Annie E. Casey Foundation Leader in Juvenile Justice Reform to Retire

Bart Lubow, direc­tor of the Juve­nile Jus­tice Strat­e­gy Group at the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion, will retire June 30 after 22 years of lead­ing the Foundation’s work to seek safer and more effec­tive alter­na­tives for young peo­ple who get into trou­ble with the law.

While at Casey, Lubow has designed and man­aged the Juve­nile Deten­tion Alter­na­tives Ini­tia­tive (JDAI), the nation’s most wide­ly repli­cat­ed juve­nile jus­tice reform effort, which has sig­nif­i­cant­ly improved the odds for dis­ad­van­taged youth to make suc­cess­ful tran­si­tions to adult­hood. Today, more than 250 JDAI sites oper­ate in 39 states and the Dis­trict of Colum­bia. JDAI sites have dra­mat­i­cal­ly reduced reliance on secure deten­tion with­out sac­ri­fic­ing pub­lic safe­ty, reduced racial dis­par­i­ties in local jus­tice sys­tems and saved mil­lions in tax­pay­er dol­lars by facil­i­tat­ing the down­siz­ing of mul­ti­ple deten­tion centers.

“No one in the coun­try has done more than Bart Lubow to build the nation­al move­ment for reform in juve­nile jus­tice. He helped cre­ate a nation­al net­work of com­mit­ted part­ners ded­i­cat­ed to find­ing effec­tive alter­na­tives to the con­fine­ment of young peo­ple,” said Patrick McCarthy, pres­i­dent and CEO of the Foun­da­tion. ​“This net­work of com­mit­ted reform­ers has helped to end our reliance on secure deten­tion as the default option for young peo­ple in trou­ble with the law. Bart’s ded­i­ca­tion, per­se­ver­ance, intel­li­gence and strate­gic think­ing have been crit­i­cal in launch­ing and sus­tain­ing these reforms in cities and states across the nation. He will be great­ly missed by his many friends at the Casey Foundation.”

When JDAI began in 1992, near­ly 110,000 kids were con­fined in juve­nile facil­i­ties on any giv­en day. Today, that num­ber has shrunk to 60,000, with core JDAI strate­gies con­tribut­ing sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the reduction.

Lubow also has rep­re­sent­ed the Foun­da­tion in the nation­al cam­paign to end the juve­nile death penal­ty, devel­oped the Foundation’s fund­ing agen­da to reduce youth gun vio­lence and pro­mot­ed, sup­port­ed and dis­sem­i­nat­ed ear­ly research on the ram­i­fi­ca­tions of pros­e­cut­ing and con­fin­ing juve­niles as adults. In recent years, the work of the Juve­nile Jus­tice Strat­e­gy Group has expand­ed to improve deci­sion mak­ing through­out the sys­tem and reduce con­fine­ment of young peo­ple com­mit­ted to state cus­tody.

“The work I have done here at Casey in part­ner­ship with the strong net­works we have devel­oped has been the most impor­tant and reward­ing of my career,” Lubow said. ​“I am proud of the work we have done, but there is much more to do if we are to devel­op sys­tems that treat chil­dren who are in trou­ble with the law the way we would want our own chil­dren treated.”

Lubow began his career in crim­i­nal jus­tice in 1974 at the New York City Legal Aid Society’s Crim­i­nal Defense Divi­sion. As direc­tor of Spe­cial Defend­er Ser­vices, he pio­neered the devel­op­ment of social work inter­ven­tions to enhance rep­re­sen­ta­tion in crim­i­nal cas­es. In 1984, Lubow was named direc­tor of Alter­na­tives to Incar­cer­a­tion for New York State. In his capac­i­ty, he was respon­si­ble for a major expan­sion of pre­tri­al ser­vice pro­grams in coun­ty courts. Lubow joined Casey in 1992.

Lubow did his under­grad­u­ate and grad­u­ate work at Cor­nell Uni­ver­si­ty. He serves on a num­ber of local and nation­al boards and has pub­lished mul­ti­ple arti­cles on jus­tice sys­tem reform. 

The Foun­da­tion has launched a nation­al search for a new direc­tor of its juve­nile jus­tice work. Lubow will con­tin­ue to be affil­i­at­ed with the Foun­da­tion as a senior consultant.