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Youth perspective allows people to see how juvenile legal system involvement, foster system placement, over-policing, detention, and family separation affect young people’s development. Their lived experiences bring authenticity and urgency to movements because they are speaking from personal experience rather than observation alone. 

Youth with lived experience play a powerful role in efforts to reform the juvenile legal and foster systems because they bring firsthand knowledge, unique insight, and innovative approaches to advocacy. Many young people become involved in these movements after experiencing foster care, family separation, incarceration, school discipline, or other forms of system involvement. Their experiences provide a deeper understanding of how these systems impact children and families and help identify meaningful solutions. Organizations like Juvenile Law Center recognize that effective advocacy requires intentionally partnering with youth leaders and community-based organizations so that reform efforts reflect the realities of those most affected. Meaningful changes happen when young people are not only included in conversations but are empowered as partners in decision-making, leadership, and strategy.

Youth leaders and community-based organizations play a vital role in transforming the juvenile legal and family policing systems by centering lived experiences, community advocacy, and collective action. Across the country, young people, particularly those directly impacted by the foster and juvenile legal system, are organizing to challenge punitive policies, advocate for rehabilitative approaches, and promote systems that prioritize equity, accountability, and dignity.

Through policies and practices, more neurodivergent and differently abled children are pulled in and punished at higher rates than their neuro- and developmentally typical peers.

Nearly 20 years after “Kids for Cash” became a national scandal, one of the judges at its center is back in the spotlight – this time because of an act of presidential power.

Juvenile Law Center welcomed three new members to its Board of Directors – Shaena Fazal, Jordan Jean, and Tania Stewart, bringing valuable skills and expertise to an exceptional group. Additionally, the organization welcomed its newest Sol & Helen Zubrow Fellow in Children’s Law, Jennifer Kim.

In State v. K.R.C., the Wisconsin Supreme Court clarified that judges must assess whether a young person was "in custody" from the perspective of a reasonable child. The authors contend that as police presence in schools grows, this shift in standard is a meaningful step, but it doesn't go far enough.

Spoiler Alert: This essay shares plot details from the book, The Reformatory. In the novel The Reformatory by Tananarive Due, a 12-year-old boy, Robbie, is sent to a reform school in the Jim Crow-era South for kicking the white neighbor who sexually harassed his sister, Gloria. The novel portrays the injustices Robbie faces inside the system, but also the way carceral systems affect whole families, as it depicts Gloria’s attempts to rescue her brother from an unfair fate.

The ACLU of Michigan, the ACLU, Juvenile Law Center, and civil rights attorney Deborah LaBelle applaud the Michigan Supreme Court’s decision that subjecting young people to excessively long prison sentences violates the Michigan Constitution’s prohibition on cruel or unusual punishment.

The director of Clark County Juvenile Justice Services has been placed on leave. County officials confirmed with Channel 13 that John Munoz was placed on administrative leave as of July 9 due to an ongoing investigation into the department.