youth incarceration

Jody Kent Lavy, who co-founded the Campaign for Fair Sentencing of Youth and has served as co-executive director for 14 years, is stepping down this fall. Her counterpart, Xavier McElrath-Bey will remain as the organization's sole executive director upon her departure. 

A a policy brief released on Tuesday looks at ways prosecutors can adopt successful practices from Germany's juvenile justice system.

Youth Voice Contributor Shay House asks: How can we throw children away, isolate them in cells and call it justice?

The leader of South Carolina’s juvenile justice agency is stepping down after more than four years running the long-embattled department.

#NoKidsInPrison launched a multimedia tool designed to immerse viewers in the youth prison system and build support for its demise.

An escalating pressure campaign that began with letters and public protests on behalf of hundreds of incarcerated youth in Los Angeles reached the highest court in California Tuesday – an appeal by advocates to save lives and prevent “devastating harm to young people in custody and their surrounding communities.”

Efforts to shield more teens from the adult criminal justice system are viewed as a progressive cause across the country. But an effort to expand California’s juvenile justice system to include older youth has drawn skepticism, partly due to its chief architect: the state’s probation lobby.

This poem was a highly commended entry in the 2019 Words Unlocked poetry contest hosted by the Center for Educational Excellence in Alternative Settings.    As she flies higher and higher She finally feels free again No Worries No problems Just the occasional bird Also free of worries and problems As she reaches the summit She has her life planned out Her dreams Her passion Her responsibility All being shone before her eyes But what she knows from previous life lessons Is that what goes up must come down But she will not lose her touch She is smart She is talented She is unique Free of flaws and imperfections She is what every girl wants to be She is unstoppable She is determined She will not let anything get in between Her goals Her dreams Her life As I awake from my dream I sit up And I look around my cell Disappointment Sadness Failure   Cloud my thoughts And fill my brain I want to be Who I am meant to be I am meant to be Who I am created to be But I’m created to be me So that’s who I’ll be.

This poem was a highly commended entry in the 2019 Words Unlocked poetry contest hosted by the Center for Educational Excellence in Alternative Settings.    I am a 15-year-old Menace to society, Well, through the eyes of my prosecutor and Jury,   whose life simultaneously came to a halt due to Felony of the first offense.