The start of the fall semester is just around the corner for Illinois students. As children return to class, one advocate is urging school administrators to consider alternatives to traditional disciplinary measures.

Michelle Day, founder and CEO of Nehemiah Trinity Rising, a nonprofit helping organizations build and implement restorative-justice practices, has worked extensively with schools in the Chicago area. She encouraged other school systems across the state to consider adopting restorative-justice approaches in lieu of traditional punitive discipline programs.

"And when you do that, then you can have a restorative environment that engenders the type of behaviors and type of results that improve not only the safety of the school but the education for the children," Day asserted.

Restorative justice can take many forms, but most commonly it is based on reconciliation and constructively addressing the harm one student may have caused another without resorting to traditional punishments, such as suspension or detention. The Chicago Public School system offers a free online restorative justice guide to help teachers and administrators apply the principle.

Day explained integrating restorative justice into schools should be a top-down, holistic process, and everyone from cafeteria workers to school administrators should understand how it works. She added school leaders should not feel discouraged if they do not see immediate results.

"It takes approximately three to five years to change a school environment," Day acknowledged. "But when you do, the results are astounding."

According to the National Education Policy Center, restorative-justice programs could help reduce racial disparities in school discipline. A 2021 study from the University of Pittsburgh revealed Black students were "grossly overrepresented in rates of school suspensions for minor disciplinary infractions."

Nearly 2,000 South Dakota juveniles were successfully diverted from the state's court system this year, according to a new report.

A 2024 law has added fiscal incentive for counties to continue these diversion efforts.

When low-risk youth are diverted from the court system, they are 45% less likely to reoffend, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

Diversion can take many forms, from mural-painting to skateboarding programs.

State's Attorney Lara Roetzel in Pennington County, where diversion programs have been used for about 25 years, said they can help unveil the root cause of a child's misbehavior.

"Diversion gives you a chance to really get to know that young person, and get them the help that they need," said Roetzel, "because it's not always obvious."

For example, she said, a child caught stealing may be doing so to support a drug habit - and would be best served through addiction counseling.

The Department of Social Services has also expanded community-based treatment options for youth, including functional family therapy and aggression replacement therapy, according to a draft 2024 report from the state's Juvenile Justice Oversight Council.

When a child avoids court or incarceration, the state saves money - so the state compensates counties for the cost per child of successful diversions.

South Dakota Senate Bill 47, passed this year, increased the amount paid from $250 to $750 per child. Roetzel said that allows the diversion programming to continue.

"It meant that I just wrote a check this week," said Roetzel, "that will allow me to pay for classes for almost all of the young people that will go through my juvenile diversion programs next year."

This is particularly helpful, she said, because otherwise the outstanding costs land on parents - who often can't afford to pay them.




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When a 6-year-old girl in Florida had a temper tantrum in class, it seemed like a typical childhood moment.

But instead of calming the situation, a school resource officer placed her in a squad car, fingerprinted her and took a mug shot, which left lasting emotional scars.

Delvin Davis, senior policy analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center, said the case highlights a troubling ongoing concern: disparities in how discipline is enforced, particularly for Black and brown children. This case and others are highlighted in his report, "Only Young Once: The Systemic Harm of Florida's School-to-Prison Pipeline and Youth Legal System."

"As you can imagine, it was a very traumatic experience for her," Davis explained. "She's older now, but still it has lingering on ongoing effects for her -- mentally and how she does well in school and how she interacts with other people, things like that -- and how she interacts with authority figures as well."

Following the case, in 2021, the Florida Legislature passed the "Kaia Rolle Act," which prohibits the arrest of children under age 7, except in cases involving a forcible felony. However, children as young as 7 can still be arrested and prosecuted in the state.

Davis' report examined how school discipline policies, combined with a significant increase in law enforcement presence in schools, have exacerbated the problem, particularly in the aftermath of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas school shooting. Davis noted it led to a sharp rise in school-based policing.

"Once you expel or suspend a kid from school, there's a higher correlation for dropout rates," Davis pointed out. "And pretty much the first step into the school to prison pipeline is a downward spiral, where you're more likely to see that kid detained later on, arrested later on and further on into the penal system."

At the heart of Davis's findings is a call for systemic change to ensure schools are places of support and growth, not gateways to the juvenile justice system. The report also pointed to solutions, emphasizing community-based programs as more effective alternatives to punitive discipline.


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Wyoming has the nation's highest rate of juvenile incarceration, and is one of only two states refusing federal funds to help.

In 2021, nearly 270 Wyoming juveniles were in placement facilities per every 100,000 youths, according to The Sentencing Project, nearly four times the national rate. Data show diversion programs such as therapy, tutoring, job-readiness programs and arts programming help keep youths out of the system.

Darya Larizadeh, director of California policy and capacity building at the National Center for Youth Law, said good diversion programs are community-based and in partnership with stakeholders such as law enforcement and probation officers.

"Good programs are narrowly tailored," Larizadeh stressed. "They're supporting youths where they are in terms of their strengths and needs. They're culturally relevant. And then meeting the needs of kids of all genders and different sexual orientations."

She acknowledged funding is a key piece, too. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention within the U.S. Department of Justice in 2023 gave out $47 million to support prevention and intervention programs. Wyoming and Texas were the only two states not participating this year.

One barrier in Wyoming is data. A state bill passed in 2022 charged the Department of Family Services with standardizing the collection of statewide juvenile justice information.

Damon DeBernardi, Sublette County deputy county attorney and member of the Wyoming State Advisory Council of Juvenile Justice, explained the challenges.

"Wyoming has 23 counties, but every county was doing things different regarding data collection, to even know what necessarily the problem was," DeBernardi observed. "Once that statewide data collection begins, it'll be interesting to see what comes from that."

Gov. Mark Gordon in a speech last week requested nearly $500,000 in supplemental budget funding to "continue providing behavioral health services to prisoners nearing release."


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