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MacArthur Foundation's Models for Change

Summary

The United States’ juvenile justice system was founded a century ago with the enlightened goal of providing individualized treatment and services to children in trouble. In the 1990s, however, the boundaries between the juvenile and criminal justice systems began to erode. Virtually every state passed laws that placed more young people in criminal court, instituted harsher sanctions, and allowed adults and youth to be incarcerated in the same facilities. That is the background against which MacArthur entered the field of juvenile justice grantmaking.

Full Text

The way in which young people are treated in the criminal justice system often is at odds with research findings about how and when humans develop mature moral, psychological, and cognitive capacities. The Foundation supports research, model programs, policy analysis, and public education that promote more effective juvenile justice systems across the country. A new effort called Models for Change is underway to accelerate system-wide change in Pennsylvania, Illinois, Louisiana, and Washington, with the hope that the results will serve as models for successful reform in the juvenile justice systems in other states.

NCLR's Latino Juvenile Justice Network is a key partner of the MacArthur Foundation’s Models for Change: System Reform in Juvenile Justice initiative.

Download the Keystones for Reform (PDF format)

Link: http://www.macfound.org

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