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A Transformative Moment for Youth Justice Perception, Practice and Responses to Guns
SESSION INFO
Tuesday, August 18, 2026
10:00 AM - 3:00 PM
Session Type: Special Session
This day-long session will bring together youth justice leaders, probation professionals and system partners to examine the current national landscape of youth justice, challenge common perceptions and misperceptions about youth crime and violence, and explore the practices and system responses that are producing positive outcomes for young people and communities.
Across the country, youth justice systems are operating at a pivotal moment. Public concerns about youth crime and gun violence have intensified, often outpacing what local and national data show. At the same time, many jurisdictions are grappling with difficult questions about how best to respond to young people who carry firearms, how those responses should differ when a firearm is used to threaten or harm others, and what strategies are most effective in reducing violence while promoting positive youth development and community safety.
Throughout the day, participants will engage with data, research and real-world examples that illuminate the distinction between youth gun possession and youth gun use, the factors that drive firearm carrying among young people, and the ways local systems are responding through diversion, prosecution, probation supervision, detention, community-based interventions and specialized programming. Participants will examine how different jurisdictions balance accountability, public safety and adolescent development, and consider what emerging evidence suggests about which approaches are most effective.
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SESSION PRESENTERS
Travis Johnson
Program Associate, American Probation and Parole Association
Travis Johnson, is a Program Associate of Grants and Research with the American Probation and Parole Association. In his role, he assists with work on the association’s various grant-funded projects involving training, technical assistance, and research/evaluation in the community corrections field. Travis is currently working on several projects. He currently works on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Impaired Driving Assessment and Probation Fellow project and helped pioneer the 10 Core Principles of Juvenile Probation alongside the Annie E. Casey Foundation. His interest lean towards supervision through technology and supervision of radicalized domestic terrorists. He received his Master’s in Safety, Security and Emergency Management from Eastern Kentucky University.
Opal West
Senior Associate, The Annie E. Casey Foundation
Opal West is a senior program associate with the Annie E. Casey Foundation dedicated to transforming juvenile probation nationally. West began her career as a juvenile probation and parole officer in Louisiana. Working for state government there, she led statewide expansion efforts for the JDAI® approach to building a better and more equitable youth justice system and served on a task force to develop standards of care for state-run secure facilities and local detention centers.
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