Youth Justice Institute | University at Albany

The New York State Youth Justice Institute strives to build and strengthen the capacity of localities around New York State to adopt evidence-informed youth justice practices. We do so by disseminating information, assisting with implementation and assessing efficacy in existing youth justice programs, and by conducting cutting-edge research to advance the science and practice of evidence-based initiatives.

EXPLORE THESE YJI RESOURCES

EBP CLEARINGHOUSE

LUNCH & LEARN SERIES

TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE

Lunch & Learn: Presented by Benjamin van Rooij, PhD

The Behavioral Code: Correcting Legal Assumptions about How Law Can Best Address Misbehavior

Every month, the YJI brings to you the work of prominent researchers in the field of youth justice! Our "Lunch & Learn" sessions are designed to be interactive, informative, and thought-provoking.

On December 8, 2021, Dr. Benjamin van Rooij, Faculty Director and Professor of Law and Society in the Faculty of Law at the University of Amsterdam, presented as part of our Lunch & Learn series. In this talk, Dr. van Rooij discussed some key insights on when law does and does not effectively help to reduce and prevent harmful and damaging behavior.⁠

View the recordings of this and other Lunch and Learn sessions.

Beyond 2020 - The Next Normal: COVID-19 and Youth Forum

From June 1-3, 2021, the YJI held a series of panel discussions among youth justice stakeholders from around the country that explored the pandemic's continued impacts on youth, their families, and their communities; and ways to leverage challenges and lessons of the pandemic to move the field closer to eliminating of racial and ethnic disparities, ensuring equity and justice, and prioritizing individual and communal health and well-being.

Learn more about how the YJI is contributing to national and international discussions on COVID-19 and youth.

ICYMI: "Social Justice for Our Youth" with Dr. Monique Morris

On Thursday, February 25, the NYS Permanent Judicial Commission on Justice for Children, in partnership with the NYS Youth Justice Institute, hosted "Social Justice for Our Youth," presented by Dr. Monique Morris.

Dr. Morris is an award-winning author and social justice scholar with three decades of experience in the areas of education, civil rights, and juvenile and social justice. She is also the executive producer and co-writer for the critically acclaimed documentary PUSHOUT: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools.

View the recording of this event

Racial Equity & Youth Justice Microsite

The Racial Equity & Youth Justice Microsite offers youth and community justice partners a curated and living array of relevant national and YJI-developed racial justice resources and research. The selected tools (guides, toolkits, webinars, scholarly articles, etc.) are meant to provide concrete supports that empower, instruct, motivate, and inspire our work to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in youth justice systems. We invite you to contribute to this site by nominating resources for future inclusion. Email nominations to [email protected].

Youth Justice News Coverage

Would you like to know how many youth justice news stories were published on race and ethnicity disparities in the last six months in your state? You can do so using this interactive dashboard!

Every week, the New York State Youth Justice Institute's team curates stories from local, national and international media outlets on diverse youth justice topics: SOGIE, Law & Politics, Courts, and many more. Each news story is coded according to its main topic and can be filtered by date and place of publication. This dashboard also includes international coverage of youth justice news. All of the original news articles are available and you can read them in their entirety by following the links on this youth justice news dashboard.

Overrepresentation of LGBTQ & GNC Youth in Juvenile Justice Systems

For Pride Month, we created this handy fact sheet that provides a brief overview of the overrepresentation of LGBTQ and GNC youth in juvenile justice systems. It also provides some useful resources if you'd like to learn more about these topics. See this flipbook below to learn more!