We will leave it here to go live to a discussion on youth sentencing reform with liz ryan, focusing on a decline in youth crime. This is live coverage on cspan. This discussion is important. You will your from the smartest people i know, partners in our work and they are each facing their own challenges in reforming our deeply flawed you Justice System. And is a hopeful system. You all know we are joined by our friend liz ryan, the administrator of the office of juvenile justice and prevention, we have not only an expert in this but someone who cares deeply about all of our kids. I regularly talk to people, advocates, legislators, public defenders, reporters, who repeat the same story about the fear of crime, specifically youth crime influencing the prospect of reform. It is tough out there. It is always tough but things feel different right now. We are going to be joined by my colleagues at the sentencing project, Senior Research fellow dave mantell who will mandel who will share some statistics. We will have a roundtable with alisha sto, director of policy and advocacy at the texas center of justice and equality. The leading youth organizer for the self empowerment project, and the director of Government Relations to the office of the maryland public defender. We wonder, are we facing a return to the 1990s when a fear about the generation of socalled super predators sent more kids to adult courts, jails, prisons, and caused spikes in incarceration in the youth Justice System as well. Do we learn from those mistakes . And they were definitely mistakes. We would love time for questions so please use the q a but not the bottom of your screen. This is being recorded. We will share it along with resources we will discuss today. Before that, i am pleased to bring on liz ryan, and let me tell you about her. She joined as an administrator on may 16, appointed by president biden. She brings more than 30 years of experience on these issues including more than two decades on as an advocate for juvenile Justice Reform. For joining our organization, she served as founding president and ceo of a campaign to end the incarceration of youth by investing in alternatives. Since 2014, the initiative has faced a closure and we have directed more than 50 million to communitybased alternatives to incarceration. Administrator ryan served as president and ceo since 2014 until 2014. The campaign sought to end the prosecution of youth in criminal court and the placement in jails and prisons. Her tenure contributed to legislative and policy changes in more than 30 states, as 60 increase in youths placed in adult jails and prisons. There is also the campaign to reauthorize the juvenile justice and prevention act. She serves as advocacy director for the youth law initiative, feel director of Juvenile Court initiative and an advocate for the childrens events fund. She has written extensively about juvenile Justice Reform, including a chapter of a book and you can see why we are excited to have her. She has a bachelors degree from Dickinson College and a masters degree from George Washington university, where i also went to school. We have that in common. I think i will have nick, alisha, andre, if you could turn off your cameras, i will do the same and i will load your slides, liz so you can present on them. Liz thank you, josh. Good afternoon. It is my pleasure to join you on todays webinar on youth crime and juvenile Justice Reform. For over three decades, the sentencing project has worked to end the nations overreliance on incarceration and promote systemic criminal and juvenile Justice Reform. The center has done tireless work on this and im pleased to join you today. I want to think that sentencing project staff to their for their commitment to this work and for convening such a timely conversation and inviting me to be part of it. Prior to my appointment as the administrator, i was a juvenile Justice Reform advocate for nearly 25 years and i have been fortunate enough to work with so many dedicated visionaries in the field who singler killer singular role is to transform the juvenile Justice System into a more develop mentally put appropriate developmentally appropriate system. We have collectively achieved reducing the use of incarceration, changes in state laws in many states so that many fewer young people are prosecuted in Adult Criminal Court or held in adult jails and prisons, and we have worked together to successfully reauthorize the juvenile justice and delinquency prevention act, strengthening its core protections for children. But more work needs to be done. I know firsthand how critical the court is to the success of this work and i pledge as the administrator to continue our collaboration and partnership. Next slide, please. We provide National Leadership and resources including training, technical assistance, research and funding states, territories, tribes and communities so they can better protect children, prevent delinquency and improve the juvenile Justice System. There are three priorities that guide our work and those are treating children as children, and this includes keeping kids out of adult jails, adult courts and adult prisons, and taking a more develop mentally appropriate approach. We know also that we should be serving children at home with their families and in their communities and shifting away from incarceration. Our third priority is really opening up opportunities for young peoples to have contact with the juvenile Justice System so they have the same chance of success as any other young person. At the heart of these priorities is a commitment to Racial Equity and fairness, and a promise to partner with impacted students and families to listen to young people and family members and act on what they tell us works and does not work. We unreservedly support juvenile Justice Reform because it is the right thing to do. We have all seen shocking headlines, reports of long isolations of young people, use of force tactics, lawsuits filed by hundreds of former residents alleging abuse in multiple states. In some instances, death of children in custody. These unfortunately are only a few examples of the harm our young people experience in detention and prisons. Data, research and experience proves it is possible to hold young people accountable for their missteps and have them a Second Chance at better outcomes. To do that, we have to reduce the use of detention and incarceration and implement much more communitybased alternatives on an more extensive basis. If we want to support the wellbeing of our young people, their families and communities. Highly publicized incidents of violence including mass shootings, carjackings have contributed to the Public Perception that there is an uptick in youth crime. Some communities are seeking to reverse longstanding bipartisan juvenile Justice Reforms. A few states are considering lowering the age of criminal responsibility and implementing harsher punishments for young people, such as placing young people under the custody of the juvenile Justice System in adult prisons, for example. We are aware of and concerned about reports that some communities may be experiencing an increase in some crimes among a few young people. But the latest available data, National Data, tells a different story about violent offenses committed by young people under 18. Violent offenses by youth under the age of 18 have radically declined between 1995 and 2020 according to data we released earlier this week. Next slide. Thank you. Here is a chart. Overall arrest of young people went down. Law enforcement agencies made an estimated 424,300 arrests of youth in 2020, a 38 drop from the Previous Year and half the number from five years earlier. Fewer than one in 10 of those arrests were for a violent offense. Next slide. The proportion of arrests involving youth for violent offenses have declined over the last decade for each category, dropping by half from 2010, when youth accounted for 14 of all Violent Crime arrests. We will hear from another member shortly about the reduce violence during the pandemic and their conclusion based on available data that Youth Violence has been flat or declining for years. We will examine white misinformation about trends and youth crimes processed and persist and discuss ways to combat that. Children deserve a chance to grow up free from violence, stay out of the juvenile Justice System and turn their lives around following involvement in the juvenile Justice System. I hope information shared today will dispel some of the misconceptions about crime and scare policymakers and practitioners away from implanting measures that would harm the communities and young people they are seeking to protect. You can turn to the last slide. Here are ways you can connect with us following the webinar. Back to you, josh. Josh apparently i was muted. I want to turn to you and see if you are ready to present as well. I apologize for the technical difficulties on my part. Let me load up your slides. And start your presentation. There you go. Thanks, josh. And thank you all for attending today, for your concern about the troubling narrative taking hold of the media about young people and crime. We have seen the narrative that Youth Violence exploded during the pandemic, and that it is a threat to Public Safety. We are seeing lengthy stories about carjackings on social media like the new times, ox news. They tell us more stories, a title wave of coverage on local newspapers and local tv news, preventing presenting youth crime as a danger to all of our Public Safety. They lacked data that supports this narrative, or it cherry picks, lacking the context. They have inherited the talking points that Law Enforcement leaders or other Public Officials with a vested interest are promoting this crimes bike narrative. It makes it more difficult for youth to win support for long overdue changes and emerging understanding of this of element and whether it promotes success. That is why we decided to take a deep dive and we have a few minutes here describing what we have learned. From the information available, there is no evidence that u. S. Has experienced more youth crime since the pandemic. Most evidence suggests it has been flat or declining. From 2000 to 2019, crimes committed by youth fell by more than a half. You can see it here, 15 to 7 . We know this trend continued into 2020 and youth under 18 accounted for just 6 of total arrests in 2020, and they continue to decline in every category, contradicting the narrative that has been saturating our media. We know since 1994, the youth arrest rates for serious violent offenses plummeted by 79 , more than it for any other age cohort. The arrest for serious Violent Crimes have fallen for all of the age group cc here, but most for young people. In the first year of the pandemic and the last year for which National Data are available, young people share of crime continues to decline in nearly every category. Prior to the pandemic, the total number of crimes by youth declined in 2020. The two categories with the most attention, including carjacking, evidence is limited. There has been a spike in carjackings in many cities and youth have been a disproportionate number of these. But they are just a small percentage of cases, so we should not assume that a percentage of these are youth. We dont know whether carjackings went up or down in 2020, but we do know that robberies by youth, of which carjackings are subcategories, declined in 2020. There is little evidence that he was played a leading part in the sizable increase in carjackings in 2020. The National Instant incidentbased reporting system saw it decreased in 2020. It has declined to the point where youth under 18 were just 7 of homicide arrests in 2020, only about one and 13. Of course all of these data to because only through 2020. There is a chance that it did increase in 2021 or is increasing this year, but if it turned out to be true, it would not be a reason to scale back recent reforms and youth justice or promote policies. Arise during the pandemic would not be surprising given the trauma and disruption young people have experience. The u. S. Surgeon general last year declared a crisis of Mental Health. That would not be solved with harsher punishments in the court system. There is no overwhelming evidence that harsher punishments in the Justice System or any involvement at all in the Justice System is counterproductive. Heavy reliance on detention and confinement, the routine misbehavior in schools or anywhere that heightens to liquids he worsens youth outcomes and jeopardizes Public Safety. What does work . We need carefully measured evidence informed interventions and we need to make targeted investments in young peoples Healthy Development and the wellbeing of their families, schools and communities. Specifically, the evidence shows it is more effective to hire counselors then Police Officers our nations schools and to address these behaviors through Mental Health treatment rather than arrest. This will go to it is better to do this in diversion programs than in court. It is better to eat them at home then placing them in much detention schools. It is more effective to provide to bellman opportunities and evidencebased, including you who have committed serious offenses. For those who must be prosecuted , it is more effective to prosecute all cases in Juvenile Courts rather than punishing some as if they are adults. They are not. Justice systems across the country remained steady toward most of these goals over the past two decades. We cannot let this sensationalize reporting distract from decades of research on what actually helps kids and communities thrive. Without i will pass this all back to josh. Josh thank you so much, did. I appreciate the did. Dick. I appreciate the research here. Andre, alicia and krystal, can i ask you to come back on screen . Thank you so much. From here, im going to ask some questions of the three of you. Can i ask you to each introduce yourselves, starting with andre . Andre, i think you are muted. Crystal and alicia, i can see you are, two. Too. Andre, if you could unmute yourself and crystal, why dont you introduce yourself. Crystal good afternoon. Crystal williams, im with the office of the public defender in maryland, i serve as the director of Government Relations but i previously have worked throughout the division and office, mostly with juveniles. I served since 2011 in our juvenile division and i recently worked in our youth defendant unit, especial position dedicated to making sure that youth who are charged as adults have the opportunity to have their case transfer back down to Juvenile Court. My background with the office is primarily serving as a representative for juveniles in the system. Josh great. Andre, then alicia. I am andre sims, i may lead youth organizer for the youth art project and a lead organizer for another campaign, and the founder of the nonprofit organization. We have young people who do work and we are involved in a justice program. We are committed to helping people impacted and we are led by young people who have been impacted by these systems. Thank you come, mina ms. Alicia castillo, my pronouns are she and her, and im director of policy at the texas center for justice and equity. We work on any mass incarceration through the lens of social and racial justice. I also serve on the board of equity action, a local group in austin, texas with transformation in austin. Happy to be here today. Josh thank you. Let me ask a question about how your experiences and form advocacy and your work. Andre, would you like to go first . Andre sure. My experience is a little different. I was actually incarcerated at age 17 and served eight years. Through my process i worked for an organization of community partners, i have worked with barb in the Public Safety on the project and the program and those that were not mandated by the state. These were Committee Partners that came in to help us and empower our leadership. So i worked with them while i was incarcerated inserted being part of the solution instead of the problem. A little over a year ago, i started working to advocate to end youth incarceration. I want to give a platform to people who dont have that opportunity. It has been especially effective and i have been we are often excluded from these conversations and it is hard to find solutions for people we are not talking to or who were not invited. That is my experience. Josh thank you. That organization you mention for pennsylvania reform, carenotcontrol. Com. Crystal thank you. My background comes from following organizations like the sentencing project who put out amazing data and statistics and information that has helped inform the public and students. When i was in college and underground, this was incredibly helpful information to help inform me in terms of what the landscape was across the country in terms of Racial Disparities and the impact