OJJDP welcomed more than 2,500 attendees to the 2024 National Conference on Youth Justice, including young people and families, youth justice practitioners, researchers, OJJDP grantees, lawmakers, and many others committed to achieving justice and equity for all youth. The capstone event of OJJDP’s yearlong 50th anniversary celebration of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, the conference took place November 19–21, in Washington, D.C.

OJJDP Administrator Liz Ryan welcomed attendees, asking them to consider their hopes for the future of youth justice. “What do we want youth justice to look like for the next 50 years?” she asked. “What can we learn from the past 50 years? What is working? What isn’t? How can we direct our collective resources to support young people? Who is not at the table that needs to be part of this conversation? How can we do better?”

Young people advised OJJDP throughout the conference planning process as paid consultants, and every aspect of the event reflected youth input. The conference centered on young people; they were at the forefront of every activity—offering remarks, leading panel discussions and workshops, and hosting workshops for emerging youth leaders. During the November 19 welcome plenary session, for example, four emerging leaders with lived juvenile justice system experience shared parts of their life stories in a panel discussion, “The Power of Where We’ve Been,” along with two parents of justice-involved youth.

“As a formerly incarcerated young man, who beat life plus 7 to be here, a first generation Latino—it’s been an uphill battle,” said panelist Ronaldo Villeda. “I’ve had to speak out. I’ve had to advocate. . . . and I’ve had to have those uncomfortable conversations to show up authentically to myself and to my roots, to represent and uplift my peers, and to honor everybody who has done the work before me. Because there’s people in this room that have been doing this work longer than I’ve been alive. And without y’all, I would’ve never had a seat at the table.” Mr. Villeda now serves as a Youth Reentry Fellow for the American Institutes for Research at the Youth Reentry Technical Assistance Center and is Executive Director and cofounder of Hoops4Justice.

OJJDP's Continuum of Care shaped the conference agenda, which featured more than 80 sessions. The continuum describes a framework for youth justice services and reflects the dynamic, evolving nature of youth needs. The goal is to prevent youth from entering or moving deeper into the juvenile justice system. Conference sessions were identified according to where they fit within the framework. “I’ve Been There and Now I’m Here for You”—a session on credible messenger mentoring—aligned with the “prevention” and “intervention-low, medium, high” framework areas, for example, while “Beyond the Binary: LGBTQ+ and Two-Spirit Youth in the Justice System” represented the “intervention-medium” and “out-of-home placement” framework areas.  Other focus areas included “system level change” and “community reintegration.”

Three plenary speakers addressed the conference, encouraging attendees to know their value, trust their strength, and persevere when facing challenges.

Public interest lawyer Bryan Stevenson offered the opening keynote address on November 19. Mr. Stevenson is the founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Institute, a human rights organization committed to ending mass incarceration, challenging racial and economic injustice, and protecting basic human rights for vulnerable people. The Equal Justice Initiative has won multiple major legal challenges—from freeing people who were falsely accused of crimes and imprisoned on death row to fighting for the rights of children prosecuted as adults.

Advancing youth justice is going to require advocates to “stay proximate, change narratives, be hopeful, and be willing to do uncomfortable things,” Mr. Stevenson said. He spoke about narratives “that keep us from justice,” particularly emphasizing those that are perpetuated to support racial inequities. Rooted in American slavery, such narratives persist today in the “presumption of dangerousness and guilt” that people of color encounter in their daily lives, he said. “We need a new era of truth and justice.” 

Shawn Ginwright, PhD, spoke on November 21. The Jerome T. Murphy Professor of Practice at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Dr. Ginwright is also President and CEO of Flourish Agenda, a consulting firm. Flourish Agenda works with youth-serving organizations and systems to develop  and promote healing-centered approaches, with an emphasis on support for youth of color. Dr. Ginwright introduced healing-centered engagement, a nonclinical, strength-based, and holistic approach to healing. When applied to youth services, the approach emphasizes and values a young person’s racial and other social identities, their ability to address community challenges, their relationships, their abilities and purpose, and their aspirations for the future.

Former NFL athlete and inspirational speaker Jeremiah Brown also spoke on November 21, encouraging conference attendees to embrace transformational leadership—to embody qualities that elevate others and encourage them to reach their full potential. Transformational leadership emphasizes “being,” he said, differentiating it from transactional leadership, which focuses on “doing”—completing tasks and fulfilling others’ expectations. “Leading is in you, not on you,” Mr. Brown said. He called youth services a partnership that honors youth by valuing their voices and input, empowering them to address and solve problems.