About the Central JDC

The Central Juvenile Defender Center is one of the nine Regional Centers of the National Juvenile Defender Center.  The Center focuses on juvenile law issues in Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, and Tennessee.  The Center coordinates regional activities, including helping to compile and analyze juvenile indigent defense data, facilitating organizing and networking opportunities for juvenile defenders, offering targeted, state-based training and technical assistance, and providing case support specifically designed for complex or high profile cases.  The Central Juvenile Defender Center is based at the Children’s Law Center, Inc., in Covington, Kentucky.

To join the email listserv for the Central region, please sign up on the National Juvenile Defender Center listserv page.

NJDC Mission and Vision Statement

Mission

To promote justice for all children by ensuring excellence in juvenile defense.

Statement of Beliefs

NJDC believes that a strong juvenile defense delivery system is a vital mechanism for ensuring that:

• All children in the justice system have ready and timely access to skilled, well-resourced, well-trained lawyers;
• All children are afforded full protection of their constitutional, statutory and human rights;
• All children receive legal representation that is client-centered, individualized, developmentally and age appropriate, and free of bias; and
• All children have opportunities to attain their potential to become productive members of society.

For these reasons, NJDC believes that the juvenile defense bar must:

• Enhance its skill, capacity, and commitment to professionalism;
• Cultivate leadership to promote accountability and bring about reform in the juvenile justice system; and
• Build collaborations, partnerships, and community involvement to advance the juvenile defense delivery system.

Vision Statement

NJDC works to create a strong juvenile defense delivery system where:

• The representation of children is specialized and resources and opportunities exist for juvenile defenders to fully exercise and enhance their legal, management, leadership, and advocacy skills;
• All children are treated with respect, dignity, and fairness;
• Juvenile courts are knowledgeable, sensitive, and responsive to the needs of children;
• Juvenile defenders have parity of resources, compensation, and opportunity for advancement with adult defenders and prosecutors; and
• Excellence is routine.