Juvenile Justice: Reforming a Broken System
- Grace Molina
- Apr 18
- 4 min read
By: Grace Molina
Each day in America, over 36,000 kids are locked up, many for nonviolent offenses. Most of these kids are black, minority, and of lower-class.
For young people, involvement with the juvenile justice system can have serious and lasting effects on their lives and futures. Decades after civil rights victories, Black youth are still five times more likely to be jailed than white youth. If a wealthy kid is caught with weed, they get rehab. If a poor kid is caught, they get locked up. Same crime, different futures. What does this say about our justice system? What kind of society do we want: one that heals kids or one that cages them? The system disproportionately harms marginalized youth, but young people are organizing to reform it.
Broken by Design: Who the System Targets
In 2021, Black youth were 4.7 times more likely to be held in juvenile facilities than White youth. American Indian youth were 3.7 times more likely, and Latino youth were 1.16 times more likely.
In 2023, there was a record high disparity. Black children were nearly six times as likely, and Native American children nearly four times as likely, to be incarcerated compared to White peers. This is the largest racial gap on record.
Furthermore, although Black and White teens report similar behaviors, Black youth are 2.3 times more likely to be arrested, 1.6 times more likely to be detained, and 1.63 times more likely to be committed after court involvement. Youth in low-income communities, often youth of color, face more policing, fewer resources, and less access to alternatives, which feeds into cycles of incarceration.
By 2020, 68% of U.S. middle and high schools had School Resource Officers. Their presence is linked to more arrests, especially for Black and Latinx students. In Connecticut, Black students in schools with SROs were 17 times more likely to be arrested, and Latino students were 10 times more likely. Despite showing similar behavior, Black students are three times more likely to be suspended or expelled. Data from 2009 to 2010 shows that over 70% of school-related arrests targeted Black or Latinx students.
In Tennessee, school officers arrested four Black elementary girls, ages 8 to 10, after they merely watched a classroom fight. One girl vomited, and another fell to her knees during the arrest. This incident shows how young children, particularly Black girls, can be criminalized for normal school behavior. It highlights the pipeline's early reach and how it disproportionately targets youth of color and low-income communities.
Inside the System: What Youth Experience
Facilities are often overcrowded, understaffed, and poorly maintained, limiting access to education, mental health care, and normal routines. Some centers lack classrooms, books, qualified teachers, or even basic infrastructure. About two-thirds of detained boys and three-quarters of girls have at least one psychiatric disorder. PTSD rates range from 24% to nearly 50% among girls. LGBTQ+ youth face even greater risks, with higher rates of self-harm and suicidal thoughts.
Over 93% of youth entering the system have experienced at least one adverse childhood experience, and many report multiple traumas. The trauma doesn’t stop there. Incarceration itself is traumatic, leading to higher PTSD, worsening existing mental health conditions, and increasing behavioral issues. Suicide attempts among detainees are four times the national average, and self-harm and psychosis rates are also significantly elevated.
Recidivism is very common. Youth processed in adult court reoffend at higher rates and struggle with education and employment. Many often die prematurely—by suicide, violence, or overdose.
Fighting Back: Youth-Led Reform Movements
The Youth First Initiative is a youth-led national advocacy movement that aims to close youth prisons and create community-based care alternatives. They partner with organizers in multiple states and have played major roles in closing Connecticut’s last youth prison in 2018, and in campaigning in Maine.
The Juvenile Law Center engages youth aged 15 to 22 with experience in the juvenile or foster care system to lead advocacy campaigns, speak before lawmakers, and help design policy reforms through programs like Advocates for Youth Justice and the Youth Speakers Bureau. Their youth voices, like Jarvis and Tiguida, express, “Youth advocacy is important because hope is important… Hope is what creates a community.”
Inspired by youth-led actions in Chicago, the VOYCE youth network lobbied state lawmakers directly and used selfies on social media to document accountability, filling legislative halls with youth voices and employing tech-savvy methods to promote policy change.
The Wake County Black Student Coalition in North Carolina was formed by high schoolers protesting the presence of School Resource Officers and biased discipline. They organized demonstrations and partnered with larger education advocacy groups, effectively influencing school board policy.
Many more teens and youth-led actions have occurred nationwide, resulting in real changes. In states like Virginia and Connecticut, youth-led groups organized rallies outside courthouses and drove petitions that persuaded lawmakers and media to take action. Youth advocates have spoken before state legislatures, sharing personal stories, data, and policy requests, thus shaping laws on record expungement and banning life-without-parole sentencing. Young leaders write opinion pieces, appear in news features, and use podcasts to extend their reach, with support from the Juvenile Law Center providing coaching and paid opportunities.
Some powerful quotes from affected youth include:
“It’s like fighting a giant spider. You can’t just defeat one part of it and think it’s done”—VOYCE youth.
“Youth prisons don’t work. Putting a young person in one of these facilities raises the chances that they will re-offend”—Youth First co-founder Liz Ryan.
“Hope is important. Hope helps you through tough moments and creates a community”—Tiguida (Juvenile Law Center youth).
Conclusion: A Call for Justice
The juvenile justice system isn’t just flawed; it has been designed to fail the most vulnerable: youth of color, low-income teens, and kids facing trauma. In prison, they experience isolation instead of healing and punishment instead of opportunity. But across the country, young people are rising up. They are testifying in courts, organizing protests, closing youth prisons, and rewriting laws. They’re not just asking for change; they are making it. The youth groups mentioned earlier highlight this important momentum. If you’re a young person reading this, remember: your voice is powerful. Whether you speak out in a classroom, at a city council meeting, or on the streets, it matters. You are the future of justice. The system may be broken, but the people fighting against it are unbreakable.
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