Youth Justice Toolkit

On any given day, an estimated 60,000 youth are confined in juvenile detention and correctional facilities; hundreds of thousands more are on probation. In addition, an estimated 200,000 youth under age 18 are sent into the adult criminal justice system each year, often for misdemeanor offenses. Incarceration can yield disastrous results for their long-term rehabilitation and future.

Youth justice is one of the biggest civil rights issues of our time.

The aim of this toolkit is to provide practical guidance to support community engagement for youth justice efforts.

Community engagement is an approach to addressing community issues and promoting wellbeing. It involves building relationships and working together to develop more effective interventions, programs, services, and policies and to empower communities as key actors in improvement efforts.

This toolkit provides support throughout the community engagement process. It outlines questions to encourage dialogue, recommends activities, and provides examples and links to tools to support learning and action in your community. Click on any of the circles for guidance in implementing each aspect of the work. Visit this page to learn more about the model that undergirds this work.