Girls and gender-expansive young people continue to account for a relatively small number of young people incarcerated on any given day. For many, they are remanded to the youth legal system for low level offenses. Justice + Joy and the Vera Institute of Justice through their Initiative to End Girls’ Incarceration recognizes the potential of eliminating the incarceration of girls by expanding necessary community-based services and programs and working with local and state decision makers to make broad policy changes to move more young people away from formal system involvement and incarceration.

Justice + Joy supports this effort by co-chairing the national advisory community for this initiative and providing training and technical assistance to states and jurisdictions committed to significantly reducing or eliminating the confinement of girls to their systems. Justice + Joy has worked in collaboration with Vera Institute of Justice to create significant change in states such as Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, New York, and Santa Clara County, California.