Protect Children. Strengthen Families. Reform the Juvenile Justice System.

Children deserve community-based treatment, family support, and second chances — not unnecessary detention or family separation.

Across the United States, families are discovering how quickly children can become entangled in the juvenile justice system after a single mistake, especially youth who are neurodivergent or have existing mental health or learning needs.

The juvenile justice system was designed to rehabilitate young people, not to separate them from their families or disrupt their care. Yet too often, children remain in detention or are placed into state custody for extended periods while decisions are made — even when safe, appropriate alternatives already exist within the home and community.

Adolescents are still developing emotionally, neurologically, and socially. Research consistently shows that rehabilitation, counseling, and family involvement are far more effective than detention alone.

In many cases, children with existing diagnoses or treatment plans are removed from their providers and placed into detention or diagnostic facilities, interrupting critical care.

Unnecessary detention and family separation can:

• Disrupt education
• Interrupt medical and mental health treatment
• Increase trauma
• Create long-term consequences that follow youth into adulthood

Children should be held accountable — but accountability must be paired with treatment, stability, and family support.

We Call on Policymakers and Juvenile Justice Leaders To:

1. Prioritize family placement and community-based supervision over detention, psychiatric facilities, and foster placement—especially for young teens—when safe alternatives exist.
2. Require timely mental health and neurodevelopmental evaluations before detention decisions, avoid duplicative psychological testing when valid evaluations exist, and honor referrals from primary care providers.
3. Expand access to diversion and pre-diversion programs and require a mandatory improvement period for first-time or low-risk offenses before more restrictive actions are taken.
4. Ensure youth maintain access to existing medical providers and preserve parental rights to manage medical care, including appointments, treatment decisions, and continuity of care while in custody.
5. Protect and strengthen parental rights to actively participate in their child’s legal case, including the ability to file motions and remain involved in care and rehabilitation decisions.
6. Allow greater flexibility for families to resolve domestic disputes involving minors, including mechanisms for parents to withdraw or redirect charges when appropriate and safe.
7. Increase transparency, accountability, and oversight in juvenile detention and placement decisions.
8. Limit the transfer of minors under age 14 to adult court to only the most serious offenses.

Call to Action
Children are still learning, growing, and developing. Their mistakes should be met with guidance, treatment, and opportunity and not systems that risk defining their future too early.

Sign this petition to support reforms that:

• Protect children
• Strengthen families
• Restore the juvenile justice system’s focus on rehabilitation and not unnecessary incarceration