About our grantmaking
Through the Models for Change initiative, MacArthur supports reform in 16 states and aims to help accelerate a national juvenile justice reform movement to improve the lives of young people in trouble with the law, while enhancing public safety and holding young offenders accountable for their actions.
Latest news
February 3, 2010
Chicago Public Radio offers a six-month series of personal stories, investigative reports, interviews, analysis, photo essays and community events about young people and juvenile justice in Illinois. Read more »
December 9, 2009
As many states face budget shortfalls, a new report on youth convicted of serious offenses finds that stays in expensive institutional placements produced no measurable results. Read more »
Press Releases
December 2009
A downloadable brochure describing the Foundation’s support of juvenile justice reform. Download PDF »
Information Sheets, Publications
CNN, January 15, 2010
This story examines how states are beginning to reconsider policies that treat youth offenders as adults and quotes Temple University professor Laurence Steinberg, director of the MacArthur Research Network on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice, and Columbia University professor Jeffrey Fagan, a Network member. Read the story »
The New York Times, November 13, 2009
The Supreme Court should ban life sentences for juvenile offenders, according to Laurence Steinberg, Director of the MacArthur Research Network on Adolescent Development & Juvenile Justice, and network member Elizabeth Scott. Read the opinion-editorial »
June 12, 2009
The Justice Policy Institute, a participant in the Foundation's Models for Change juvenile justice initiative, recently released two reports highlighting the economic benefits of alternatives to incarceration. In The Cost of Confinement, JPI found that states could save money and reduce recidivism by as much as 22 percent by placing youth in community alternatives to prison. Pruning Prisons, the second report, concludes that adult systems could experience similar benefits if states shift 10 percent of their prison population to parole. States spend approximately $5.7 billion each year to incarcerate youth, according to the Institute.
Video
Sign
up 
Phone: (312) 726-8000