Global Youth Justice proactively champions volunteer-driven strategies and new low-cost innovations which help alleviate some of the world's more pressing and costly societal problems.  We strive to improve the quality of life for humans through reducing high juvenile crime rates and historic-high incarceration rates of adults locally and globally.  Global Youth Justice initially achieves this through favorable outcomes that result from advancing the global expansion of quality local volunteer-driven youth justice and juvenile justice voluntary diversion programs often called youth court, teen court, peer court, student court, peer jury and youth peer panel. Record numbers of volunteer youth now serve as jurors, defenders, prosecutors, judges, and clerk/bailiffs in local juvenile justice systems on real juvenile crimes, offenses, and violations involving their peers.  A record 1,407 plus communities around the globe now operate one of these volunteer-driven approaches to reduce the incidence and prevent the escalation of juvenile crime and incarceration rates, and -- this thereby reduces adult crime and incarceration rates.

    While there exist greater linkages today between nations and peoples than our planet has likely ever known, we still see all around us an ever-increasing divide between the rich and poor.  This is especially transparent in the disproportionate representation of the poor and those with a disease in the juvenile justice system and criminal justice system.  These youth justice diversion programs around the globe are engaging youth in record numbers to volunteer and work side-by-side with adults who have empowered them to bridge this divide and work toward a shared vision of human dignity, greater equity, freedom, basic security and justice.  Youth must be at the forefront in the local to global struggle to overcome some of our most pressing and complex social and economic global challenges.  This belief led to the creation of our '16 and VOTE Global Campaign' which champions lowering federal/national, state and local voting ages from seventeen (17) years of age and older to sixteen (16) years of age around the globe and in twenty-five (25) or more countries by the Year 2025.

    If negative peer pressure is a primary factor in leading some youth to commit a crime, offense and/or violation, then positive peer pressure can be harnessed and redirected to become a positive force and lead other youth to adhere to the rule of law and become more productive citizens.   These youth justice and juvenile justice voluntary diversion programs harness positive peer pressure and utilize it in a peer judgment setting to help address the anti-social, delinquent, and/or criminal behavior of youth.  The 'peer judgment' and 'positive peer pressure' aspects of these programs are the two (2) primary programmatic elements which separate these youth justice and juvenile justice voluntary diversion programs from all of the others. 

Making the Time for Juvenile Crime.