Center on Youth Justice

Vera’s Center on Youth Justice (CYJ) works with government to make juvenile justice systems equitable in policy and practice for youth, families, and communities. CYJ staff aim to reduce bias in juvenile justice systems, expand the use of community-based services, divert youth who may be more effectively served by other resources, and advance public safety.

CYJ’s work addresses several juvenile justice system issues, including

Status Offender System Reform: Status offenders—youth who may be chronically disobedient but who have not committed a crime—are often referred to juvenile court and subject to the same punitive interventions as youth charged with criminal activity. CYJ’s Models for Change work is helping officials in Louisiana and Washington State build more effective responses for these youth.
Detention Reform: CYJ is working with city and upstate officials to implement an objective risk assessment tool and create community-based alternatives to detention for youth who do not pose a high risk of failing to appear for trial or re-offending before trial.
Placement Reform: Despite the fact that the juvenile justice system was originally created to rehabilitate and nurture youth, many placement facilities are more punitive than therapeutic. CYJ worked with Governor David Paterson’s Task Force on Transforming New York State’s Juvenile Justice System to identify strengths and areas for improvement in the state’s post-sentencing practices.
Developing and Sharing Juvenile Justice System Data: Juvenile justice systems are often fragmented across several agencies with insufficient data-sharing capacity and collaboration. CYJ is helping the New York State Task Force on Juvenile Justice coordinate different data sources so that officials can communicate better, learn from each other, and work together to promote progress.

Why We Do This Work

Juvenile justice systems were developed to help young offenders overcome the problems that led to delinquent behavior and avoid further conflict with the law. Many of these systems, however, fail to successfully rehabilitate young offenders. They often focus on punishment instead of treatment, expose youth to inhumane conditions that are unsuitable to their healthy development, and disproportionately subject youth of color to these injustices. CYJ combines research, planning, and technical assistance with expertise to help policymakers and practitioners improve juvenile systems for youth, families, and communities.

For more information about the Center on Youth Justice, contact the center coordinator, Insiyah Mohammad.

Projects

Developing Tools to Support ACS' Close to Home Initiative

In April 2012, New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) contracted with Vera’s Center on Youth Justice (CYJ) to create tools to assist implementation of the state’s new Close to Home Initiative. CYJ will develop a risk-classification tool and an intake-matching form that will guide the placement of youth found guilty of a juvenile delinquency charge in local, privately run facilities

Models for Change Initiative

In 2007, Vera was awarded a grant by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to participate in the Models for Change initiative, an effort to create successful and replicable models of juvenile justice reform through targeted investments in key states. The initiative seeks to accelerate progress toward a fairer, more effective, and more developmentally sound juvenile justice system that holds young people accountable for their actions, provides for their rehabilitation, protects them from harm, increases their life chances, and manages the risk they pose to themselves and to the public.

CYJ has been working with four New York Counties—Erie (Buffalo), Onondaga (Syracuse), Monroe (Rochester), and Albany County—to develop a reliable way for judges to decide whether arrested youth should be released, referred to community-based programs under supervision, or detained before trial. CYJ staff are also helping these counties develop a continuum of community-based supervision options for arrested youth. This reform is intended to reserve juvenile detention for youth who pose a risk of re-offending or failing to appear in court and keep youth who do not pose these risks connected to their communities, without compromising public safety.

New York State Detention Reform 2011

In 2011, Vera’s Center on Youth Justice (CYJ) began providing research and technical assistance to help New York State juvenile justice officials develop a strategy to reform detention practices and policies statewide. These reforms include the development of an risk assessment instrument (RAI) to be implemented in upstate counties by 2012.

OCFS Secure Placement Reform

Vera’s Center on Youth Justice (CYJ) (link) is assisting the New York State Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) with its effort to reform the secure placement system for young people, families, and communities in New York State. Specifically, CYJ is conducting a review and assessment of the current secure placement system, assisting OCFS in collaborating with stakeholders, and developing a vision for the system that will guide OCFS’ reform work.

School-to-Prison Pipeline Study

Through a grant from the Spencer Foundation, Vera’s Center on Youth Justice (CYJ) is studying how school disciplinary practices—in particular zero-tolerance policies—and other aspects of school climate affect juveniles. The study aims to contribute evidence-based analysis to the public debate over whether harsh school disciplinary protocols push youth toward antisocial and criminal behavior and justice system involvement—a trajectory known as the “school-to-prison pipeline.”

Stop, Question, and Frisk Study

The Stop, Question, and Frisk study examines the impact of the New York City Police Department’s (NYPD) stop, question, and frisk policies and practices on young people and families in the most highly patrolled areas in New York City.

Archived Projects

Addressing Fiscal Barriers to Juvenile Justice Reform in New York State

As a critical step in New York State’s juvenile justice reform process, Vera assisted the Cuomo administration in examining and identifying strengths and weaknesses in the state’s juvenile justice funding structure. The aim was to create an effective funding system that will support and encourage best practices in juvenile justice on the ground, ensure positive outcomes for youth, families, and communities, and save money for both the state and counties.

Brooklyn for Brooklyn Initiative

To create better outcomes for youth, families, and communities, the New York State Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) partnered with Vera’s Center on Youth Justice (CYJ) and the Missouri Youth Services Institute (MYSI) to design a new model for state juvenile justice custody that is therapeutic, community-based, and grounded in national best practices. Through the “Brooklyn for Brooklyn Initiative” (B4B), Vera assisted OCFS in planning and implementing a pilot of the model tailored to the needs of youth in Brooklyn and worked with OCFS to expand the model statewide.

With assistance from the Center on Youth Justice, Vera's Cost-Benefit Analysis Unit conducted a cost-benefit analysis of programs for court-involved youth to help New York State policymakers identify cost-effective alternatives to juvenile incarceration.

In 2005, Vera collaborated with New York State to develop the state’s first ever set of juvenile justice indicators—statistics that provide insight into an organization’s work or the environment in which it operates. The indicators, which include detention admissions and placement lengths of stay, span five system points—arrest, referral to court, detention, court processing, and disposition—and offer statewide data as well as county-by-county information. CYJ staff assessed available juvenile justice data and statewide collection practices; compiled and analyzed available data to establish potential indicators; facilitated a task force to determine which indicators would be most useful to local and state policymakers; and established strategies for distributing and institutionalizing the indicators.

In September 2008, New York Governor David Paterson created the Task Force on Transforming Juvenile Justice to establish a statewide process to improve the juvenile justice system. The task force was charged with creating a blueprint to strengthen alternatives to institutional placement for young offenders, improve residential care, and enhance reentry programming. It also addressed the disproportionate number of minority youth in the system. The task force was chaired by Jeremy Travis, president of New York City’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Members included representatives from the Office of Children and Family Services, law enforcement, advocacy organizations, county and state agencies, academia, and the judiciary. Vera’s Center on Youth Justice provided technical assistance by gathering data and facilitating discussion on ways to implement systemic changes.

In late 2009, Vera’s Center for Youth Justice (CYJ) began collaborating with the Executive Office of the Mayor in the District of Columbia (DC) to develop and disseminate monthly data indicator reports—statistics that help stakeholders analyze how well a system is operating—covering DC’s juvenile and criminal justice systems.

In 2009, Vera’s Center for Youth Justice (CYJ) began to work with the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services (DYRS) in the District of Columbia (DC) to assist DYRS in developing and implementing comprehensive performance measures in the agency’s three areas of supervision and programming for committed youths: secure confinement; reentry and alternatives to secure confinement; and case planning. The performance measures were intended to better equip DYRS to evaluate its efforts, ensuring that its services and programs protect public safety and result in positive outcomes for youth, families, and communities.

The Promise for Success Initiative (PSI) was a year-long planning effort to improve services for youth who are at risk of entering or are already involved in the juvenile justice and child welfare systems in Doña Ana County, New Mexico. To achieve this goal, the Center on Youth Justice worked with the PSI steering committee to develop a comprehensive, community-based strategic plan for making services more accessible to at-risk youth and implementing crisis response capacity designed to keep youth from becoming involved in the system. The plan, which was released in 2008, also included a continuum of graduated sanctions for youth who are arrested.

New York City Detention Reform

Since 2006, Vera’s Center on Youth Justice (CYJ) has partnered with New York City’s Office of the Criminal Justice Coordinator and juvenile justice stakeholders to change juvenile detention policy in the city so that youth who do not pose a high risk of flight or re-arrest before trial can remain connected to their families and communities.

In 2007, the general assembly in the State of Connecticut passed a law raising the age of juvenile jurisdiction from 16 to 18, effective July 2009. Prior to this legislation, Connecticut was one of only three states that continued to try 16- and 17-year-olds in an adult criminal justice system. CYJ staff provided technical assistance to help state officials develop a viable implementation plan that was a key element of the legislation's passage.

In April 2009, Vera's Center on Youth Justice (CYJ) began a year-long process evaluation of Washington, DC's four-and-a-half-year (2005 through mid-2010) effort to reform its juvenile institutional placement system. This process evaluation, funded by the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, sought to document Department of Youth Rehabilitative Services’ (DYRS) strategy for the reforms, as well as to assess the implementation of the changes, which drew inspiration from the highly regarded Missouri Model of juvenile justice practice.

04/22/2013

Demonstrating that a program accomplishes its stated goals is increasingly important for social service organizations—funders and clients want to see the evidence of successful outcomes. Although a full-scale evaluation can be a costly and overwhelming goal, adopting the information-gathering and...

02/12/2013

This policy brief contributes to the urgent national conversation about violence against children, and provides three perspectives from Vera experts on school safety, mental illness, and the delivery of mental health services. The perspectives draw on Vera’s work with government partners in each of...

12/12/2012

Vera Institute of Justice President and Director Michael Jacobson submitted written testimony to a hearing titled “Ending the School-to-Prison Pipeline,” held on December 12, 2012 by the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights, chaired...

03/31/2011

Family Court judges and other decision makers must weigh whether arrested youths are likely to reoffend or fail to appear if allowed to go home prior to their court date. To help guide these decisions, staff from Vera’s Center on Youth Justice partnered with juvenile justice stakeholders in New...

01/25/2011

A growing body of research has persuaded most experts and many practitioners that punitive responses to juvenile offenders—particularly those placed in secure facilities—yield poor results for the youth involved and for public safety. Informed by this consensus, in 2005 officials in Washington, DC’...

05/13/2013

Posted by

Amy Connors

A turnaround worth honoring

Hernan Carvente, an intern with Vera’s Center on Youth Justice and the Center on Sentencing and Corrections since January 2013, was awarded the 2013 Coalition of Juvenile Justice’s Spirit of Youth Award. Each year, the Coalition of Juvenile Justice...

03/06/2013

Posted by

Alice Chasan

Guiding stronger, more effective juvenile justice systems

This post was co-written by Theresa Sgobba. In early February, the National Juvenile Defender Center (NJDC), supported by the MacArthur Foundation’s Models for Change initiative, released the National Juvenile Defense Standards, a set of benchmarks...

01/03/2013

Posted by

Vera Institute

A juvenile justice reform approach that’s fit to print

It’s always satisfying when a national media outlet takes a stand on justice issues at the heart of Vera’s work. So it was good to see The New York Times’ New Year’s Eve editorial praising the Mid-December settlement between the U.S. Department of...

12/21/2012

Posted by

A wide-angle view of juvenile justice reform

On Monday, the U.S. Justice Department announced it has reached an agreement with Shelby County, Tennessee, to make fundamental changes to its policies and practices for handling juveniles in trouble with the law. When the Justice Department began...

12/12/2012

Posted by

Vera Institute

Vera on the Hill: Michael Jacobson submits testimony on the school-to-prison pipeline

Michael Jacobson, Vera’s president and director, submits testimony today at a hearing titled “Ending the School-to-Prison Pipeline,” held by the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights...