Protecting Youth Rights, Ensuring Safety
We believe justice must be rooted in an understanding of child and adolescent development and grounded in respect for every young person’s dignity. Our legal and policy advocacy works to end incarceration and institutionalization, end harmful practices in confinement, ensure rights are protected, and build systems that center healing, not punishment. Whether challenging abusive conditions, strengthening oversight, or rewriting facility standards, we work to defend the rights of youth, while we work to build effective alternatives.
Advocacy Initiatives
Impact Stories
2025: The law gives youth with criminal records a clean slate. Does it also prevent oversight of juvenile detention?
Youth Law Center Directing Attorney Meredith Desautels is quoted in this article by Kelly Davis that examines what may be dangerous and conflicting unintended consequences of confidentiality laws intended to protect youth in the juvenile justice system in San Diego County.
2024: Youth Law Center and Other Advocates Influence New California Bill Improving Access to Education for Incarcerated Youth
On September 22, 2024, Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB 2176, authored by California Assemblymember Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park), into law, which would require the Office of Youth and Community Restoration (OYCR) within the California Health and Human Services Agency to write and publish an annual report of rate of chronic absenteeism in juvenile court schools and address problems in schools with a high percentage of students absent.
2023: Youth Law Center and Partner Organizations in Tennessee Achieve Legislative Victories for Juvenile Justice Against All Odds
Youth Law Center led a Herculean effort to stop legislators from ramming through harmful youth justice bills during a special legislative session in Tennessee. The purpose of the special legislative session was originally announced as a response to the tragic deaths of children, teachers, and staff in a mass shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville, and advocates were surprised to see bills rewriting the state’s juvenile justice system on the table, while common sense gun safety reforms were not.
