Toolkit for Status Offense Reform Released

The Status Offense Reform Center of the Vera Institute of Justice has released a toolkit focused on reforming the status offense system. The purpose of the toolkit is to provide assistance to advocates to create a community-based system outside of the juvenile-justice system for assisting youth charged with status offenses such as running away and truancy.  The toolkit is organized into four modules:  1) Structuring System Change; 2) Using Local Information to Guide System Change; 3) Planning and Implementing System Change; and 4) Monitoring and Sustaining System Change.

Keywords: litigation, children's rights, status offense system, youth, truancy, runaways, Vera Institute of Justice

_{Cathy Krebs is the committee director of the ABA Section of Litigation's Children's Rights Committee in Washington, D.C.}

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