(Re)Imagining Justice for Youth: Year One Evaluation Report

Abstract

It is time for real change in our youth justice system. Achieving the outcomes we want from our youth justice system will require change that addresses the harmful beliefs at the core of traditional models, and replaces them with policies and practices that create true accountability and healing, rather than just punishment. The Ramsey County Attorney’s Office, together with other community and system leaders, are building a new approach to youth justice. It’s called (Re)Imagining Justice for Youth (RJY), and it puts community at the center of the legal response to harmful behavior. Based on extensive national and local research, RJY aims to respond to harmful youth behavior in ways that support youth to be caring, emotionally mature, and willing to take responsibility for their behavior, rather than send them into an ineffective and harmful system. The change process has just begun. In the first year of this new approach, most cases referred from law enforcement were not collaboratively reviewed, very few cases were charged and then referred to community accountability, and only 10% of total laws enforcement referrals were fully resolved in community. There are promising preliminary results. Young people whose cases were successfully resolved in community had about 3 fewer months of system involvement, compared to cases that included probation. 81% of community accountability cases documented family engagement in accountability processes with the young person. A larger proportion of the cases successfully resolved in community with no charge involved youth who were Black, Indigenous, younger, and not on their first referral to RCAO, compared to diversion data from 2017-2018. Qualitative evidence suggests community accountability creates spaces where youth address their behavior, grow and heal, and that sufficient time and family engagement are important for meaningful accountability. Cases resolved outside of the legal system in RJY’s first year may have resulted in estimated direct cost savings and future societal benefits of over $400,000. RJY will take everyone, working together, to implement a vision of a legal system that truly supports accountability and healing.