Rights, Race, and Reform

More than 50 years after re Gault revolutionized the US juvenile court system, this book examines how the reformed system has evolved.

Kristin Henning is the Agnes N. Williams Research Professor of Law and Director of the Juvenile Justice Clinic and Initiative at Georgetown Law. Her scholarship on race, adolescence, and juvenile justice appears in journals such as the Cornell Law Review, California Law Review, and NYU Law Review and in books such as Policing the Black Man (Random House, 2017) and Punishment in Popular Culture (NYU Press, 2015). Henning was formerly the Lead Attorney for the Juvenile Unit of the D.C. Public Defender Service and worked closely with the Juvenile Indigent Defense Action Network to develop and co-author the Juvenile Training Immersion Program, a national training curriculum for juvenile defenders. She is the Director of the Mid-Atlantic Juvenile Defender Center and an Adviser to American Law Institute’s Restatement on Children and the Law. She has also served as an expert consultant to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division and as an investigator in several state assessments of access to counsel for accused youth. Henning has received several awards, including the Robert E. Shepherd, Jr. Award for Excellence in Juvenile Defense by the National Juvenile Defender Center.

Laura Cohen is Distinguished Clinical Professor of Law, the Justice Virginia Long Scholar, and Director of the Criminal and Youth Justice Clinic at Rutgers Law School. She also co-directs both the Rutgers Center on Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice and the Northeast Juvenile Defender Center, and has served as an expert consultant to the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division in its investigation of systemic due process violations in the St. Louis County, Missouri Juvenile Court. Previously, Cohen was a staff attorney and Director of Training for the New York City Legal Aid Society’s Juvenile Rights Practice. Her scholarship explores topics ranging from juvenile justice and parole to legal ethics and lawyering theory, with a particular focus on the legal representation of adolescents. Cohen has received numerous awards for her work, including the MacArthur Foundation’s Champion for Change Award and the National Juvenile Defender Center’s Robert E. Shepherd Award for Excellence in Juvenile Defense.

Ellen Marrus is the Royce Till Professor of Law at the University of Houston Law Center, the founder and Director of the Center for Children, Law & Policy (CCLP), and the co-director of the Southwest Juvenile Defender Center (SWJDC). She teaches juvenile law, street law, children and the law, professional responsibility, and practice-related courses, and directs clinical programs, including child advocacy clinics and a lab component for her children and a law course where students receive hands-on experience in child dependency cases. In her capacity as Director of CCLP and SWJDC, Marrus has provided technical assistance to public defenders, court appointed juvenile attorneys, the U.S. Department of Justice, juvenile probation, and federal and state legislators. She concentrates her scholarship in the areas of juvenile law, children’s rights, and professionalism, with a focus on representing children in various proceedings and the intersection of juvenile justice with race and gender.