Supporting Kids and Young Adults
The tough-on-crime mindset that put millions of adults behind bars and plunged communities disproportionately deeper into poverty also produced a generation of punitive juvenile justice policies that hit hardest in those same places. Thankfully, states and localities have rolled back many of the worst policies, and nationwide there’s a clear commitment to rehabilitation when young people are involved. Work that pushes the boundaries of what’s considered an appropriate and effective response to a young person who breaks the law has helped to turn that tide. Some examples:
- Marshaling evidence that supports raising the age of criminal responsibility nationwide to age 18;
- Accelerating the trend to handle “status offenders” in the community instead of in courtrooms;
- Keeping detained youth connected with supportive family members and improving conditions in which kids are held detention in and placement; and
- Helping to create services that give young people a real chance to succeed in life.
Issue
Spotlights
Featured
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
Just Kids: When Misbehaving Is a Crime
Safeguarding Justice
Highlights from Vera's 12th Annual Gala
Related Work
Divesting from Policing and Investing in New Orleans Youth
Imagine if some of the money spent on policing was instead invested in New Orleans youth, their families, and their neighborhoods. Youth are supposed to be our future, so ensuring their healthy development into thriving, educated, and engaged New Orleanians should be our priority. A native New Orleanian, I went to Benjamin Franklin High School, whe ...
Blog Post
Sarah Omojola
Series: Covid-19
Facebook Post Put High School Student in a Detention Facility Now Struck by Coronavirus
In February 2018, Hernandez, upset about a change in location for her special education program, wrote, “I’m coming tomorrow morning and I’m going to shoot all of ya bitches,” on East High School’s Facebook page. She was charged with making a terroristic threat. She pled guilty to third-degree falsely reporting an incident, a misdemeanor offense, a ...
Blog Post
Erica Bryant
Family Is Essential Webinar
A conversation with family advocates about COVID-19 and Youth Justice
As youth justice agencies race to prevent and respond to the harms of the novel coronavirus, families are essential partners. In this webinar, hosted by the Vera Institute of Justice and the Georgetown Center for Juvenile Justice Reform, we hear directly from family advocates about the actions families need systems to take in the present moment. Th ...
Lesson Plans for Justice Reform: A Call to Action for Students and Teachers
Teachers and students are on the front lines of some of our justice system’s toughest issues—shootings in schools, immigration enforcement, disproportionate disciplining and policing of youth of color, and untreated trauma from being a witness to violence. Yet despite a vibrant bipartisan movement for justice reform in this country, teachers and st ...
Blog Post
Kevin Keenan
Britt Masback
Restoring Promise
An initiative to disrupt the American prison system.
Our 10-Year Strategy to End Girls’ Incarceration Nationwide
Vera’s Initiative to End Girls’ Incarceration centers girls and gender expansive youth in reforms that have too long exclusively focused on cisgender boys. We are working with targeted jurisdictions across the country who are ready to examine the gender and racial inequities that exist across their child-serving systems and that help shape the ways ...
Blog Post
Mahsa Jafarian
Vera's 10-Year Strategy to End Girls' Incarceration
To ensure freedom and justice for all kids, systems must be responsive to how gender and sexism intersect with racism to drive youth incarceration. The Vera Institute of Justice (Vera) believes that we can end the incarceration of youth on the girls’ side of the juvenile justice system by building stronger, safer, and more equitable communities w ...
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 ...
The State of Justice Reform 2018
Embracing Human Dignity
Annual Report 2018
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.
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 ...