Juvenile Justice Reform Act of 2018 Affirms Protections for Young People

Posted December 22, 2018
By the Annie E. Casey Foundation
Blog juvenilejusticereformactof2018 2018

Two young girls who are friends are hugging

New fed­er­al juve­nile jus­tice leg­is­la­tion reaf­firms and strength­ens key pro­tec­tions for young peo­ple exposed to the juve­nile jus­tice sys­tem. The Juve­nile Jus­tice Reform Act of 2018 is a bipar­ti­san effort that reau­tho­rizes pro­vi­sions in the Juve­nile Jus­tice Delin­quen­cy and Pre­ven­tion Act — the main fed­er­al law relat­ed to juve­nile jus­tice — that make fed­er­al funds avail­able to states to ensure four core pro­tec­tions for jus­tice-involved youth:

  • pre­vent­ing young peo­ple from being locked up for age-based offens­es, such as tru­an­cy, run­ning away and vio­lat­ing curfew;
  • remov­ing young peo­ple from adult facil­i­ties, with lim­it­ed exceptions;
  • keep­ing young peo­ple who are incar­cer­at­ed sep­a­rate from incar­cer­at­ed adults; and
  • requir­ing states to iden­ti­fy and work to reduce racial and eth­nic dis­par­i­ties in the juve­nile jus­tice system.

Casey Foun­da­tion Senior Asso­ciate Liane Rozzell empha­sized the impor­tance of striv­ing for racial and eth­nic equi­ty in the youth jus­tice sys­tem. The new leg­is­la­tion requires states to make pol­i­cy and prac­tice changes that close dis­par­i­ties in a mea­sur­able way,” Rozzell said. This is a crit­i­cal pro­vi­sion to ensure that young peo­ple, regard­less of their race or eth­nic­i­ty, will be treat­ed fair­ly and equi­tably by our legal system.”

The law also pro­motes the use of alter­na­tives to incar­cer­a­tion and estab­lish­es fund­ing for local com­mu­ni­ties to build out a con­tin­u­um of delin­quen­cy pre­ven­tion pro­grams, sup­port and oppor­tu­ni­ties for youth.

This update has been a long time com­ing,” said Rozzell. The last reau­tho­riza­tion was in 2002 and the field has come a long way in that time.”

The 2018 law reflects cur­rent research and prac­tice. The act:

  • sup­ports the imple­men­ta­tion of evi­dence-based prac­tices that address trau­ma youth and fam­i­lies have experienced;
  • calls for the elim­i­na­tion of dan­ger­ous prac­tices in con­fine­ment, includ­ing elim­i­nat­ing the use of restraints on girls who are pregnant;
  • improves con­di­tions and edu­ca­tion­al ser­vices for youth in facilities;
  • focus­es on the par­tic­u­lar needs of spe­cial youth pop­u­la­tions, such as traf­ficked youth and trib­al youth; and
  • increas­es accountability.

The leg­is­la­tion also includes a two-year reau­tho­riza­tion of the fed­er­al Run­away and Home­less Youth Act.

The legislation’s lead co-spon­sors were Sen. Chuck Grass­ley from Iowa, Sen. Shel­don White­house from Rhode Island, Rep. Jason Lewis from Min­neso­ta and Rep. Bob­by Scott from Vir­ginia. Many advo­cates played cru­cial roles in edu­cat­ing pol­i­cy­mak­ers about the need for fed­er­al leg­is­la­tion and fund­ing for juve­nile jus­tice pro­grams and ser­vices, includ­ing the Nation­al Juve­nile Jus­tice and Delin­quen­cy Pre­ven­tion Coali­tion, which rep­re­sents more than 180 nation­al orga­ni­za­tions who work on youth devel­op­ment and juve­nile jus­tice issues.

Read a sum­ma­ry of the Juve­nile Jus­tice Reform Act of 2018 from the Coali­tion for Juve­nile Jus­tice, a Foun­da­tion grantee.

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