NEW APPROACHES, CHANGING LIVES: Juvenile justice reform is improving the odds that at-risk youth become productive adults.

• Author: Teigen, Anne
• Position: JUVENILE JUSTICE

In one of Xavier McElrath-Bey's first memories, he is 6 years old, piling into the back of a police car with his brothers and sisters. He is being taken to foster care, away from the home he shared with his mother and abusive, alcoholic stepfather, after it was determined that he and his siblings were in danger.

Growing up on Chicago's South Side, he was familiar with poverty, drugs and crime. Violence was inescapable: He endured beatings from his father, two stepfathers, a foster mother and police officers. His family often went without food and other necessities, constantly faced eviction and often lived without electricity. He and his siblings helplessly watched their mother and brother battle with mental illness.

At age 11, feeling safer in the streets than in his own home. McElrath-Bey ran away and joined a gang. Looking back, he says, the gang fulfilled his fundamental needs of love, safety and belonging that he did not always get at home. But shortly after joining the gang, he and his best friend were playing with a gun that was given to them by another gang member. Suddenly, blood was rushing from his mouth, nose and ear. His friend had accidently shot him in the face. A week after being treated and released from the hospital, McElrath-Bey was arrested for obstruction of justice. Protecting his friend, he had refused to reveal who shot him. "I was locked up for my own shooting." he says. Still suffering from his gunshot injuries, he spent a week and a half in juvenile detention before eventually being sentenced to probation, with no follow-up medical services or care.

Then in 1989. McElrath-Bey's life crashed. Having not even finished the eighth grade, with a juvenile criminal record consisting of 19 arrests and seven convictions, McElrath-Bey, then 13, was convicted and sentenced to adult prison for 25 years for his involvement in the gang-related murder of a 14-year-old boy.

"The fact is, [the victim] was a child, you know? I mean, I was too, but still that doesn't take away any guilt from me," he says. "It was a very horrific, very heinous incident that took place. And that's what I have to live with."

Fast forward to the present. McElrath-Bey holds a bachelor's degree in social science from Roosevelt University and is a senior adviser to the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth and a co-founder of the Incarcerated Children's Advocacy Network. He has a remorseful heart and a deep-rooted mission to advocate for at-risk youth. Last year, he stood calmly at a podium and shared his story with a group of state legislators from across the country at the first meeting of the NCSL Juvenile Justice Principles Work Group.

Brain Research Changes Minds

When youth violence started to climb in the 1980s and reached a peak in 1994, the country lost confidence in its ability to rehabilitate serious juvenile offenders like McElrath-Bey. Legislatures in all 50 states passed laws moving away from rehabilitation for juveniles toward tougher responses. These included greater use of out-of-home placement and sending young offenders into the adult criminal justice system.

Policymakers now have better information on the causes of juvenile crime, what can be done to prevent it and how brain development shapes teens' behavior. Research shows that adolescents are by nature immature, emotional and impulsive, and more susceptible to committing delinquent acts...