Attorney Donna Sheen, founder of the Laramie-based Wyoming Children’s Law Center, has devoted her career to advocating for children’s legal needs in special education, education services and the juvenile justice system.

Sheen recently spoke with the Wyoming Truth, noting the need for new approaches to juvenile justice, beginning with alternatives to arrest. The first set of excerpts from the conversation covered how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted juvenile justice in Wyoming, the need for better data collection and sharing and whether youth who are wrestling with addiction should be arrested.

Wyoming had the fourth highest juvenile incarceration rate in the nation in 2019, locking up 239 out of every 100,000 juveniles that year—outranked by Washington, D.C., West Virginia and Alaska—according to the latest Easy Access to the Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement report.