OJJDP’s 50th Anniversary Celebration To Culminate in the National Conference on Youth Justice
Register now for OJJDP’s 2024 National Conference on Youth Justice! OJJDP expects nearly 3,500 attendees at the Washington Hilton in Washington, DC, November 19–21, 2024—young people, families, grantees, youth justice practitioners and partners, and other stakeholders.

The conference’s more than 90 workshops, plenary sessions, and youth networking events will focus on “Shaping the Next 50 Years” in youth justice and will emphasize OJJDP’s three priorities: treat children as children; serve children at home, with their families, in their communities; and open up opportunities for system-involved youth. Workshops will explore juvenile justice system reform, OJJDP’s Continuum of Care framework, Tribal youth systems, youth reentry, processes to help build community capacity, and meaningful partnerships with youth and families, among other topics. Keynote speakers for the plenary sessions will be:

• Bryan Stevenson, founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative, who has won major legal challenges supporting children who were prosecuted as adults, eliminating excessive and unfair sentencing and exonerating innocent people on death row.
• Shawn Ginwright, PhD, the Jerome T. Murphy Professor of Practice at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, whose groundbreaking work on healing-centered engagement has helped reshape the youth development field and the way practitioners address trauma and healing.

Other conference highlights include Reentry Community Cafés—opportunities for OJJDP Second Chance Act Youth Reentry grantees to build relationships while sharing expertise and resources. Title II Formula Grant Program Regional Chats will give staff from Designated State Agencies the chance to exchange their successes and troubleshoot challenges they share in common.

The National Conference is OJJDP’s capstone event for the yearlong 50th anniversary celebration of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, the landmark legislation that established OJJDP and the first federal standards for the safe and equitable treatment of young people in the juvenile justice system. 

OJJDP Programs Rely on Community Input and Services To Promote Public Safety

A new report from the Office of Justice Programs (OJP), Reimagining Justice at Justice: Investing in Communities as Co-Producers of Public Safety, outlines a vision to strengthen the role of communities in achieving the Justice Department’s public safety goals. The report emphasizes the importance of community-driven initiatives to serve youth, particularly through the work of one OJP program office—OJJDP. It serves as a blueprint for implementing OJP’s updated mission to “provide resources, leadership, and solutions to advance community safety, build community trust, and strengthen the community’s role as co-producer of safety and justice.”

The report highlights two key OJJDP programs for their investment in community-based organizations. The Enhancing School Capacity To Address Youth Violence program relies on networks of community-based organizations to work directly with schools to expand the availability of supportive resources for students at risk of engaging in violence.

OJJDP’s Continuum of Care framework—a holistic approach spanning prevention, intervention, treatment, and reentry strategies—fosters positive youth development by using community-based insights and services to address youth needs through mentoring, afterschool programs, and other prosocial activities. In fiscal year 2023, OJJDP awarded more than $17 million to 23 grantees and 3 providers of training and technical assistance through the Building Local Continuums of Care to Support Youth Success initiative. This funding helps empower states and local communities to collaborate with youth and families, assess local needs, and fill gaps in programs and services. By prioritizing community safety and well-being, these programs help ensure that youth engagement and interventions are rooted in the values and priorities of the communities they serve.

OJJDP is giving youth with lived experience in the juvenile justice system a voice in the grant selection process, and requiring prospective grantees to state how they plan to work with impacted youth and their families. OJJDP is also hiring youth to advise reentry programs, provide guidance in the development of toolkits and resources, and help plan OJJDP's National Conference on Youth Justice in November 2024.

Reimagining Justice at Justice: Investing in Communities as Co-Producers of Public Safety was released in collaboration with the Square One Project at the Columbia University Justice Lab.

Youth Made Up 6 Percent of the Jail Population in Indian Country in 2023

Youth age 17 and younger made up 6 to 9 percent of all inmates in Indian country jails from midyear 2013 to midyear 2023, according to Jails in Indian Country, 2023, a report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics. “Indian country” is a legal term used to describe reservations and other lands set aside for use by Native peoples. The report describes facility characteristics and presents statistics on the demographic characteristics, most serious offense, and conviction status of individuals held in Indian country jails.

At midyear 2023, a total of 2,400 individuals (adults and youth) were held in 80 jails in Indian country, representing a 7-percent increase over midyear 2022 when the 80 jails held 2,250 individuals. In addition:

• From midyear 2022 to midyear 2023, the number of youth age 17 and younger in Indian country jails remained steady—150 each year.
• From midyear 2013 to midyear 2023, the number of youth held in Indian country jails decreased by 60—from 210 in midyear 2013 to 150.
• Two-thirds of the youth held in Indian country jails at midyear 2023 were male.

Data for the report come from the Annual Survey of Jails in Indian Country, which includes all correctional facilities in Indian country that are operated by Tribal authorities or the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs. The survey is intended to cover all adult and youth jail facilities and detention centers in Indian country.

Female Students and LGBTQ+ Students Report Experiencing Higher Levels of Violence, CDC Survey Results Show 

In 2023, female students and LGBTQ+ students reported experiencing higher levels of substance use, violence, suicidal thoughts and behaviors, and other signs of poor mental health than their peers who are male, cisgender, or heterosexual, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report, Youth Risk Behavior Survey Data Summary and Trends Report: 2013–2023. The report presents survey data from high school students, including 10-year trends and 2-year changes in health behaviors and experiences.

The report notes an overall improvement in 10-year trends in some areas of adolescent health and well-being, such as reported substance use and sexual risk behaviors, but states that “almost all other indicators of health and well-being in this report worsened.” Key 2023 findings from female students include:

• Nearly 20 percent experienced sexual violence during the past year. 
• Nearly 25 percent said they used alcohol and nearly 20 percent said they used marijuana in the past 30 days.
• More than 50 percent said they experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness during the past year.

Key 2023 findings for LGBTQ+ students include:

• Twenty percent had attempted suicide during the past year.
• More than 60 percent experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness during the past year, and more than 50 percent reported having poor mental health during the past month.
• Twenty percent experienced sexual violence during the past year.
• Twenty-six percent said they used alcohol and 2 percent used marijuana in the past 30 days.

The CDC administers the Youth Risk Behavior Survey nationally every 2 years to a representative sample of high school students.