The JPI is a research and policy organization that tries to address much of the misinformation in juvenile and criminal justice. He notes that media reports often focus on unusual cases and lead to inappropriate policies. Good data exist in the juvenile justice field, but dialogue tends to take place through journals and does not reach a wider audience and influence policy. The current debate over juvenile justice focused on extremes rather than on preventing juvenile delinquency and intervening in the lives of youths in the juvenile justice system. The numbers in confinement, the disproportionate confinement of minority youth, and juveniles in adult facilities should receive more attention. The current system is a failure because it does nothing with youths with problems and then places them in total confinement. Quality control does not exist. However, white, middle-class youth usually enter a network of programs that channels them away from incarceration into special education programs, private treatment, counseling, supervision, and other beneficial resources. Needed changes include the involvement of minorities in decisionmaking, recognition of the broad support for alternatives to incarceration, attention to the shift of funds from public universities to prisons, and a focus on problems involved in juvenile court waiver.