Juvenile Justice Archives - National Wraparound Initiative (NWI)

Stories of Navigating Youth and Family Systems

January 13, 2025 | NWI

This podcast series features authentic stories shared by individuals who have navigated various youth and family systems. Each episode offers a unique perspective on their encounters within these systems and solutions to the challenges they faced.

Listen to the podcast »

Crucial Conversations About Healthy Romantic Relationships

January 13, 2025 | NWI

This toolkit focuses on three critical domains of healthy romantic relationships: communication, such as sharing thoughts/feelings; boundaries/limits, including setting, enforcing, and respecting boundaries and limits; and shared power, such as negotiating roles and responsibilities. This toolkit is for professionals who support teens and youth who experience the child welfare and/or justice systems, homelessness, and/or disconnection from school and work.

Access the toolkit »

Youth Detention: Reversing Widening Gaps by Race and Place

October 30, 2023 | NWI

This report discusses what the post-pandemic juvenile justice system looks like, how a young person’s racial identity affects their odds of being detained, how the risk of detainment for youth varies by location, and what juvenile justice systems can do to make better, safer and fairer decisions.

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Why Youth Incarceration Fails: Evidence Review

July 23, 2023 | NWI

This publication summarizes the evidence documenting the serious problems associated with the youth justice system’s continuing heavy reliance on incarceration and makes recommendations for reducing the use of confinement. It details how the harms of incarceration fall disproportionately on Black youth and other youth of color – despite well-established alternatives that produce better outcomes for youth and community safety.

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Youth Incarceration in the United States

February 24, 2022 | NWI

This infographic from the Annie E. Casey Foundation shows that public agencies made enormous progress reducing youth incarceration between 1995 and 2019, reflecting the deep declines in juvenile arrests over the same period. However, some harmful practices remained stubbornly entrenched, such as an overreliance on incarceration once youth are referred to the juvenile justice system, especially for Black and Native American youth.

View the infographic »

Preventing Juvenile Justice and Child Welfare Involvement

September 12, 2021 | NWI

This report explores a variety of approaches to prevention, hoping to promote “upstream” efforts and work across systems and in partnership with youth, families and communities in a new and impactful manner.

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Study Finds Psychiatric Disorders Persist 15 Years After Youth Are Detained

April 18, 2021 | NWI

A new study shows that youth arrested as juveniles with psychiatric disorders that remain untreated continue to struggle with mental health and successful outcomes well beyond adolescence. The research shows nearly two-thirds of males and more than one-third of females with one or more existing psychiatric disorders when they entered detention still had a disorder 15 years later.

Read more about the study »

Racial Disparities in Youth Incarceration Persist

March 15, 2021 | NWI

In an era of declining youth incarceration, Black and American Indian youth are still overwhelmingly more likely to be held in custody than their white peers.

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Diversion more effective than detention for youth in juvenile justice

February 8, 2021 | Maria Hermsen-Kritz

A new study from Case Western University shows that Ohio’s diversion system is producing better outcomes for youth with behavioral issues than punishment.

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Inside Utah’s Troubled Teen Industry

December 2, 2020 | NWI

This investigative report from the Salt Lake Tribune details experiences of young people housed in residential treatment facilities across Utah.

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