Chattanooga, located in the southeastern corner of Tennessee, made national headlines in late May after a deadly shooting occurred in the city’s downtown riverfront area. The most disturbing detail of this shooting, without a doubt, is that it was a victimization of the city’s youth, by the city’s youth. Six teens were shot and two were sent to the ICU at the hands of their peers. Regrettably, this would not be the last tragedy of the summer: three months later, in mid-August, a sixteen-year-old was shot and killed — again, by one of his peers. Even more regrettably, these shootings find themselves lost within a larger narrative — one which tells a story of a city where gun violence, gang violence, and crime plague its youth. But there is hope, still. The story has yet to end because the city refuses to abandon its youth to this epidemic.

This article is part of Shared Justice’s Transformative Justice series running throughout January and February. The series explores one of the most urgent areas for reform within the juvenile justice […]

In 2014, Shaniz West, a resident of Caldwell, Idaho, arrived at her home only to find that it had been surrounded by several local police officers. The officers were searching […]