Juvenile Justice Publications for Lawmakers and Agencies

This resource roundup — high­light­ing mate­ri­als devel­oped by juve­nile jus­tice lead­ers and researchers with the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s sup­port — shares new knowl­edge and key find­ings from the field.

“These pub­li­ca­tions are writ­ten for spe­cif­ic audi­ences — state law­mak­ers, pros­e­cu­tors, youth pro­ba­tion staff and lead­er­ship and juve­nile jus­tice state advi­so­ry groups — by orga­ni­za­tions cred­i­ble to them because trans­form­ing youth jus­tice requires com­mit­ment from mul­ti­ple agen­cies and indi­vid­u­als,” says Opal West, a senior asso­ciate in the Foundation’s Juve­nile Jus­tice Strat­e­gy Group. ​“These resources pro­mote approach­es to youth jus­tice that pri­or­i­tize hav­ing a pos­i­tive influ­ence on youth while still hold­ing them account­able for their actions.”

Juve­nile Pro­ba­tion and Restora­tive Justice

Juve­nile Jus­tice: Young Peo­ple and Restora­tive Justice

By Nation­al Con­fer­ence of State Legislatures

This report exam­ines restora­tive jus­tice as a promis­ing way for com­mu­ni­ties and law­mak­ers to under­stand and respond to crime. It describes four com­mon types of restora­tive jus­tice prac­tices, which give peo­ple who have been harmed the oppor­tu­ni­ty to be heard, ask ques­tions, seek restora­tion and gain clo­sure. At the same time, indi­vid­u­als respon­si­ble for caus­ing the harm accept account­abil­i­ty, apol­o­gize and make amends. Today, more than 50% of all states have adopt­ed laws sup­port­ing restora­tive jus­tice prac­tices, and sev­er­al states are pur­su­ing leg­is­la­tion to fund restora­tive jus­tice pro­gram­ming. This report offers guid­ance for both state law­mak­ers and pros­e­cu­tors seek­ing to pro­mote restora­tive jus­tice practices.

Break­ing the Rules: Rethink­ing Con­di­tion Set­ting and Enforce­ment in Juve­nile Probation

By Coun­cil of State Governments

This tool kit guides juve­nile pro­ba­tion agen­cies, courts and their part­ners to work togeth­er to reform their cur­rent approach­es to con­di­tion set­ting and enforce­ment. Using the tools, juris­dic­tions can address the out­sized role that pro­ba­tion con­di­tions and tech­ni­cal vio­la­tions play in dri­ving new or extend­ed pro­ba­tion cas­es and out-of-home place­ments. [Note, this resource was released by a Foun­da­tion grantee and sup­port­ed by Arnold Ventures.]

The Essen­tial Need for Part­ner­ing With Youth and Fam­i­lies to Fun­da­men­tal­ly Trans­form Youth Probation

By Cen­ter for Juve­nile Jus­tice Reform at George­town University

This report offers strate­gies for pro­ba­tion offi­cers to build authen­tic part­ner­ships with the young peo­ple on their case­loads and the youths’ fam­i­ly mem­bers. Rec­om­men­da­tions include using plain lan­guage every­one can under­stand, incor­po­rat­ing fam­i­ly strengths into pro­ba­tion case plans and pro­vid­ing indi­vid­u­al­ized sup­port to fam­i­lies so youth are able to thrive in safe and sta­ble envi­ron­ments. The report explains why this is impor­tant for trans­form­ing juve­nile pro­ba­tion and iden­ti­fies com­mon bar­ri­ers. It offers exam­ples from three juris­dic­tions that received cer­tifi­cates in pro­ba­tion trans­for­ma­tion from George­town: the City of Char­lottesville, Vir­ginia; Mult­nom­ah Coun­ty, Ore­gon; and Stark Coun­ty, Ohio.

State Advi­so­ry Groups

Youth Part­ner­ship: A Call to Action for State Advi­so­ry Groups

By Coali­tion for Juve­nile Justice

This guide pro­vides prac­ti­cal sup­port to juve­nile jus­tice state advi­so­ry groups (SAGs) in their efforts to achieve mean­ing­ful, authen­tic engage­ment with young peo­ple who have expe­ri­enced the jus­tice sys­tem. SAGs were estab­lished under the fed­er­al Juve­nile Jus­tice and Delin­quen­cy Pre­ven­tion Act in all 50 states. Their mem­bers are appoint­ed by their respec­tive gov­er­nors and receive train­ing and tech­ni­cal assis­tance on best prac­tices in juve­nile jus­tice. The guide includes actions for SAGs — no mat­ter their exist­ing lev­el of youth engage­ment — whether they’ve strug­gled to meet the basic require­ments of youth engage­ment for years or are look­ing for new ways to deep­en exist­ing youth part­ner­ships. Each stage of youth engage­ment — recruit­ment, onboard­ing and reten­tion — is divid­ed into 101 (intro­duc­to­ry), 201 (inter­me­di­ate) and 301 (advanced) lev­els of engage­ment. This helps SAGs to hon­est­ly assess their prac­tices and readi­ness for authen­tic youth engage­ment and begin tak­ing steps from wher­ev­er they are.

Pro­ba­tion Reform: A Tool Kit for Juve­nile Jus­tice State Advi­so­ry Groups

By Coali­tion for Juve­nile Justice

This tool kit offers step-by-step guid­ance to juve­nile jus­tice SAGs to bet­ter under­stand and sup­port pro­ba­tion trans­for­ma­tion, with details about the new approach­es focused on youth devel­op­ment being used by states and com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try. It describes how SAGS could help inform, influ­ence and sup­port pol­i­cy­mak­ers and juve­nile jus­tice prac­ti­tion­ers on pro­ba­tion trans­for­ma­tion and pro­vides resources to do so.