The Georgetown University Law Center is the law school of Georgetown University,a private research university in Washington,D.C.,United States. It was established in 1870 and is the largest law school in the United States by enrollment,with over 2,000 students. It frequently receives the most full-time applications of any law school in the United States.
The Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law is the law school of Northwestern University,a private research university. The law school is located on the university's Chicago campus. Northwestern Law is considered part of the T14,an unofficial designation in the legal community as the best 14 law schools in the United States.
The American juvenile justice system is the primary system used to handle minors who are convicted of criminal offenses. The system is composed of a federal and many separate state,territorial,and local jurisdictions,with states and the federal government sharing sovereign police power under the common authority of the United States Constitution. The juvenile justice system intervenes in delinquent behavior through police,court,and correctional involvement,with the goal of rehabilitation. Youth and their guardians can face a variety of consequences including probation,community service,youth court,youth incarceration and alternative schooling. The juvenile justice system,similar to the adult system,operates from a belief that intervening early in delinquent behavior will deter adolescents from engaging in criminal behavior as adults.
Rosa Brooks is an American law professor,journalist,author and commentator on foreign policy,U.S. politics and criminal justice. She is the Scott K. Ginsburg Professor of Law and Policy at Georgetown University Law Center. Brooks is also an adjunct scholar at West Point's Modern War Institute and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation. From April 2009 to July 2011,Brooks was a counselor to Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michèle Flournoy.
Bridget Mary McCormack is an American lawyer,professor,and retired justice. She served on the Michigan Supreme Court from 2013 to 2022,first as an associate justice,and as chief justice from 2019 to 2022. Previously she was a professor at the University of Michigan Law School in Ann Arbor,where she taught criminal law and legal ethics and oversaw the law school's clinical programs as associate dean of clinical affairs. Her academic work focused on practical experience in legal education. McCormack launched and worked in a pediatric advocacy law clinic focusing on children with health problems,and a domestic violence clinic. She retired from the Supreme Court at the end of 2022 and became President and Chief Executive Officer of the American Arbitration Association in February 2023.
Abbe Lyn Smith is an American criminal defense attorney and professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center. Smith is Director of the Criminal Defense and Prisoner Advocacy Clinic and Co-Director of the E. Barrett Prettyman Fellowship Program.
Vida B. Johnson is an American criminal defense attorney and associate professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center. Johnson works in the Criminal Defense and Prisoner Advocacy Clinic and Criminal Justice Clinic,and supervises attorneys in the E. Barrett Prettyman Post-Graduate Fellowship Program. Johnson regularly writes in the area of criminal law and procedure.
James Forman Jr. is an American legal scholar currently on leave from serving as the J. Skelly Wright Professor of Law at Yale Law School. He is the author of Locking Up Our Own:Crime and Punishment in Black America,which won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction,and a co-founder of the Maya Angelou School in Washington,D.C.
Augusta Fox Bronner was an American psychologist and criminologist,best known for her work in juvenile psychology. She co-directed the first child guidance clinic,and her research shaped psychological theories about the causes behind child delinquency,emphasizing the need to focus on social and environmental factors over inherited traits.
Steven A. Drizin is an American lawyer and academic. He is a Clinical Professor of Law at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law in Chicago,where he has been on the faculty since 1991. At Northwestern,Drizin teaches courses on Wrongful Convictions and Juvenile Justice. He has written extensively on the topics of police interrogations and false confessions. Among the general public,Drizin is known for his ongoing representation of Brendan Dassey,one of the protagonists in the Netflix documentary series,Making a Murderer.
Laura Nirider is an American attorney and legal scholar working as an associate professor of law and the co-director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law. An expert on false confessions,Nirider specializes in representing young people who confessed to crimes they did not commit,and working to reform the process of police interrogation. Nirider's work gained international visibility following her involvement in several high-profile cases involving juvenile confessions. Her clients have included Brendan Dassey,whose case was profiled on the Netflix documentary Making a Murderer,and Damien Echols of the West Memphis Three,whose case was profiled on the HBO series Paradise Lost and the documentary West of Memphis. She also hosts a podcast on false confessions,entitled Wrongful Conviction:False Confessions.
Adultification bias is a form of racial prejudice where children of minority groups,typically Black children,are treated by adults as being more mature than they actually are. Actions committed by these children that would be deemed normal for child development are more likely to be treated as opportunities for discipline and children are more likely to be seen as having malicious intentions. A clear example of this bias in action is when a Black child is assumed to be older than their actual age. These perceptions could in turn perpetuate the maturity of Black children and the assumptions of adults.
Dehlia Victoria Umunna is a Clinical Professor of Law and Deputy Director of the Criminal Justice Institute (CJI) at Harvard Law School. Professor Umunna is a nationally renowned expert on criminal law,criminal defense and theory,mass incarceration,and race issues.
Cynthia Ellen Jones is a criminal defense attorney and professor of law at the American University Washington College of Law specializing in criminal law and procedure as well as bail reform. Jones is an expert in racial disparities in the pretrial system and was previously the Director of the Public Defenders Service in Washington,D.C. She is a leading scholar in criminal procedure. In 2011,she was awarded the American University Faculty Award for Outstanding Teaching. Jones was the director of the Stephen S. Weinstein Trial Advocacy Program at the university. She has written three textbooks related to criminal law and procedure.
Jennifer Woolard is a developmental psychologist known for work within the juvenile justice system. Woolard is professor of psychology and adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University. She is involved in the Youth In Custody Practice Model Initiative at the Center for Juvenile Justice Reform at Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy,which seeks to adopt evidence-based developmentally-appropriate practices within juvenile correctional institutions.
The youth control complex is a theory developed by Chicano scholar Victor M. Rios to describe what he refers to as the overwhelming system of criminalization that is shaped by the systematic punishment that is applied by institutions of social control against boys of color in the United States. Rios articulates that there are many components of this complex which are enacted upon youth throughout their daily lives. For example,"while being called a 'thug' by a random adult may seem trivial to some people,when a young person is called a 'thug' by a random adult,told by a teacher that they will never amount to anything,and frisked by a police officer,all in the same day,this combination becomes greater than the sum of its parts." Scholars trace the origins of the youth control complex back to the mid-1970s. In addition,the criminalization and surveillance of Black and Latino bodies increased in the post-9/11 era.
Jill Soffiyah Elijah is an American lawyer,author and social justice activist.
Marsha Levick is a lawyer from Philadelphia,Pennsylvania,United States. She is a co-founder and Chief Legal Officer of the Juvenile Law Center and recognized as a leading expert in juvenile justice.
Lara Bazelon is an American academic and journalist. She is a law professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law where she holds the Barnett Chair in Trial Advocacy and directs the Criminal &Juvenile and Racial Justice Clinics. She is the former director of the Loyola Law School Project for the Innocent in Los Angeles. Her clinical work as a law professor focuses on the exoneration of the wrongfully convicted.
Donna Scott Davenport is the first judge to have overseen the Rutherford County,Tennessee juvenile justice system,filling the newly created position in 2000. She is also a former adjunct professor at her alma mater,Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU). She presided over the juvenile court and legal system for the county,appointed magistrates,set protocols,directed police and heard cases involving minors,including parents charged with child neglect. Despite published reports that Davenport operated juvenile court outside of the tenets of law,including by her own admission,Davenport remained on the bench until retiring at the end of her term in September 2022 while lawmakers debated ending her tenure sooner. Her actions while on the bench are the subject of a four-part podcast,The Kids of Rutherford County.
