It is widely recognized that the conditions of poverty affecting many children across the United States are a significant factor in juvenile offending, but there has been little scholarship on the ways that juvenile justice and poverty interrelate. On March 26, 2009, the Georgetown Law Center Juvenile Justice Clinic co-sponsored a symposium -- together with the Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law and Policy, the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy, and the Center for Juvenile Justice Reform at Georgetown University, that explored this theme from several angles. 

The symposium featured three panels and a keynote address that examined how the social factors that often accompany low socio-economic status can fuel patterns of offending and reoffending, how youth with different levels of wealth frequently have very different experiences within the juvenile justice system, and what strategies can be employed both within and outside the juvenile justice system to break the cycle of offending and poverty. The symposium included presentations by the authors of forthcoming articles that will be published in the Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law and Policy, as well as discussion among these authors and other experts on various dimensions of the intersection of juvenile justice and poverty.

To view this event, please click here.

Revised April 1, 2009 (MA)