On any given day, scores of young people with limited individual and social capital are simultaneously struggling to exit some systems and enter others: foster care, residential treatment centers, higher education, mental health programs, gainful employment.

This year Senator Jim Webb of Virginia says he will seek legislation to launch a comprehensive review of the criminal justice system. He says the focus must be on making sharp distinctions between offenders of violent crimes and those incarcerated for non-violent crimes, drug abuse and mental illness so that we lock up the most dangerous people instead of diverting time and money to incarcerate the wrong people.

Children’s Express reports on this toolkit that helps child welfare courts define goals, collect data and measure their performance to improve child and family outcomes of safety, permanence, and well-being.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation has issued policy recommendations for reforming juvenile justice, reducing poverty, rebuilding the child welfare system and improving data. On juvenile justice, the Foundation says the federal Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act should be reauthorized with enhanced provisions to reduce racial disparities, strengthen core protections against confining status offenders and mingling juveniles with adult offenders.

Research published in this month's American Journal of Public Health finds that girls in the public mental health system were arrested at earlier ages more frequently and were charged with more serious offenses than girls in the general population. This provides strong evidence for the coordination between mental health and justice systems to provide rehabilitation.

Lisa Fitzhugh says Seattle should change its current plan-for-failure: increasing spending on prisons and cutting funding for schools. Schools need more funding to provide attention to individual needs and talents that help students succeed.

Findings in this new comprehensive report on youth and teen courts strongly suggest local youth and teen courts are not only the most replicated juvenile justice program in America -- but they are also among the leading youth service programs. More than 111,000 juvenile cases were handled in local youth and teen courts in a one year period, with 97,578 completing their peer-imposed sanction.

The Center for Juvenile Justice Reform at Georgetown University's Public Policy Institute is launching its 2009 Certificate Programs for professionals interested in cross systems efforts for youth in juvenile justice and child welfare. Applications due in March 2009.

Harvard Law Professor Charles Ogletree, a top advisor to President Obama, will lead a panel on designing strategies to reform juvenile justice, hosted at the ABA Criminal Justice Midyear meeting, February 13, 2009 in Boston.

Today (December 3, 2008), the National Council on Crime and Delinquency released a special report examining how the 110th Congress proposed to address gangs. It compares two bills -- the Gang Abatement and Prevention Act (S. 456 and H.R. 3547) and the Youth PROMISE Act (H.R. 3846) and finds that the Youth PROMISE Act, with its evidenced-based prevention and interventions can do more to help youth "not only stay out of trouble but also have promising futures." The details are available online.