Community Lawyering in the Juvenile Cellblock: Creative Uses of Legal Problem Solving to Reconcile Competing Narratives on Prosecutorial Abuse, Juvenile Criminality, and Public Safety

David Dominguez

Abstract

Community Lawyering in the Juvenile Cellblock: Creative Uses of Legal Problem Solving to Reconcile Competing Narratives on Prosecutorial Abuse, Juvenile Criminality, and Public Safety challenges systemic deficiencies in juvenile detention practices from the perspective of Community Lawyering. Community Lawyering in these circumstances achieves two goals. First, it offers legal assistance to the incarcerated child in order to vindicate legal interests protected by the United States Constitution and state statute. Secondly, through creative use of law students’ problem solving skills, Community Lawyering works with others in the community to realize the vision of a collaborative system of juvenile justice, one that forges new problem solving partnerships and uses more of the family’s, school’s, and community agency’s decision-making resources to resolve juvenile misconduct without resorting to formal charges of delinquency and referral to secure confinement. This article offers a template for gaining community support for comprehensive reform of juvenile detention practices and policies.