The Justice for Youth Survivors Initiative (JYSI) is an initiative that aims to transform the legal system’s treatment of girls and gender-expansive youth who have experienced abuse. Co-led by the Center on Gender Justice & Opportunity at Georgetown Law and the National Black Women’s Justice Institute, and with input and leadership provided by girls and young women with lived experience and law students, this project will promote justice for girls who become involved in the system because of the abuse they have experienced.

The Center on Gender Justice & Opportunity at Georgetown Law works to uncover and eliminate gender and racial disparities across public systems, including in schools, courtrooms, and hospitals. We start by investigating the root causes of injustice through groundbreaking research and work to develop innovative law and policy solutions. Our efforts are informed by girls and rooted in their lived experiences.

The National Black Women’s Justice Institute researches the criminalization of Black women and girls and elevates innovative, community-led solutions to address it. We aim to dismantle the racist and patriarchal U.S. criminal-legal system and build, in its place, pathways to opportunity and healing. We envision a society that respects, values, and honors the humanity of Black women and girls, takes accountability for the harm it has inflicted, and recognizes that real justice is healing.

Across the United States, survivors of gender-based violence are charged, tried, and sentenced by a legal system that fails to recognize the context of their actions or the factors of their age and development. Rather than receiving the services and support they deserve and need to heal, girls – especially girls of color – are treated as suspects. Our report, Criminalized Survivors: Today’s Abuse to Prison Pipeline identified three paths into the system:

The Justice for Youth Survivors Initiative seeks to end the pipeline by serving as a national education, research, convening, and resource hub for legal practitioners – including judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, pro bono attorneys, and police – as well as victim advocates, and a training ground for young people interested in pursuing equity law and policy.

The goal of the Initiative is to create a just, safe, and free world where girls who have survived abuse can thrive and follow their dreams. We will accomplish this by creating a centralized online hub for legal information, research, resources, and services, and by engaging and educating lawyers and other legal system professionals, law students, researchers, and policymakers. Our online platform will allow stakeholders to better support, litigate, and advocate for criminalized survivors across the United States. 

We will equip lawyers and victim advocates with solutions to the challenging legal issues involved in these cases and transform how the legal system handles cases involving girls who have experienced abuse. Through research, trainings, convenings, reports, and resources—guided by girls themselves—our Initiative will build resources and foster collaboration across the legal system to promote trauma-informed and gender-responsive approaches, support advocates for victims of gender-based violence, ensure better implementation of protective laws, and inspire a new generation of lawyers and advocates to engage in race and gender equity work.