| What
is the Girls Justice Initiative?
The Girls Justice Initiative (GJI) is a community project
of United Way of the Bay Area, in partnership with the San
Francisco Juvenile Probation department. The Initiative’s
goal is to connect young women who are detained in the San
Francisco juvenile justice system with the intensive case
management and gender-specific support services they need
to get their lives back on track and exit the justice system
for good.
The project, supported by United Way’s Bay Area Community
Fund, aligns with our goal of building stronger, safer communities.
The Challenge
Despite an overall drop in juvenile crime during the last
few years, girls are the fastest growing segment of the juvenile
justice population, with delinquency cases involving girls
increasing by 83 percent between 1988 and 1997. Unfortunately,
the majority of these girls cycle through the juvenile justice
system more than once, and 13 percent will return more than
nine times.
The Solution
GJI has developed a collaborative framework to link girls
in the juvenile justice system with gender- and culturally-appropriate
services that ensure that they graduate into healthy and safer
lives. This is accomplished through a number of strategies
including:
- Establishing a culture of collaboration between the probation
department and community-based organizations to make the
best use of limited resources.
- Analyzing information from the first two years of the
Initiative’s operations to identify gaps in services.
- Capturing data to measure and improve accountability.
- Providing training and support to agencies that serve
at-risk and detained girls.
Publications and Videos
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