A New Path Forward: Ten Ways to Transform Youth Justice

Across the coun­try, youth jus­tice sys­tems are embrac­ing change — rethink­ing how they sup­port young peo­ple, fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties. To help guide this trans­for­ma­tion, the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion has launched Ten Ways to Trans­form Youth Jus­tice, a suite of free, inter­ac­tive tools designed to help local sys­tems reflect, assess and improve.

Explore Ten Ways to Trans­form Youth Justice

These tools help com­mu­ni­ties eval­u­ate how their youth jus­tice sys­tems are per­form­ing and iden­ti­fy clear, action­able steps to strength­en pol­i­cy and prac­tice. With a focus on col­lab­o­ra­tion and con­tin­u­ous improve­ment, Ten Ways helps prac­ti­tion­ers seek bet­ter results for young peo­ple and the com­mu­ni­ties in which they live.

An Affir­ma­tive Vision of Youth Justice

Too often, tra­di­tion­al youth jus­tice sys­tems have empha­sized sur­veil­lance, iso­la­tion and pun­ish­ment. Though these sys­tems often use the lan­guage of account­abil­i­ty, they can fall short of deliv­er­ing its promise.

Ten Ways to Trans­form Youth Jus­tice builds on the core prin­ci­ples of the Juve­nile Deten­tion Alter­na­tives Ini­tia­tive^® (JDAI) — empha­siz­ing heal­ing over harm, sup­port over sanc­tions and com­mu­ni­ty over confinement.

“The stan­dards and indi­ca­tors that anchor this new tool were devel­oped in col­lab­o­ra­tion with prac­ti­tion­ers across the coun­try,” said Danielle Lipow, a Casey senior asso­ciate. ​“They pro­vide con­crete, aspi­ra­tional and prac­ti­cal bench­marks for youth jus­tice sys­tems deter­mined to achieve the best pos­si­ble out­comes for young peo­ple and their communities.”

Ground­ed in research and sup­port­ed by curat­ed resources, each stan­dard reflects a key ele­ment of an effec­tive and equi­table sys­tem. While every juris­dic­tion starts from a dif­fer­ent place, these bench­marks offer a shared vision — and a prac­ti­cal roadmap — for change.

Youth Jus­tice Trans­for­ma­tion Standards

The Ten Ways frame­work is orga­nized around the fol­low­ing standards:

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE STANDARDS

Self-Assess­ment and Cus­tomized Recommendations

Ten Ways invites users to engage in mul­ti­ple ways:

• explor­ing stan­dards and indicators; 
• com­plet­ing a self-assess­ment; or 
• brows­ing a curat­ed library of resources.

The self-assess­ment is designed for use by sys­tem prac­ti­tion­ers, ser­vice providers, elect­ed offi­cials and com­mu­ni­ty advo­cates — indi­vid­u­al­ly or in teams. Based on respons­es, users receive cus­tomized rec­om­men­da­tions that iden­ti­fy oppor­tu­ni­ties for improve­ment and sug­gest clear next steps.

Users respond indi­vid­u­al­ly or as a team and receive rec­om­men­da­tions tai­lored to their respons­es that iden­ti­fy oppor­tu­ni­ties for improve­ment and next steps.

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“This tool under­scores what judges increas­ing­ly rec­og­nize — that mean­ing­ful part­ner­ship with fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ty orga­ni­za­tions is essen­tial to youth suc­cess,” said Marie Ward, chief judge of the Sec­ond Judi­cial Dis­trict in Albu­querque, New Mex­i­co. ​“It gives courts a clear frame­work for engag­ing those clos­est to young peo­ple and build­ing respons­es that hold young peo­ple account­able in ways that sup­port com­mu­ni­ty safe­ty and ado­les­cent development.”

Next Steps to Transformation

The Ten Ways frame­work helps advance mean­ing­ful reform ground­ed in com­mu­ni­ty, account­abil­i­ty and oppor­tu­ni­ty. While the work is ongo­ing, users are encour­aged to take the next step.

“Ten Ways to Trans­form Youth Jus­tice is designed to guide agen­cies’ next steps in strength­en­ing their prac­tice,” said Lipow. ​“We’ll be lis­ten­ing to user feed­back to make sure it’s hit­ting its mark.”

Dis­cov­er how Pro-DATA sup­ports youth jus­tice reform

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