The Gault Center

"If prison was designed to punish an adult, it is clearly torture for a kid."

"More families are willing to work with the department now that money isn’t a factor We’re able to just provide services without having to have parents weigh the cost or be concerned about that down the road. They’re not worried about every time they have to come to court that they’re going to have to pay for their child’s attorney if they have a court appointed attorney.”

"If you really care about our safety, you would do things like make more affordable housing, bring back school routes, and make it easier for kids to earn money. Please just give us more opportunities to do good in life and just be kids."

“The whole point is, these are kids. They’re supposed to make mistakes. And if you don’t have a judge or a district attorney who take that into account, these kids’ lives are basically over.”

What an incredible Day 1 of our 2024 Summit! our community was inspired by our keynote, Mike Milton, on our feet for Angela Vigil, and galvanized by our panels and speakers. A huge thank you to Representative Jennifer Bacon (she, her) for kicking off this event, and to the youth leaders of Yeah Philly, Progeny, Connecticut Justice Aliiance, and FLY for walking our defenders through an impactful visioning exercise.

“I didn’t really understand what was really going on. He told me, ‘You’re getting bound over to the adult court system.' He didn’t break down all the motions I had to go through. He didn’t tell me none of that.”

"It would be positively medieval to treat a criminally charged child the same as an adult."

We are so grateful to the DOJ Office for Access to Justice for hosting yesterday's convening on youth defense and look forward to working with ATJ, OJJDP, CRT, NIJ, and others to strengthen youth defense and protect children's constitutional rights.

“The vision is to really leverage neuroscience in the pursuit of a more fair justice system instead of continuing to label kids as somehow dangerous.”

“It’s a manifestation of widespread implicit racial bias that plagues not just the American public but decision-makers and the legal system as well.”