in…