Northeastern Law’s Center for Public Interest Advocacy and Collaboration Receives $20,000 Grant to Study Law Enforcement’s Impact on Youth in Group Homes
03.11.2025 — Northeastern Law’s Center for Public Interest Advocacy and Collaboration has been awarded a $20,000 grant from the Sociological Initiatives Foundation to support its Cradle-to-Prison Pipeline Project (C2P Project), with a specific focus on interdisciplinary research studying the impact of law enforcement interactions with youth in group homes. The C2P Project is an alliance among the Center for Public Interest Advocacy and Collaboration and Northeastern University’s College of Art, Media and Design, the Department of Sociology and Anthropology and Brudnick Center on Violence and Conflict in the College of Social Sciences and Humanities, and the Department of Applied Psychology in the Bouve College of Health Sciences. This grant will involve a partnership with Northeastern Sociology Professor Gordana Rabrenovic and Boston-based Citizens for Juvenile Justice.
The Cradle-to-Prison Pipeline is defined as a web of legal and social systems — rooted in structural racism, beginning before birth, and persisting through the teen years — that diverts youth, especially Black youth and other youth of color, toward juvenile and adult incarceration. In order to dismantle the Cradle-to-Prison Pipeline, we must comprehensively address the interplay of systems that contributes to this injustice. The C2P Project is a Massachusetts model of interdisciplinary data collection, mapping, analysis, and original research that illuminates the web of systems that contribute to the pipeline.
“We are so grateful to the Sociological Initiatives Foundation for supporting our critical work to better understand and address the ways social and legal systems impact youth in foster care,” said Professor Lucy Williams, faculty director of the Center for Public Interest and Collaboration.
The Sociological Initiatives Foundation supports social change by funding research linked to social action.
The nation’s leader in experiential legal education since 1968, Northeastern University School of Law offers the longest-running, most extensive experience-based legal education program in the country. Northeastern guarantees its students unparalleled practical legal work experiences through its signature Cooperative Legal Education Program. More than 1,100 employers in a wide range of legal, government, nonprofit and business organizations participate in the program. With a focus on social justice and innovation, Northeastern University School of Law blends theory and practice, providing students with a unique set of skills and experiences to successfully practice law.
For more information, contact d.feldman@northeastern.edu.