CSG Justice Center Launches New State Partnerships to Prevent Youth Crime and Improve Youth Safety

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Newly elected state leaders will face a range of pressing challenges when they take office in the new year, including how best to support young people struggling with behavioral health needs, trauma, risk-taking behaviors, and exposure to violence.

They’ll tackle these issues at a hopeful moment: After rising during the pandemic, youth crime and violence have declined to pre-pandemic levels. Over the past 2 decades, youth arrests have fallen by approximately 75%, and arrests for serious violent crimes have dropped by 50%.

This progress, combined with mounting pressure from tight state budgets, calls for investing in cost-effective, research-informed strategies that prevent violence, improve outcomes for young people and their families, and make communities safer and healthier in the long term.

The Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center is partnering with an expanding and diverse array of states and agencies to do just that.

Collaborating for Youth and Public Safety Initiative (CYPSI)

New Mexico and New York recently joined the CSG Justice Center’s Collaborating for Youth and Public Safety Initiative (CYPSI), which brings youth justice, child welfare, behavioral health, education, and other partners together, to strengthen and scale their state’s research-based services and supports. Guided by the Youth Safety Playbook, CYPSI states implement cross-system strategies to improve youth safety; intervene before youth end up in the justice system; and maximize existing funding for effective programs.

In New Mexico, this includes hosting a statewide summit on youth violence and implementing more formal structures for early intervention such as assessment centers, which are centralized community hubs designed to prevent and divert youth from involvement in the juvenile justice and child welfare systems and provide warm handoffs to services.

In New York, we’re working to improve cross-systems coordination on alternatives to incarceration; violence interrupter services; and how evidence-based practices are funded, scaled, and supported.

Courting Judicial Excellence

Courts play a critical role in improving outcomes for young people at risk of serious offending. Yet judges and court systems don’t always have the guidance and tools they need to effectively apply research-based approaches.

We launched new partnerships with state courts in Alabama, Hawaii, New Mexico, and South Dakota, with a specific focus in each state on improving court practices and services for higher-risk older youth and young adults. This includes more targeted use of risk assessments to drive dispositional decisions and tailoring services to the needs of this population.

Through Courting Judicial Excellence, the CSG Justice Center partners with courts and state court administrative offices to assess existing practices, pilot tailored approaches, and strengthen the use of evidence-based interventions through training and resources such as judicial bench cards.

Detention and Corrections Reform

Research indicates that youth who are detained or incarcerated often experience worse outcomes than their peers, underscoring the need for states to examine when out-of-home placement is necessary and how to improve conditions and services for youth in facilities. Effective reform requires a balanced approach: reserving incarceration for the relatively small group of youth who pose a substantial risk to public safety, while ensuring that youth who are placed out of home receive effective services.

The CSG Justice Center is now partnering with multiple states to advance these goals, using research from the Youth Protective Factors Study and our Reentry 2030 initiative to help guide our efforts.

We’re helping the Utah Division of Juvenile Justice and Youth Services assess their corrections and reentry policies and practices and develop a strategic plan for improvement.

In Illinois, we’re supporting the Child First Taskforce to assess detention statewide and establish best practice performance standards as well as quality assurance, data collection, and oversight mechanisms.

And in Kansas, we’re expanding the Stepping Up for Youth initiative to more counties to reduce detention admissions for youth with behavioral health needs. We’re also helping develop detention performance standards and supporting cross-systems collaboration on mental health assessments and evidence-based services.

An Opportunity to Act

Declining youth crime and violence offer incoming state leaders an opportunity to build on what’s working. The CSG Justice Center helps state leaders, policymakers, courts, and system partners translate research into practical strategies tailored to each state’s priorities and resources.

Want to learn more about these initiatives or discuss how the CSG Justice Center can support your state’s efforts? Contact Josh Weber at jweber@csg.org.