Grantmakers like Connecticut's Tow Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the JEHT Foundation, the Open Society Institute, and the Eckerd Family Foundation are among the charities leading the charge to reform the U.S. juvenile-justice system, the Chronicle of Philanthropy reported May 15.

The MacArthur Foundation, for example, is devoting $100 million over the next five years to juvenile-justice reform, including an examination of how mental-health problems, racial injustice and poverty can raise the risk of incarceration among youth. And the Annie E. Casey Foundation continues to fund a program launched in 1992 that aims to reduce the number of youths in prison in the U.S.

More recently, the Public Welfare Foundation announced in 2007 that criminal and juvenile justice would be one of its three top grantmaking priorities.

Some funders say it's hard to spark public sympathy for youth involved in the justice system; at the same time, however, they say that juvenile justice failures have led to the skyrocketing rates of imprisonment in the U.S. The Open Society Institute has worked to bring disparate grantmakers and advocates together to address issues like sentencing under-18 offenders to life in prison without parole.

Seeing potential for foundation funding to make a real difference, grantmakers point to local successes in finding alternatives to incarceration for youth and reducing numbers of imprisoned adolescents. "There are places that have broken their addiction to incarceration, but as a country we still believe that the path to public safety is paved with punishment," said Bart Lubow, director of the Program for High-Risk Youth at Annie E. Casey Foundation.