Liz Ryan said she was surprised when the White House tapped her — a prominent advocate who has dedicated her professional life to reforming the juvenile justice system — to be the administrator of the U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention in May 2022.
The office was created by the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974, which attempted to reform states’ approach to juvenile justice, including by requiring juvenile and adult offenders to be kept separate. Since then, the act has been reauthorized and amended and today provides funding for states that comply with core protections laid out in the law.
Ryan’s appointment has been met with praise by advocates who have criticized the agency in recent years for allegedly not living up to its promise of delivering strong national leadership for juvenile justice reform.
Ryan founded and led significant efforts to end youth incarceration, including Campaign for Youth Justice, a national initiative to keep kids out of adult court and jails, and the Youth First Initiative, which succeeded in closing six youth prisons and allocating $50 million to local communities.
In her role at OJJDP, Ryan now aims to transform the system from the inside as the head of a federal agency with 50 employees that awarded last year $400 million to states and tribal efforts to improve outcomes for young people in the juvenile justice system. Her priorities for the agency include continuing to push for the closure of youth prisons, keeping offending children at home with their families while they receive treatment and services, and opening up job and education opportunities for justice-involved youth.
In this Q&A, Ryan shares her history, her role as administrator and the office’s current goals to reform the juvenile justice system.
The Interview
Can you tell us about your background and how you became involved in juvenile justice reform?
I started working at the Children’s Defense Fund in 1998 and was concerned about how children were being treated in the juvenile justice system. As part of my role, I worked on defending the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act from being gutted by Congress at the time, which sought to make the legislation more punitive and harsh on children.
How has the focus of juvenile justice shifted since you first started in the field?
When I first started, the focus was very negative. In the 1980s and 1990s, many states passed laws making it easier to try kids in adult criminal court based on a prediction that there would be a wave of delinquent behavior — but that never happened. In fact, the opposite happened, with arrests and incarceration for youth going down. The field has shifted over the last 20 years from a defensive posture to a proactive one, advancing incarceration reforms and closing correctional facilities.
Can you explain what your role is as the administrator of OJJDP?
The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, passed in 1974, created the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and the administrator role. My role does three things:
One: Ensuring OJJDP implements the statute as required by Congress. The statute contains a grant funding program and protections for kids that states and territories must comply with to receive funding.
Second, serving as the spokesperson for the agency on youth justice issues, talking about trends and what’s ahead.
Third, providing policy guidance to the youth justice field on best practices and models.
The administrator’s role is to make sure that our policies are up to date, and that we’re actually innovating and leading in the field.
You released a statement expressing “grave concern” over several incarcerated youth being transferred to an adult prison in Louisiana. What resources does your office have to address harmful situations in state institutions?
We offer technical training, technical assistance, and competitive grants to support states and localities in implementing effective programs and services, utilizing best practices and what research shows works. We also work with the civil rights division of the Department of Justice to support remedies after civil rights investigations. Our goal is to be the go-to agency for states and localities when contemplating changes in their youth justice system — hopefully, well in advance of any challenge they may encounter — and to support their efforts to get back on track.
What is your office’s goal in reforming the juvenile justice system?
The majority of a state’s juvenile justice budget is used for incarceration. In Virginia, for example, more than half of its juvenile justice funding goes to youth corrections and out-of-home placements. Yet, the research shows that the incarceration of kids leads to a higher likelihood of re-offending, entering the adult criminal justice system, breaking family ties, and interrupting education. These environments are toxic — they impede a young person’s growth and development. Research shows that incarcerating young people is the worst approach from the individual young person’s standpoint, from a family standpoint, and from a public safety standpoint. Yet the vast majority of resources that are invested in youth justice are invested in what I call the strategy that produces the worst outcomes.
We want to reverse that to have the vast majority of the resources going to effective programs and supporting what the research shows works — family support, mentorship, and providing options to those young people so that they can get on the right track.
Should all the youth prisons be shut down?
The significant decline in the use of incarceration in the U.S. has led to the closure of many facilities across the country in the past 20 years. However, this process is happening in a haphazard manner, raising questions about what happens to the staff and resources in these facilities.
We want to accelerate the closure of these facilities in a way that supports both the impacted communities and young people. Some of the old, large juvenile correctional facilities have been around for a long time and are the largest employer in the area. It’s very complex. If it was easy, it would have been done already. It’s threading a needle through several things: closing a facility responsibly, addressing the employment and economic concerns, then shifting the resources away from incarceration through the budget process and lifting up and supporting the communities that are most impacted by incarceration.
You held town halls last summer with young people to hear their thoughts on what needs to happen with juvenile justice reform. What were the young people telling you?
Every time I hear from young people in the justice system about what they have had to endure and what we have put them through as a society, it is outrageous to me. It’s what fuels me to stay in this field and to stay focused. After 25 years, I’m still outraged. It’s what makes me come to work every day because we owe it to these young people. What young people want is not something that doesn’t exist. It’s housing, education and a job. I wake up every day thinking about what I am going to do today to advance OJJDP priorities and make sure that I don’t leave anything on the table when this job is over — whenever that is.
The Details
Residence: Newark, Delaware
Family: Husband, who is a musician and an artist; 18 nieces and nephews
Title: Administrator, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
Hobbies: Visiting civil rights museums and historical markers.
Recent reads: “We Carry Their Bones: The Search for Justice at the Dozier School for Boys,” by Erin Kimmerle
Previous Positions: President and CEO of Youth First Initiative; president and CEO of Campaign for Youth Justice; advocacy director for the Youth Law Center; student investigative journalist with the Louisiana State University Cold Case Project
First paid job: Swim instructor at the YMCA as a teenager
Education: Bachelor’s degree from Dickinson College; Master’s degree in international studies from George Washington University.
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Brian Rinker is a San Francisco-based freelance writer and journalist. He covers public health, child welfare, digital health, startups and venture capital. His work has been published by Kaiser Health News, Health Affairs, The Atlantic, Men’s Health and San Francisco Business Times. Brian received master’s degrees in journalism and public health from UC Berkeley.
