Artwork stating 'Education Destroys Barriers', 'We Demand Treatment', and 'I Need A Chance'

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  • ‘Scrap it, start fresh, and think:' What Milwaukee can learn from New York City on housing young offenders

    As Wisconsin’s Milwaukee County seeks to transform how it handles young offenders, it looks to New York City as a model for change. In New York, the city has shifted its focus from large, state-run facilities to community-based programs and secured, residential homes. Milwaukee County weighs the lessons learned from this initiative and seeks to re-evaluate the services and long-term effects of its criminal justice programming.

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  • The Art of Humanizing Social Systems

    For social service agencies, prioritizing well-being requires new procedures and a framework for understanding holistic wellness. The Full Frame Initiative has partnered with agencies in the states of Massachusetts and Missouri in an effort to bring categories of well-being into their purview. The Initiative uses five metrics—safety, mastery, social connectedness, and access to resources— to help align social systems, ranging from courts and juvenile corrections to homeless housing services, with social needs so that agencies can better assist their communities.

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  • Why more states are giving juvenile offenders a second chance

    Many states are rolling back the punitive measures against youth who committed crimes that began in the 1980s and 1990s. After the Supreme Court ruled that mandatory life sentences for juveniles are unconstitutional, states are shifting their attention from incarceration to community based care and prison alternatives. Missouri, which has led the country in “community based alternatives” for youth, has one of the lowest recidivism rates in the country.

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  • Alternative to Incarceration Program in NYC Gives Teens a Second Chance

    Esparanza, a non-profit located in New York, provides comprehensive services for teenagers who are in the justice system. The intensive family counseling has been a successful alternative to incarceration since 2002, and research shows that the approach and other restorative justice practices are well suited for helping children who have been involved with the justice system lead healthy lives.

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  • One State Is Disrupting the Pipeline from Foster Care to Jail

    In 2017, California's Continuum of Care (CCR) program began shifting money away from group homes for children in foster care, closing 300 homes in the first year. The money goes instead to recruiting more families to house children, who are newly eligible for extended care to age 25. The goal is to shrink a system that too often dooms children to homelessness on the streets and incarceration. While some clients have found the family love that a group home can't replicate, many lower-income families have struggled to meet the program's requirements, threatening its ultimate success.

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  • Meet the Delaware Teen Fighting for the Rights of Former Juvenile Offenders

    After her neighbor was incarcerated, a Delaware teenager and her brother began supporting youth coming out of detention with clothes, school supplies and other items. Their nonprofit grew and was so successful in raising money and awareness that the state legislature took over the re-entry fund just a year and a half after the organization's launch. The founder is now working on a pilot program to provide financial literacy training for formerly incarcerated youth.

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  • Youth Need Community-Based Treatment, Not Jails

    The number of youth confined in U.S. detention facilities has dropped by nearly half since 1997, saving money and reducing recidivism. A report by the Justice Policy Institute says this has made communities safer, but that reductions are only among those accused of nonviolent crimes and that racial and ethnic disparities have increased. The report calls for changes, such as repealing state laws on mandatory sentences, offering better probation supervision and creating more diversion options.

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  • Can New Zealand Provide the U.S. With a Model for Juvenile Justice Reform?

    New Zealand introduced restorative justice practices for juveniles in their criminal justice system after incredibly high rates of child incarceration and an over-representation of minorities. The practice, in places since the late 80's, includes youth justice councils and limits police arrests. The "overall number of youth arrested, charged, and incarcerated" has fallen, but there is still disproportionate representation of minority groups in the system.

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  • Online learning can open doors for kids in juvenile jails

    The Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice sets itself apart by offering a blended learning curriculum to students. The district's superintendent sees immense benefits to the split schedule and online learning component - “The self-paced schedule has made a huge difference in the number of kids obtaining credits." Other players are more skeptical.

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  • The Curfew Myth

    Austin moved away from its teen curfew, bucking the trend in many other cities where such laws are longstanding and efforts to remove them often meet resistance. That is despite data showing they do not reduce juvenile crime or victimization and may foster more mistrust towards the police. Austin has seen a drop in juvenile victimization rates since dumping the ordinance.

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