Washtenaw County’s newly-elected sheriff, Alyshia Dyer, is dedicated to working in collaboration with our community to ensure children in Washtenaw get the support they need to thrive. This means pushing back on actions that can criminalize childhood and avoiding the use of carceral systems when possible by building strong partnerships in the community and utilizing restorative justice approaches to center healing, accountability, and more humane ways of addressing conflict. This will include: not criminalizing status offenses that are only illegal due to age, pushing back against criminalizing childhood at the neighborhood level, and offering more front-end prevention to ensure children have support at the community level.