Smart, Safe, and Fair: Strategies to Prevent Youth Violence, Heal Victims of Crime, and Reduce Racial Inequality
"The justice system treats youth charged with violent offenses in ways that are unnecessarily expensive, ineffective and unjust.  Although the research is clear that many youth convicted of a violent crime are best treated in a community-based setting, our default response to youth violence is still confinement. In Smart, Safe, and Fair, the Justice Policy Institute (JPI) and the National Center for Victims of Crime (NCVC) spoke with members of the victims’ community to further examine the barriers to treating youth involved in violent crime in the community, and to gauge their support for these proposed reforms.

The crime victims we spoke with were consistent in their support for a change from a status quo they see as costly, ineffective, and damaging to youth and their families—all while failing to meet the needs of crime victims themselves. Instead, they expressed a belief that there should be no categorical bar on serving more young people involved in violent crime in the community, particularly because youth engaged in violence are overwhelmingly victims themselves, and should receive appropriate services."

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Canada's Success in Reducing Youth Imprisonment in the Last Two Decades is Evidence that Reform of the Justice System is Possible, with the Political Will
"On an average day in 1997, 3,825 young people (ages 12 to 17) were serving sentences in Canadian youth prisons. By 2015, that number had decreased to 527, an 86 percent reduction. This is a drop from 157 per 100,000 12- to 17-year-olds to 23. Canada’s successful decrease in the number of youths serving sentences in prison may provide lessons that can be applied to other areas of public policy. Specifically, it may help us understand Canada’s failure to reduce substantially its rate of adult imprisonment and also that of youth pretrial detention."