The YJI coordinates the NYS Youth Justice Peer Advisory Council (PAC) whose members serve as key advisors on youth justice policy and practice development in New York State. Applications to the PAC are accepted on a rolling basis.

The New York State Youth Justice Institute (YJI) Scholar Internship Program is a research-focused internship that trains students in a wide variety of research skills, develops their knowledge about youth justice topics, and connects them to relevant work at the state’s leading agencies. The YJI refers to its interns as Scholars to convey our commitment to their development as youth justice researchers and professionals.

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In June 2021, the YJI launched the inaugural session of the New York State Policy Equity Academy. Developed in collaboration with the NYS Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) and the Center for Children’s Law and Policy, the Academy welcomes 5 participating counties – Albany County, Monroe County, Onondaga County, Schenectady County, and Westchester County. The county teams are comprised of diverse stakeholders including probation, youth and families, courts, law enforcement, and social services. Each county will work toward the goal of reducing racial and ethnic disparities in its probation adjustment process. In addition to the course instruction, the counties will receive technical assistance and funding support to implement reforms. For more information on the Academy and the collaboration that created it, please read this recent DCJS press release.

2024

• Birds of a Feather, Born Together? On Siblings, Crime, and Punishment, presented by Sara Wakefield, PhD 
• Listening to and learning from Black girls, transgender, and non-binary youth in New York State: From data to action presented by LeConté Dill, PhD and Sarah Mountz, PhD.
• Lessons from AFFIRM interventions for LGBTQ+ youth, their caregivers, and providers, presented by Ashley Austin, PhD and Shelley Craig, PhD.
• L&L + Special Education Advocacy for Justice Involved Youth, presented by Kai-lin Hsu, Esq., moderated by Amanda Oren, Esq.
• The End of the Age-Crime Curve? Implications of Recent Trends in Teenage Offending, presented by James Tuttle, PhD
• Responding to the Mental Health Needs of Two-Spirit People, presented by Margaret Robinson, PhD
• Fostering Techquity: Unveiling Insights from Co-Designing Behavioral Health Tech with Systems-Impacted Youth, presented by Marina Tolou-Shams, PhD
• Youth Initiated Mentoring: What it is and How it Can Transform the Mentoring Process, presented by Renee Spencer, PhD

2023

• Housing as Prevention for Youth Experiencing Homelessness, presented by Natasha Slesnick, PhD
• Reducing Juvenile Violence Through Focus on Child Mental Health: Lessons from State-Level Research, presented by Maria Tcherni-Buzzeo, PhD
• Risk and Protective Factors Associated with Mental Health Outcomes Among Youth of Color: Leveraging Telehealth Interventions, presented by Jocelyn Meza, PhD
• System Involved LGBTQ+ Youth:  Prevention, Community Connection, and Accountability through a Law and Policy Framework, presented by Currey Cook, JD
• LGBTQ Youth Justice Now: The Urgency of Reducing Criminalization and Improved Wellbeing, presented by Vanessa Panfil, PhD
• Research for Reform: How to Craft Reports that Make an Impact, presented by Blane Skiles
• Rethinking Reentry and Reintegration from a Systems Perspective: Justice Traps and System Harms, presented by David Harding, PhD
• Prevention and Diversion Framework: Connecting Youth and Families to Communities, Not Systems, presented by Molli Barker Cook
• Restorative Justice Programs and Practices in Juvenile Justice: The Research Evidence by Catherine Kimbrell, PhD

2022

• Identification and Support for Language Learning Disabilities, presented by Tiffany Hogan, PhD
• Pervasive Penality: How the Criminalization of Homelessness Perpetuates Poverty, presented by Chris Herring, PhD
• A Developmental Neuroscience Perspective on the Risks and Opportunities of Adolescence, presented by Eva Telzer, PhD
• Psychopathic Traits in Youth: Separating Myth from Science, presented by Cortney Simmons, PhD
• Caring for Transgender Youth with Dignity and Respect, presented by Samantha Busa, PsyD

2021

• The Behavioral Code: Correcting Legal Assumptions about How Law Can Best Address Misbehavior, presented by Benjamin van Rooij, PhD
• Youth Gratitude Matters: How Gratitude Heals, Energizes, & Changes Lives, presented by Robert Emmons, PhD
• Reflections on the Status and Future of Trauma-Responsive Justice in Communities of Healing, presented by Shawn Marsh, PhD
• Understanding, Identifying, & Responding to Traumatic Stress Reactions in Justice-Involved Adolescents: A Call for Trauma-Responsive Services, presented by Keith Cruise, PhD
• Emerging Justice System Reforms for Emerging Adults, presented by Lael Chester, JD
• Families and Juvenile Probation: Dual or Dueling Supervision?, presented by Adam Fine, PhD
• Institutional Contact & Unequal Instability in Childhood & the Transition to Adulthood, presented by Youngmin Yi, PhD
• Restorative Justice Practices & Youth, presented by Dina Thompson
• Digital Punishment: Privacy, Stigma, and the Consequences of Data-Driven Criminal Justice, presented by Sarah Lageson, PhD

2020

• The Impact of Online Peers on Youth Violence, presented by Timothy McCuddy, PhD
• No Safe Space: Creating Pathways to Connect and Heal, presented by Lisa Good, MSW
• Desistance from Crime: Some Notes from the Journey, presented by Shadd Maruna, PhD
• Pandemic, Social Unrest, and Crime in U.S. Cities, presented by Richard Rosenfeld, PhD
• Scaling up of EBPs in Louisiana for Juvenile Justice, presented by Stephen Phillippi, PhD, LCSW
• Black Male Grief Reactions to Race-Based Traumatic Losses Among Emerging Adult Black Men, presented by Allen Lipscomb, PsyD, LCSW
• From Our Perspectives: A Photovoice Study with LGBTQ Former Foster Youth in Los Angeles County, presented by Sarah Mountz, PhD
• Adolescent Delinquency & Peer Influence, presented by Evelien Hoeben, PhD
• New Directions in Emerging Adult Justice, presented by Jamie Fader, PhD and Maya Sussman, JD, MA
• Educating Incarcerated Youth, presented by Lynette Tannis, EdD

• Let's Talk About Cyberbullying with Tim McCuddy, PhD
• School to Prison Pipeline and Restorative Practices with Dr. Quianna Bennett, Meralys Collazo, and Dr. Marika Pfefferkorn 

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This compilation of Racial Justice Resources offers youth and community justice partners a curated and living array of relevant national and YJI-developed racial justice resources and research. The selected tools (guides, toolkits, webinars, podcasts, scholarly articles, etc.) are meant to provide concrete supports that empower, instruct, motivate, and inspire all of us as we further the urgent work of eliminating racial and ethnic disparities in youth justice systems.

As part of the YJI’s commitment to inclusion and equity, especially in the context of the pandemic and racial justice support, we organized the Empowering Youth Voices Contest: Messages from Today for Tomorrow. The contest gave youth the opportunity to share their thoughts about the pandemic’s impact on children and young individuals and about the current events happening in the United States. René Peters of Rochester, New York won the contest with her poem “To my dear mother and father,”.

In April 2022, the YJI partnered with Dr. Kristine Andrews (Imagine Impact) and Dr. Victor St. John (St. Louis University) to convene a training on Centering Racial Equity in research for researchers from NY State agencies and academia. The training offered participants the opportunity to deepen their abilities to build in a racial equity lens at all stages of their research—from design to data collection and analysis.

Through YJI-convened virtual forums and an expert advisory process, U.S. and international youth justice stakeholders have explored the pandemic’s current and foreseeable impacts on youth and young adults, their families, and their communities, as well as ways to create a more just, equitable, and well-being focused next normal. Learn more about how the YJI is contributing to the work around COVID-19 & Youth.

In February 2021, the YJI, in partnership with the NYS Permanent Judicial Commission on Justice for Children (PJCJC), hosted two virtual sessions on "Social Justice for Our Youth," presented by Dr. Monique Morris. Dr. Morris an award-winning author, social justice scholar, and executive producer and co-writer of the critically acclaimed documentary PUSHOUT: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools.  

The NYS Youth Justice Institute & Division of Criminal Justice Services partnered with Flourish Agenda to hold a 90-minute virtual event entitled "The New Paradigm: Healing Centered Engagement". Healing Centered Engagement (HCE) supports systems as they shift from harm, discipline, punishment, and confinement to restoration, hope, and healing. In his presentation, Dr. Shawn Ginwright, President & CEO of Flourish Agenda, discussed tools, techniques, and insights to address racial and social inequality and to create a climate of healing.

• June 2020: The Lives of Black Trans Youth Matter
• May 2020: Mental Health, COVID-19, and Youth
• April 2020: Child Abuse in the Era of Coronavirus
• March 2020: The “Sexual-Abuse-to-Prison Pipeline” Among Justice-Involved Girls
• February 2020: Longitudinal Studies lll: The Rochester Youth Development Study
• January 2020: Longitudinal Studies ll: Pathways
• December 2019: Longitudinal Studies of Delinquency