The (Re)Imagining Justice for Youth (RJY) initiative aims to help youth connect through community to reduce criminal behavior.

Ramsey County Attorney John Choi announced the initiative’s success in February with state, local and community leaders. The initiative started in July of 2021 as a means of trying to help victims, families and young people through systematically evaluating harm, needs and youth development, according to a news release.

The goal of the initiative is to create behavioral changes surrounding recidivism so that legal consequences such as relapses into criminal behaviors like re-arrests, re-convictions and re-incarcerations are significantly limited.

Results show that community accountability outperforms traditional court processing with 66% reduced risk of recidivism for first assaults and 50% reduced risk of recidivism for first gross misdemeanor or felony

“Our study is further evidence that turning to each other keeps us more safe than relying on punishment and control,” said University of Minnesota Medical School research partner, Kara Beckman.

County Officials said, of the total cases presented by law enforcement to the youth justice system, about 30% were reviewed by the Collaborative Review Team (CRT) and 15% were fully resolved through based community accountability programs with no court involvement.

“We have also seen promising results around eliminating the substantial and persistent racial disparities in the system, having decreased racial gaps with respect to which youth were offered community-based accountability and which youth succeeded in it,” Choi said.

According to a baseline data analysis from the University of Minnesota that examined racial disparities, young people’s experience in the legal system (aged 10-17), and how that affected their likelihood of ending up in the adult system across three areas found that the traditional legal system was not meeting the needs of young people, was the least effective when responding to serious behaviors, and was especially ineffective for Black, Latino, and Indigenous youth.

“The documented and transparent results from the County Attorney demonstrate meaningful progress. We appreciate the collaborative approach and inclusion of law enforcement perspectives. The practices implemented since 2021 — combined with the proactive work of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office — are clearly improving public safety outcomes for our youth,” Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher said.