Pioneers of Youth Justice Reform: Achieving System Change Using Resolution, Reinvestment, and Realignment Strategies

This publication offers a large range of strategies for individuals wanting to reform their juvenile justice system. “The various reform strategies may be conceptualized as relying on three distinct but interrelated mechanisms: resolution, reinvestment, and realignment (Butts and Evans 2011). Resolution refers to the use of managerial authority and administrative directives to influence system change; reinvestment entails the use of financial incentives to encourage system change; and realignment employs organizational and structural modifications to create new systems. This report describes the history and implementation of the most well-known reform initiatives that draw upon one or more of these mechanisms to achieve system change and it considers their impact on juvenile confinement at the state and local level” (p. 1). Sections of this report include: summary; introduction; resolution models in MA, UT, MO, and AR; reinvestment models in CA (subsidy), PA, WI, OH, CA (sliding scale), NC, Deschutes County (OR), IL, FL, and TX; realignment models in Wayne County (MI), CA, TX, and NY; and conclusion.