Street Law, Inc.

Street Law, Inc., is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering young people through innovative education programs about law, democracy, and human rights. Street Law staff and consultants provide workshops that focus on engaging content, interactive teaching methods, delinquency and violence prevention theory, and strategies for effective program implementation. Program models, materials, and training and technical assistance are available for a wide range of school, community, and juvenile justice settings. All Street Law curriculum materials emphasize practical life skills such as conflict resolution, communication, and problem solving.

Program Highlights

Youth Act is a leadership training program that helps young people identify community problems and then design and implement solutions in cooperation with adult partners.

Youth Vision is a partnership among Street Law, the National Crime Prevention Council, and the Center for Youth as Resources. Each year, youth are issued a “challenge” to describe how they want to work with other young people and adults to craft innovative projects that address conflict, prejudice, or violence in their school or community. YouthVision provides seed funding and technical assistance to help young people develop their ideas into workable projects.

The Street Law/YMCA Civic Fitness Camp is a 5-week summer academy experience for middle school-age youth that is designed to improve their citizenship knowledge and skills. The camp was piloted in the District of Columbia in 2000 and will be available to other jurisdictions through YMCA/LRE partnerships in summer 2001.

Publications

Street Law, Inc., has published the following documents related to LRE.

Street Law: A Course in Practical Law (sixth edition, 1999) explores criminal, consumer, family, and housing law; intellectual property issues; and individual rights for students in grades 9–12. The appendix provides the complete U.S. Constitution, State-by-State laws, and information on law-related careers. Supplements include a comprehensive teacher’s manual, computerized tests, two videos, overhead transparencies/blackline masters, a workbook, and a Web site.¹²

Teens, Crime and the Community (third edition, 1998) educates young people in grades 6–12 about preventing crime and violence. The textbook covers conflict management and teen victimization issues such as drug and alcohol abuse, family violence, sexual harassment, and violent crime. Students learn to design community service projects to make schools and neighborhoods safer. A teacher’s manual is available.

Law in Your Life (1998) is an easy-to-read textbook designed specially for students who have not had success with traditional educational materials. The book’s practical law lessons develop critical life skills and provide for positive experiences with adults.

We Can Work It Out! Problem Solving Through Mediation (1993), for ages 14 and older, and Let’s Say: We Can Work It Out! Problem Solving Through Mediation (1998), for ages 8–13, instruct youth in the basic elements of mediation and conflict management. Each textbook includes a model mediation showcase in which young people display their newly acquired skills.

Street Law Mock Trial Manual (1984) is based on 20 years of experience in classroom mock trials. Designed for students in grades 7–12, the manual is reproducible and includes six optional trials on civil, criminal, and constitutional issues.

Community Works: Smart Teens Make Safer Communities (1999) is a complete action kit that provides 31 lessons with reproducible handouts, posters, an instructional video, and proven strategies to help youth reduce crime victimization. The kit also helps youth develop an action plan that addresses a community problem.

Police as Community Teachers (1998) provides lessons for school resource officers (SRO’s) and educator partners to use for effective LRE. This 11-lesson curriculum for use in school or community settings helps students understand police work and develop positive relationships with police officers (available in English and Spanish).

Save Our Streets: Lessons About Guns, Public Policy and Conflict Resolution (2001) provides youth in court, community, or school settings with opportunities to explore the judicial system, examine issues of weapons possession and use, analyze the effects these issues have on community safety, and learn and practice skills for resolving conflict appropriately.

Parents and the Law (1998) helps young parents strengthen their families and prevent child abuse and neglect. It includes lessons on laws that affect the family, information on community resources, and opportunities for developing skills in problem solving, empathy, cooperation, and communication (available in English and Spanish).

Street Law for Juvenile Justice Settings (2001) provides a compilation of lessons that have been tested extensively in detention, probation, group home, and training school settings. An introductory section explains law-related teaching strategies and suggests groups of lessons that are most appropriate for various juvenile justice settings.

Training Opportunities

Training for educators in school, community, and juvenile justice settings on a number of curriculum-based topics is available. Parents and the Law training incorporates law-related lessons in English and Spanish into parenting education programs. Street Law: A Course in Practical Law consists of multiday institutes that focus on the curriculum’s criminal, consumer, family, housing, and intellectual property law and individual rights issues. The Supreme Court Summer Institute is a national seminar on the U.S. Supreme Court for secondary-school law and government teachers, which Street Law cosponsors with the Supreme Court Historical Society. Conflict resolution training provides instruction in the basic elements of mediation and conflict management, as provided in Street Law’s We Can Work It Out curriculums, and includes “The Mediation Showcase,” a mediation simulation performed in front of spectators. Street Law’s staff can also develop staff training programs for local school districts.

Training for professionals in afterschool and community settings to employ Street Law’s Community Works curriculum strategies is available to help youth reduce crime victimization and develop action plans that address community problems.

Training for school resource officers and their educator partners to serve as effective LRE instructors using the Police as Community Teachers curriculum is available.

Training for professionals in diversion, probation, or alternative school settings, based on the Save Our Streets curriculum, provides guidance in implementing lessons on gun violence, public policy, and conflict resolution as part of a court system’s diversion or probation program or as a supplement to an alternative school curriculum.

National training for professionals in juvenile justice settings is provided by Street Law and other Youth for Justice grantees. Street Law staff and consultants also work directly with State and local juvenile justice staff to provide training in Street Law curriculums.

Youth for Justice	Juvenile Justice Bulletin • April 2001