Youth Justice
Vera’s Center on Youth Justice (CYJ) works with policymakers and practitioners who want juvenile justice to be rooted in the community, more effective, and smaller in scale, touching the lives of fewer children.
Featured
Restoring Promise
A Young Adult Reform Initiative
Young people ages 18 to 24 make up 10 percent of the U.S. population but comprise 21 percent of people admitted into adult prison every year. Neuroscience shows that young adults in this age group are still developing in important ways. When mistakes they make lead to prison, we should ensure they are housed safely and that they’re given the tools ...
Project
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Alex Frank
Richard Ross
Ending Girls' Incarceration in New York City
Over the last decade, successful reforms have reduced the number of youth in juvenile custody by 50 percent nationwide—largely by sharply reducing confinement for low-risk offenses. However, despite the fact that the vast majority of girls are still incarcerated for behavior that poses no public safety risk, girls’ incarceration is declining at a s...
Status Offense Reform Center
Providing community-based alternatives to court and juvenile justice system involvement
Every year, thousands of kids are brought to court or even placed in locked facilities for misbehaviors like truancy, running away, and curfew violations—also known as status offenses—which are only illegal for kids under the age of 18. While these behaviors can be typical in adolescence, they can also be symptomatic of underlying issues at home or...
Project
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Krista Larson
Related Work
Embracing Human Dignity
Annual Report 2018
The Vera Institute of Justice is working to radically transform incarceration in America by replacing punishing practices with an approach that prioritizes compassion, true accountability, healing, restoration, opportunity, and hope. Learn more about our commitment to human dignity in our annual report 2018.
Series: Dispatches from T.R.U.E.
Dream Chasers
Former TRUE mentee reflects on life behind and beyond bars
I’ve never seen a correctional officer who loved coming to work and interacting with incarcerated people. That’s different—I don’t care what anybody says. That alone speaks volumes about his character; In general population, it always seemed dull and full of bad energy. A lot of the times the officers came off miserable and took their frustrations ...
Blog Post
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Shyquinn Dix
Reimagining Prison Event
On October 10, 2018, the Vera Institute of Justice and staff and residents of the T.R.U.E. unit at Cheshire Correctional Institution in Connecticut convened to Reimagine Prison in the United States. The event, and coinciding report release, culminated the work of Vera’s Reimagining Prison project, launched in June 2016 at historic Eastern State Pe...
Reimagining Prison in Germany and Norway
Reimagining Prison
Series: Dispatches from Germany
Can We Learn from Our Past?
The Holocaust forced Germany to fundamentally change how it incarcerates people. In America, slavery morphed into mass incarceration.
The 13th amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolishes slavery and involuntary servitude except as punishment for a crime—a loophole that has continued the wide-scale persecution of black and brown people through the criminal justice system. The result is a U.S. prison system designed to warehouse and dehumanize people. From the length of sentences ...
Blog Post
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Alex Frank
Series: Dispatches from W.O.R.T.H.
How Young Women are Building Promise in a Connecticut Prison
Every aspect of W.O.R.T.H.’s design intentionally embodies the spirit of the “human dignity principle”—the concept that every human being possesses an intrinsic worth, merely by being human. From its culture to its physical environment to its daily routine, W.O.R.T.H. was re-purposed, designed, and transformed from a vacant, old unit inside the pri...
Blog Post
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Ryan Shanahan
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Alex Frank
Girls Matter
Ending girls’ incarceration requires communities to treat girls fairly and with respect—that means eliminating reliance on law enforcement and the courts when girls run away, skip school, or disobey a parent.
Girls Matter
Centering Gender in Status Offense Reform Efforts
Image credit: Netflix
The Initiative to End Girls’ Incarceration
Across the country, juvenile justice reform efforts have driven down juvenile custody populations, putting the end of incarceration for girls in the United States within reach. The number of girls in most jurisdictions is small and most girls are still incarcerated for low-level offenses that pose no risk to public safety. Placing girls in custody ...
Project
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Lindsay Rosenthal
Can Mentoring Take the Place of Punishing?
The Choice is Yours (TCY) is a felony diversion program in Philadelphia that channels young people arrested for drug possession with intent to distribute away from jail and into education and job training services. Nigel Bowe, program director, and Miguel, program participant, discuss how TCY mentors young adults who have grown up distrusting the c...
Graduation Instead of Incarceration
The Choice is Yours (TCY) is a felony diversion program in Philadelphia that channels young people arrested for drug possession with intent to distribute away from jail and into education and job training services. Derek Riker, former ADA in the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office, and Byron Cotter, from the Defender Association of Philadelphia...