Children as young as 13 can be tried in adult criminal court for serious crimes in New York state. But instead of redirecting troubled kids, prison hardens them. That’s why the New York Foundling, a private children’s-advocacy organization, offers an alternative, Families Rising , a diversionary option that mandates family therapy in exchange for delayed sentencing and avoiding a criminal record entirely if the program is completed successfully. The program also costs significantly less than...

Pictured: Darius Irvin, a sophomore at San Francisco State University, has survived three separate shootings. The Wraparound Project helped him get out of the line of fire and go back to college. (Laura Klivans/KQED) Darius Irvin grew up in violent neighborhoods in Oakland and San Francisco. While Irvin was never in a gang, he was around them a lot. One winter when he was back home in Oakland from his freshman year of college up in Chico, he knocked on the door of his barbershop. He wanted a...

The Youth First Initiative wants to help end the use of youth prisons. The justice-advocacy group works from the premise that detaining minors—whether in youth facilities or in prisons—is not just a poorly executed practice; it is simply beyond repair. “This model of incarceration is broken—it does not work,” says Liz Ryan, the president and CEO of the Youth First Initiative . “It actually has never worked.” The United States has been incarcerating child offenders for a couple hundred years...

Legislation called cutting edge by national experts on juvenile justice reform has been unanimously passed by the Council of the District of Columbia. “We looked at best practices from across the country and really pulled together what we think is going to transform our juvenile justice system,” said Democratic councilmember Kenyan McDuffie , who sponsored the bill along with seven other councilmembers. “More importantly, it’s going to modernize the juvenile justice system to hold young...

Monday afternoon, two honor-level youth, both age 15 from Tuolomne County, were outside in the garden at Nevada County Juvenile Hall, adding food scraps from the kitchen to the compost pile. The boy of the duo poured out buckets of discarded vegetables, shredded recycled paper from county offices and coffee grounds from Starbucks and the county’s cafeteria. The girl used a pitchfork to turn the compost. Sometimes, yard trimmings and leaves from the facility’s orchard are also turned into the...

A newly formed coalition comprised of local government, education, law enforcement and judicial organizations, among others, have come together to hopefully combat the growing youth violence epidemic that is plaguing children and families across Miami-Dade County. Together for Children — including members of Miami-Dade County Public Schools, Public Defenders and State Attorney’s Offices, Florida Departments of Children and Families and Juvenile Justice and other community-based organizations...

The drug problems in the Mahoning Valley are not improving according to local children's services agencies that are left to care of innocent children, who've fallen victim to addiction. "We see the impact of the crisis every day," said Tim Schaffner with Trumbull County Children Services. About a year and a half ago, local agencies began experiencing increases in the number of cases opened due to drugs. While most times, children services agencies are able to place these kids with other...

Part of the philosophy for creating a separate juvenile-justice system in the United States is the idea that the state can act as a parent, or parens patriae—protector, caretaker, disciplinarian—when a young person fails to respect the rights of others, commits petty or serious crimes, or shirks age-based societal norms by committing so-called status offenses. But parenting is hard. Even for the state. Sometimes the lessons learned with one generation benefit the next. Sometimes cultural...

New Orleans: As recently as a decade ago, the Youth Study Center would have been unlikely to attract an educational pioneer to their juvenile detention facility. The roughly 40 teenagers held in the flood-damaged center rarely made it to class because they were often on lockdown 23 hours a day. The staff had a reputation for incompetence. The building itself was plagued with bugs and mold. But this summer, the Orleans Parish School Board signed over operations of the school to the national...

Cheri Maples, a student of Thich Nhat Hanh and former police officer, addresses the U.S.’s crisis in policing and how a Buddhist outlook could help foster more positive relations between citizens and police. I became serious about developing a consistent mindfulness practice when I attended my first retreat with Thich Nhat Hanh (known affectionately as “Thay”), in 1991, seven years into my twenty-year police career. Thay convinced me that part of the skill set of a police officer was the...

The first time Tatiana visited the Curtis “50 Cent” Community Garden in Jamaica, Queens, she didn’t want to touch the dirt. “It was scary,” she says. “I just had to stick my hand in real quick and get it over with.” That was around two years ago. Tatiana, then in 10th grade, had racked up around 200 absences at her nearby high school. She was failing all of her classes, and a handful of petty crimes had landed her in juvenile court. Through the Queens Youth Justice Center , an...

A New York City documentary center allows those that rarely have a voice to speak freely — provoking viewers to confront misconceptions and wrongly-made assumptions. Comics, with their rowdy action boxed within firm, familiar lines and violence reduced to harmless bams, thwacks and kapows, give Mario Rivera the ability to escape from reality. “When you’re reading the comic book, you’re no longer thinking about your problems,” says Rivera, a 24-year-old New Yorker who served time in prison...