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. Below are some notable publications from the past few months that may be of interest to youth defense advocates.
Please contact us if there are any resources you’d like us to add to our Resource Library.
We hope these resources strengthen your efforts to defend young people. As always, thank you for all you do to protect youth rights.
From the Gault Center:
National Youth Defense Townhall Notes
On August 29, 2024, the Gault Center hosted a National Youth Defense Townhall focused on the role of youth defenders in transforming the juvenile legal system. The Townhall outlined a theory of change rooted in cultivating critical connections to harness our collective power to transform systems of harm and punishment. In attendance were nearly 200 youth defense advocates from across the country, who participated in small-group sessions to brainstorm strategies to uphold and advance young people’s constitutional rights as a vehicle to disrupt injustice and fight for liberation. This resource outlines the ideas and strategies that came out of each small group, covering five key constitutional rights: (1) right to counsel at questioning and interrogation; (2) right to probable cause determinations; (3) right to evidentiary transfer hearings; (4) right to equal treatment; and (5) right to post-disposition representation. This resource offers youth defense advocates policy, legal, and relational strategies to challenge everyday injustices and fight for transformative change as a collective, from within the juvenile legal system.
From the Field:
The National Youth Justice Network released a report detailing legislative trends on youth rights from 2023. This report highlights key gains made by several states around juvenile court fines and fees, expungement, transfer, and youth interrogation among other issues, and flags several regressive legislative trends rooted in harmful narratives about young people. This overview of legislative trends can inform policy initiatives to strengthen and protect youth rights.
American Bar Association Resolution on Youth Interrogation
The American Bar Association (ABA) passed a resolution urging all governmental authorities to enact laws and policies prohibiting police from utilizing deceptive practices during youth interrogations. Relying on adolescent development research and recognizing the inherent vulnerabilities of youth during police interrogations, the ABA outlines that “it is beyond dispute that interrogations of adolescents by law enforcement, particularly with coercive and or deceptive means, are more likely to result in false confessions and wrongful convictions.” This resolution signals a growing consensus against youth interrogation practices that rely on deception and offers policy and legal advocates additional authority to challenge problematic youth interrogation practices.
Five Things About Youth and Delinquency
The National Institute of Justice issued five key findings from research and data on youth and delinquency. The findings include: 1) risk-taking behaviors are a normal part of adolescent development; 2) risky behaviors increase through adolescence and then decline over time as youth mature; 3) few youth are arrested for any crime, and even fewer for violent crime; 4) youth arrests for violent offenses have declined 67% from 2006 to 2020; and 5) youth comprise a smaller percentage of violent crime arrests than other age groups. This resource offers key studies and data points to push back against harmful narratives about youth in the juvenile legal system.
The Sentencing Project released an updated snapshot of youth arrest and incarceration rates, revealing that youth arrest rates have declined 80% from 1996 and youth incarceration declined 75% between 2000 and 2022. Despite these shrinking rates, the juvenile legal system is still marked by significant racial and ethnic disparities. Black youth are 4.7 times more likely to be held in a juvenile facility than white youth, and Native/Indigenous youth are 3.7 times more likely. This report outlines that differential treatment based on race and ethnicity at every single decision point contributes to these ongoing disparities. This resource offers youth defense advocates several data points to challenge youth incarceration and racial and ethnic disparities.