Navigate the System Online – Oceans of Resources.
With your kid up to his neck in trouble, your spirits are sinking faster than a lead weight in water. Learn to navigate the system on the Internet.
The Juvenile Justice System, General Information
A good place to start your quest for general information on the juvenile justice system is the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice. The Center is a private non-profit organization whose mission is to reduce society's reliance on the use of incarceration as a solution to social problems.

Easy to find, easy to read, Cecil Greek's Criminal Justice Page from Florida State University offers a wealth of information on juvenile justice.

For an easy-to-navigate website that will help you to find assistance and information on the Juvenile Justice System and other legal matters of interest, visit the California Courts Self-Help Center http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/selfhelp/. Pay special attention to the link to California Courts Self-Help Center's section on Juvenile Delinquency. It will answer most of your most frightening questions about charges and court proceedings.

As they say at the Research Division of the National Center For Juvenile Justice “the United States of America does not have a juvenile justice system. Rather, it has 51 separate systems.” And this is the portal to all of ‘em.

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention site has a good data base of publications, programs, funding opportunities, events, and other resources. Find resources, all organized at OJJDP Topics.

Information about crime, courts, sentencing, criminal justice policy analysis, punishment, alternatives to incarceration and reform can be found on the Sentencing Project website. P.S. They’re on your side.

Think you know the laws? We’re talking the new federal zero-tolerance laws that affect us all. Stop in for a visit at the United States Department of Justice website.

First, the bad news: The famous ERIC Clearinghouse on Urban Education, which contains a bazillion published articles and scholarly works on any subject you can think of—or any dilemma you’re in—closed in December, 2003, after 35 years! Now, the good news: The ERIC Clearinghouse on Urban Education archives are available to view as html.
Family-friendly Justice Resources on the Net
The U.S. Department of Justice gives an excellent kid-friendly tour of the federal prosecution process in this Inside The Courtroom site.

Speaking of kid-friendly, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Safety City guides you and your child through safety issues before, during and after school.

If the scared straight approach is what works best with your kid, visit some of the stories at Prisoner's Dot Com.

Youth today have probably been online longer than most parents, but that doesn't mean that they know what they're doing. For a primer on the do's and don't on Internet use, go to the DOJ presents Cyberethics For Kids.

Get one-up on your teenager, or at least get hip to the game with Net Lingo, a parent’s fight-back tool. Straight or gay? Keeping Parents Clueless. Talk Dirty To Me. I Want Sex Now. Our advice: LTL [Learn The Lingo]. This is a definite WPNTK [What Parents Need to Know] website. So, check it out OTS [On The Spot] if you are AAS [At All Suspicious].

Generally speaking, Teens Health is a cool teen site with lots of information, but what especially caught our attention was the section on Dealing With Bullying .

Unless you've been in a coma for the past few years, you've heard the commercial; now you can search the entire Parents, The Anti-Drug .
Gangs & Youth Violence
Bully Blocking with Evelyn M. Field http://www.bullying.com.au/, from Australia, offers information on both passive and aggressive bullying. If bullying is really an issue (on the giving or the receiving side), click to the Bully Assessment Test.

The totally engaging Bullying Dot Org website, “where you are not alone, is worth a bookmark. Every click is information or revelation.

Attention All Bullies: The laws are not on your side. Just ask the Bully Police. Click the map for your state.

How can you distinguish that normal hormonal teenage angst from unhealthy rage? The National Youth Violence Prevention Resource Center is a “one-stop shop” for information on youth violence prevention, sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other Federal agencies.

Gangs and At Risk Kids is a primer on gangs, including an “Ask A Prisoner” section that is too real. You might let your troubled teen ask a question or two, after reading a few of these unglamorous stories.

Street Gangs, authored by gang expert, Alex Alonso, gathers information on gang activity and efforts to fight gang activity throughout L.A. County and across the U.S.

On the subject of gangs, the Coroner's Report is Steve Nawojczyk’s contribution. Famous and outspoken, the retired Little Rock, AK coroner is one of the world’s great experts on gangs and kids at risk of joining a gang. The site includes statistics, how to tell if your kid is in a gang and how to help. Lots of information for parents, educators and teens.

Also of interest, the Violence Prevention Coalition of Los Angeles offers a Fact Sheet that dispels many myths about gangs.
Working with School & Community Programs
Through the healing power of the Arts, Artslynx International Arts Resources http://www.artslynx.org/ is a portal for all things “arts” for at-risk teens as well as for others left at risk from the perils of war, abuse, poverty, prison experience and homelessness. Nice, neat and extensive arts related links for students, for teachers, for parents.

A Place Called Home in South Central Los Angeles is a dynamic enrichment center with loads of programs for at-risk youth. A good place to volunteer.

While we're on the subject of South Central, Mama Hill's Help , an after-school tutoring and counseling program for at-risk youth can use all the help they can get--from mentors and equipment to donations.

And the Rakestraw Memorial Community Education Center, also in South Los Angeles, offers extensive services to youth, families living on the edge, and a wide range of educational services for the whole community.

CRU Institute provides school-wide conflict mediation programs for faculty, students, and parents at elementary, middle and high schools. May be a sales pitch, but, hey, these are young multi-ethnic entrepreneurs who appear to have something good for the hood.

If Community Service is a part of your child's sentence, you may find an organization of interest at Servenet http://servenet.org/. They boast of offering over 40,000 service projects, providing millions of volunteer opportunities.

Afterschool Dot Gov is a one-stop website connecting the public, and particularly after school providers, to federal resources that support children and youth during out-of-school time.

Building Blocks For Youth offers links galore, including education, legislation, justice issues and prevention resources.

With the motto “We will not give up!!” Families to Amend California's Three Strikes (FACTS) chapters are throughout the state.

Portals, whose mission statement is "Turn a Life Around one life at a time" has provided extensive services to young people with mental illness for the past 50 years. Now a part of the Pacific Clinics family of services, Portals is a great resource and chance to give back.

Based in South L.A., Peace 4 Kids specializes in services for over 100 foster children. They're always looking for volunteers. [By the way, to date there are over 23,000 foster kids in the system in L.A. County alone.]

Want to get involved in policy change? Try the California Council of Churches. The Council, made up of 19 Protestant and Orthodox denominations, 3,400 congregations and over 1.2 million church members, “lifts up issues of concern to California's faith community such as hunger, homelessness, health care, child care, violence, civil rights, economic and environmental justice, and religious liberty.”