June 2, 2015

Collateral Consequences of Juvenile Court

YLC staff attorney Sue Burrell’s article, “Collateral  Consequences of Juvenile Court: Boulders on the Road to Good Outcomes,” appears in a just released book, A New Juvenile Justice System: Total Reform for a Broken System, published by the NYU Press.  Edited by Nancy E. Dowd, with a Foreword by Charles J. Ogletree , Jr., the book includes articles by academics, activists, researchers, and practitioners.  It is dedicated to former YLC attorney James Bell, who now heads the W. Haywood Burns Institute.

Each article in the book provides the author’s vision of what is needed for total juvenile system reform – focusing on a variety of issues.  Uniformly the authors agree that an ideal system should be centered around the principle of child well-being and the goal of helping youth to achieve productive lives as citizens and members of their communities. The authors contrast this vision with the punitive, destructive existing system, with rampant disparities in relation to race, sexual orientation, and a range of disabilities.  Sue’s article focuses on the damage caused by collateral consequences of juvenile court proceedings – the predictable as well as unanticipated impacts on young people’s ability to move forward in their lives.  The article also offers nine suggested ways to reduce collateral consequences.   The book is available at  http://nyupress.org/books/9781479898800/

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