Elizabeth Calvin

Elizabeth Calvin is the senior advocate in the Children’s Rights Division and an attorney with experience in youth justice, foster care, and education rights. At Human Rights Watch she focuses on children, youth, and young adults who face the harm of juvenile and criminal systems. Her work includes policy and legal advocacy, research and writing on human rights violations, and strategic action for change. She relies on the leadership of people directly impacted by human rights violations to determine the direction of her work, and is in constant partnership with youth activists, faith groups, family members of youth who are incarcerated, survivors of crime, people in prison, and advocates.

Since 2012, her leadership in coalition-grounded efforts in California led to 24 significant laws being passed, many with first-in-the-nation strategies to reduce incarceration and prioritize the potential of young people. These laws have served as models and inspiration for change in other states. Now in California, youth are much less likely to be prosecuted as adults and prosecutors no longer have authority to file children’s cases directly in adult court; children under age 16 who commit crimes can never be tried in adult court and instead must be provided the services educational opportunities available in the youth system; youth under age 18 never face police interrogation without an attorney advising them; the use of life in prison without parole (LWOP) sentences for people under age 18 has effectively ended; young people have more educational opportunities in prison and the possibility of earlier parole; the youth justice system is shifting from being corrections-based to one that is focused on public health approaches; state youth prisons are permanently shuttered; youth who are incarcerated remain close to family and community and have increased access to community-based services; the state’s first-ever office of youth justice and ombudsperson has been established; and a comprehensive “Youth Bill of Rights” protects young people who are locked up. She additionally works to end any use of LWOP sentences, is a sponsor of the National LWOP Leadership Council, and promotes the leadership of people formerly sentenced to LWOP. These efforts have changed the lives of thousands of young people, families, and communities in California and beyond.

In 2024, she began a project to end the prosecution of children as adults in other states.

Elizabeth is the author of Human Rights Watch reports on youth sentenced to life without parole, foster care and homelessness, and the effects of prosecuting of children under 16 as adults.