REPORT FOR YOUTH JUSTICE

Youth justice: there's more to the story.

Report for Youth Justice helps journalists tell fairer, more complete stories about young people impacted by the juvenile justice system — grounded in data and research, and centered on youth sharing their perspectives and solutions.

Read the Style Guide
Why this matters

The facts

01

When young people make the news, the story is almost always about violent crime. Otherwise, youth rarely make the news at all, and what they contribute to their communities goes largely uncovered.

02

Reporters often turn to police and official sources — not the young people who have lived the system and have solutions.

03

What's working in juvenile justice — and what isn't — goes unexamined.

04

The result: a distorted picture — one that doesn't align with official crime data, or research about what works to help youth grow and thrive.

This coverage has stoked fear of victimization by young people, damaged public perceptions of youth, and increased support for punitive approaches in the justice system. Fairer, more complete reporting builds understanding, accountability, and better outcomes.

What we do

Supporting journalists.

We support journalists in telling more accurate, fair, and balanced stories about youth justice — reporting grounded in data and research, and shaped by the young people who have lived it.

Accurate. Fair. Balanced.
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Young people's voices deserve to be heard — especially in the stories told about them.

Report for Youth Justice

What we offer

The Youth Justice Style Guide

Our blog: regular, practical guidance on best practices for reporting on youth justice — covering language, sourcing, data, research and the stories that go untold.

Beyond the Style Guide, we work directly with reporters at every stage — whether you're just considering writing about youth justice, searching for story ideas, or already deep into reporting a story. We can:

  • Advise on where to find the latest data and research on youth and the juvenile justice system
  • Recommend expert contacts and sources for your stories
  • Provide interviews — Liz Ryan is available as an expert source for print, broadcast, and podcast coverage

Recent interviews and coverage featuring Liz:
ProPublica: “The Trump Administration’s War on Children”
CBS News: “DOJ readies up to $3.5 billion in law enforcement grants, 1 year after steep cuts elsewhere”
NBC News: “Growing crisis at youth detention centers nationwide”
Podcast: “The Biden Youth Justice Legacy with Liz Ryan”

Read the Style Guide
Issues series on youth

Issue briefs

Short, sourced papers on the research behind youth justice coverage — what the data show, what the reporting shows, and what newsrooms can do differently.

01 July 27, 2026

How Media Can Change Its Coverage of Youth

The role of cultivation theory in public perceptions of youth crime

Four decades of crime-first coverage have taught heavy news consumers that youth crime is rising and driven by youth of color — the opposite of what arrest and victimization data show. This brief traces how that happened and sets out six practical changes newsrooms can make, from story selection and sourcing to language and the use of crime data.

Read the brief Download PDF

More briefs are on the way. New papers in the issues series post here as they're published. Have a topic you want covered, or a story you're working on? Get in touch.

Who we are

About

Report for Youth Justice was founded by Liz Ryan, one of the nation's leading voices on youth justice, with more than 30 years of experience changing how America treats young people in the justice system.

Liz Ryan

Liz served as Administrator of the U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), appointed by President Biden in 2022 — the federal government's top position on juvenile justice. Before that, she founded and led two national campaigns: the Youth First Initiative, to end youth incarceration and direct resources to community-based alternatives, and the Campaign for Youth Justice, to end the prosecution of youth in adult court.

Liz has spent her career at the intersection of youth justice and journalism — serving as an expert source for national media, writing extensively on juvenile justice, and working as an investigative journalist with the LSU Cold Case Project on civil rights-era injustices.

Liz currently serves as the Stanley S. Nelson Distinguished Practitioner for Justice Reporting & Communications at Louisiana State University. In that role, she engages Louisiana journalism students as well as reporters across the country in covering youth justice issues and the juvenile justice system, and helps run the LSU Cold Case Project field experience class investigating civil rights-era murder cases. Together with her colleague Janet Chiancone, Liz launched Read for Youth Justice, a resource curated in partnership with youth justice stakeholders and libraries to elevate books, narratives, and voices that reflect the realities of youths' experiences in the justice system.

She founded Report for Youth Justice because she has seen firsthand how news coverage shapes public perception and public policy — and how much better both can be when young people are heard.

Get in touch

Have a story idea and want to figure out how to get started? Considering covering youth justice for the first time? We can help you shape the angle, find the right entry point, and understand the landscape.

Working on a story? We can provide recommendations for you on where to find data, research, and experts in the field to help you get the story right.

Whether you're on deadline or just beginning your reporting, reach out. We'll do our best to respond quickly and point you toward the data, research, and voices your story needs.