At the 2019 National Conference on Juvenile Justice, OJJDP Senior Policy Advisor Cynthia Pappas (left) facilitated a session on girls in the juvenile justice system. Presenters included (from left to right) Dr. Lymari Benitez, April Brownlee, and Aggie Pappas from the PACE Center for Girls; and Krista Larson and Cymone Fuller from the Vera Center on Youth Justice.

At the conference, more than 550 participants attended 50 sessions on a range of juvenile justice topics, including alternatives to detention, trauma-informed justice, crossover youth, solitary confinement, domestic sex trafficking of minors, racial and ethnic disparities, school pathways to the justice system, and juvenile and family drug treatment courts. OJJDP organized four sessions at the conference.

On March 18, OJJDP Senior Policy Advisor Cynthia Pappas joined Krista Larson and Cymone Fuller from the Vera Center on Youth Justice and Aggie Pappas, April Brownlee, and Lymari Benitez from the PACE Center for Girls for the session “Working With Girls in the Juvenile Justice System: Best Practices.” The session examined the unique pathways that lead girls and young women into the juvenile justice system.

Ms. Larson and Ms. Fuller described the efforts of the New York City Task Force on Ending Girls’ Incarceration to design policies, practices, and programs to interrupt those pathways. Ms. Aggie Pappas, Ms. Brownlee, and Dr. Benitez shared best practices to reduce girls’ involvement with the juvenile justice system in Florida and Georgia, highlighting the 2018 report, Status of Girls and Young Women in Broward County.

Rebecca Burney, J.D., shared lessons learned from the OJJDP-supported National Judicial Institute on Domestic Child Sex Trafficking in a session moderated by OJJDP Senior Policy Advisor Cynthia Pappas.

Later that day, Ms. Pappas moderated the session “Lessons Learned from the National Judicial Institute on Domestic Sex Trafficking,” which featured remarks by Rebecca Burney, J.D., Equal Justice Works Fellow at Rights4 Girls. The session discussed strategies judicial officials can use to identify victims of domestic minor sex trafficking in their courtrooms and to improve outcomes for sexually trafficked and exploited youth based on lessons from the OJJDP-supported National Judicial Institute on Domestic Child Sex Trafficking. The institute provides judges with the opportunity to expand their knowledge about trafficking risk factors, victim identification, effective intervention strategies, and cultural considerations. Ms. Burney focused on the “abuse to prison pipeline,” highlighting No Such Thing, Rights4Girls’ campaign to eradicate the term “child prostitute.”

In a March 19 session titled “Children With Problematic Sexual Behaviors: Who Are They and How Can the Juvenile Justice System Help?,” Paul Shawler, Ph.D., Assistant Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Oklahoma University’s Health Sciences Center and a member of the training and technical assistance team at the university’s National Center on the Sexual Behavior of Youth, highlighted the OJJDP-supported Youth With Sexual Behavior Problems program. Dr. Shawler trains multidisciplinary teams across the country in methods to improve prevention, response, and intervention for youth with problematic sexual behavior as well as child victims and families. In this session, Dr. Shawler dispelled myths and misconceptions about youth with problematic sexual behaviors and shared lessons learned from comprehensive, coordinated, community-based interventions.

Shown (from left to right) are Shay Bilchik, Director of Georgetown University’s Center for Juvenile Justice Reform; Victoria Chamberlin, a senior research scientist at ICF; and Steven Kremer, Supervisor of Juvenile Court Services in Iowa’s 3rd Judicial District. Ms. Chamberlin facilitated an OJJDP-sponsored panel on juvenile reentry program strategies that are showing promising results in reducing recidivism.

Victoria Chamberlin, a senior research scientist at ICF, facilitated an OJJDP-sponsored panel on juvenile reentry program strategies that are showing promising results in reducing recidivism. She discussed OJJDP’s Juvenile Justice Systems Improvement Promising Practices initiative, including current findings and resources under development to support state and local efforts in juvenile reentry.

The discussion explored the core elements of successful reentry initiatives, including the importance of organizing a comprehensive team to support reentry planning. Shay Bilchik, Director of Georgetown University’s Center for Juvenile Justice Reform, focused on current field practices for engaging the juvenile courts in reentry planning and provided an overview of the changing nature of judges’, prosecutors’, and other courtroom staff’s involvement in juvenile proceedings. Steven Kremer, Supervisor of Juvenile Court Services in Iowa’s 3rd Judicial District, highlighted the juvenile justice systems improvement work in Iowa supported by OJJDP.

Resources:

A complete list of conference presentations is available on the NCJFCJ website.