Young Adults
Advances in neuroscience show that the human brain continues to develop beyond adolescence and may not be fully formed until people reach their mid-20s. The science as well as the reality of young adults’ inexperience and potential for transformation begs for specialized interventions for young people who are no longer kids but not yet mature adults. The need is particularly acute in a criminal justice system flooded with young people who have poor impulse control.
Vera is working in partnership with the New York City Department of Corrections to guide and evaluate a new facility specifically for 18 to 21-year-olds that could become a model nationally. It features programming to support positive development at this crucial life stage and intensive pre-release planning to smooth the transition home. Notably, it also forbids the use of solitary confinement to punish misbehavior in the facility.
Featured
Why Reimagining Prison for Young Adults Matters
On the path to ending mass incarceration, we must reimagine our response to young adults so that it ensures access to programs and opportunities that prioritize restoration and reconciliation, and provides the skills they need to chart a new life course upon release—one that will make our communities safer and stronger.
Blog Post
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Alex Frank
Restoring Promise
An Initiative to Disrupt the American Prison System
Restoring Promise, an initiative of the Vera Institute of Justice and MILPA, works with prisons and jails to address the root causes and consequences of mass incarceration in how it manifests in prisons and jails. We work directly with prisons and jails to transform the culture, climate, rhythms and routines that define the prison system, starting ...
Project
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Ryan Shanahan
Young Adults in Rikers Island Jail
Evaluating a new approach to working with 18 to 21-year-olds on Rikers Island
The New York City Department of Correction (DOC) established a new facility—announced during the fall of 2015 and opened months later—to house 18-21-year-olds at Rikers Island. The jail is the first in the country to create separate housing for these young adults, who are cognitively different from both their younger and older counterparts, and thu ...
Project
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Ryan Shanahan
Related Work
Cultivating Change
How the Middlesex Sheriff’s Office and the Restoring Promise Initiative Are Transforming Incarceration for Young Men
Traditional criminal justice responses have fallen short on meeting the needs of young adults involved in the justice system. Across the country, policymakers are starting to address the legacy of unbalanced policies and practices that have resulted in the uniquely American phenomenon of 2.2 million people being incarcerated—a legacy that dispropor ...
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
Shyquinn Dix
Reimagining Prison
Reimagining Prison Webumentary
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
Alex Frank
What German Prisons Do Differently
We toured German prisons in Hameln and Berlin, Germany and what we saw was incredible. This is what a prison system looks like when it is centered around treating people humanely. It showed us that we can do things a different way in the U.S.
Series: Dispatches from Germany
What German Prisons Do Differently
We toured German prisons and what we saw was incredible.
Learn more by listening to Vera Research Director Ryan Shanahan discuss the German principle of relational safety (below):
Blog Post
Jack Duran
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
Jack Duran
Ryan Shanahan
This Women’s History Month, Let’s Leave Girls’ Incarceration in the Past
Last year, Vera took an important step towards addressing these inequities by launching the New York City Task Force on Ending Girls’ Incarceration—with a collaborative of the city’s key juvenile justice and youth-serving agencies—that aims to develop a comprehensive plan to end girls’ incarceration in the five boroughs. Now, we’re committed to doi ...
Blog Post
Shawnda Chapman Brown
Mahsa Jafarian
Series: Dispatches from T.R.U.E.
Working Together Toward Community, Connection, and Comradeship in T.R.U.E.
An offender in the T.R.U.E. unit asked me, “Why do you want to participate in this program?” I explained that I was tired of the revolving door in Corrections and the disruption it causes to the community. They then asked, “What experiences do you have dealing with this population?” Even though there has never been a unit like this in an ...
Reducing youth confinement key to proposed JJDPA reauthorization
Considered the single most important piece of federal legislation regarding youth in the juvenile justice system since it was enacted in 1974, the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA) plays a crucial role in addressing the needs of system-involved youth. It also ensures that the judicial process focuses on rehabilitation and stab ...
Blog Post
Gabe Shoglow
Alessandra Meyer
Major gains for family engagement in Indiana’s juvenile justice system
Last year, the Vera Institute of Justice’s Family Justice Program wrapped up a multi-year project to develop and pilot family engagement standards for the Performance-based Standards Learning Institute. All juvenile corrections facilities participating in PbS are now collecting information related to family engagement—including a survey of family m ...
Blog Post
Ryan Shanahan