Professor Sherman is a Visiting Professor at Boston College Law School where she has been teaching Juvenile Justice for the past twenty years and directs the Juvenile Rights Advocacy Project.  She speaks and writes widely about the juvenile justice system and, in particular, about girls in the justice system.  She has testified before Congress and is currently serving on the U.S. Department of Justice National Advisory Committee on Violence Against Women focusing on children and teen victimized by domestic violence and sexual assault.  She is the author of Detention Reform and Girls, a volume of the Pathways to Detention Reform series published by the Annie E. Casey Foundation (2005) and Detention Reform Practice Guide for Girls (forthcoming Annie E. Casey, 2011).  Her most recent book, entitled Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice (Wiley & Sons), was released in September, 2011.  She is an ongoing consultant to the Annie E. Casey Foundation's Juvenile Detention Alternative Initiative on strategies to reduce the detention of girls nationally, regularly consults with national and local foundations and systems on issues related to girls in the justice system, and is on the Advisory Board to the National Girls Institute.  Professor Sherman was the Principal Investigator of the Massachusetts Health Passport Project (MHPP) and is President of the Board of Artistic Noise, Inc.; both are programs working with girls in the justice system.

EDUCATION

B.A., University of Missouri; J.D., Boston College.

RECENT ACTIVITIES

Work in Progress: Using JDAI Strategies to Reduce the Detention of Girls: Practice Guide #5, Annie E. Casey Foundation (forthcoming 2011).

Presentations: With Judith B. Tracy, “It Takes a Village to Raise a Child; It Takes Two Professionals to Successfully Teach Research and Analysis—A Simulated Class Reflecting a Truly Integrated First-Year Legal Research and Writing Curriculum,” Twelfth Biennial Conference of the Legal Writing Institute, Atlanta, GA, in June 2006. "Data, Detention, and Girls" as moderator at the annual meeting of the Annie E. Casey Foundation Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative, San Francisco, in December 2004. "Women in Prison in Massachusetts: Maintaining Family Connections," at the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts McCormack Graduate School of Public Policy, Boston, in March 2005. "Are We Meeting the Needs of Adolescent Girls?" as panelist at the MCLE Seventh Annual Juvenile Delinquency and Child Welfare Law Conference in April 2005.

Activities: Consulted with the Hyams Foundation to develop and implement its Girls’ Initiative program. Moderated a program entitled "Connecting Girls’ Programs and Girls in Juvenile Justice," a peer-led discussion sponsored by the Girls’ Coalition of Greater Boston in February 2003. Continues as a member of the board of the New England Juvenile Defender Center. Launched the Arts and Entrepreneurship Project for girls in the Massachusetts justice system as a new initiative of the Juvenile Rights Advocacy Project. Co-sponsor, with the Ella J. Baker House, the College of Criminal Justice of Northeastern University, and the Dorchester (Massachusetts) Community Roundtable, of a two-day conference entitled "Celebrating Boston Girls: Sharing Resources, Building Strengths," at Northeastern University, in Boston, in June 2002.

Appointments: Appointed to the Massachusetts Department of Correction Female Offender Review Panel in January. Appointed to the Massachusetts Women’s Political Caucus Board of Directors for 2005.

Other: The Juvenile Rights Advocacy Project was awarded a two-year grant from the Jesse B. Cox Charitable Trust for the Girls Health Passport Project Phase II and a planning grant from the Jacob and Valeria Langeloth Foundation for the Massachusetts Health Passport Project.

COURSES

Fall 2011: Juvenile Justice Seminar; Juvenile Rights Advocacy
Spring 2012: Juvenile Rights Advocacy; Juvenile Rights Advocacy II

• With Francine H. Jacobs, editors. Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2011.
• With Hon. Jay Blitzman, "Children's Rights and Relationships: A Legal Framework." in Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice, edited by Francine T. Sherman and Francine H. Jacobs, 68-91. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2011.
• With Jessica H. Greenstone, "The Role of Gender in Youth Systems: Grace's Story." in Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice, edited by Francine T. Sherman and Francine H. Jacobs, 131-155. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2011.
• With Lisa Goldblatt Grace, "The System Response to the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Girls." in Juvenile Justice: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice, edited by Francine T. Sherman and Francine H. Jacobs, 331-351. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2011.
• With Meda Chesney-Lind. "Gender Matters in Juvenile Justice." New York Law Journal  December 7, 2010. 
• "Reframing the Response: Girls in the Juvenile Justice System and Domestic Violence."  Juvenile and Family Justice Today 18, no.1 (Winter 2009): 16-20.
  
• "Access to Community Healthcare for Youth in the Juvenile Justice System: Initial Lessons From the Massachusetts Health Passport Project."  Women, Girls and Criminal Justice 8, no.6 (October/November 2007): 81-82, 87-91. Reprinted in Women and Girls in the Criminal Justice System, Vol. 2: Policy Issues and Practice Strategies, edited by R. Immarigeon, Kingston, NJ: Civic Research Institute, Inc., 2006.
  
• Taking on the Challenge: Phase I of the Hyams Foundation Girls' Initiative. Boston, MA: Hyams Foundation, 2006.
  
• Consent to Medical Treatment by Minors in Massachusetts: A Guide for Practitioners. Newton, MA: Boston College Law School Juvenile Rights Advocacy Project, 2006. (With Juvenile Rights Advocacy Project staff and students)
  
• Pathways to Detention Reform, Detention Reform and Girls: Challenges and Solutions. Baltimore, MD: Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2005.
  
• With Marsha L. Levick. "When Individual Differences Demand Equal Treatment: An Equal Rights Approach to the Special Needs of Girls in the Juvenile Justice System." Wisconsin Women's Law Journal 18, no.1 (Spring 2003): 9-50.
  
• Girls in the Juvenile Justice System: Perspectives on Services and Conditions of Confinement. [S.l.] Girls' Justice Initiative, 2003.
  
• "How Girls Enter and Move through the Juvenile Justice System." Girls' Coalition Newsletter 10: issue 1 (Fall 2002/Winter 2003): 7.
  
• "Promoting Justice in an Unjust System." Women, Girls and Criminal Justice, 3, no.4 (June/July 2002): 49-50, 58-60; 3, no.5 (August/September 2002): 65-66, 74-78; 3, no.6 (October/November 2002): 83-84, 92.
  
• "Effective Advocacy Systems for Girls: Promoting Justice in an Unjust System." In Children's Law Institute: Legal & Social Welfare Issues of Girls & Adolescents 2001. Co-chairs: James R. Bell, Jane M. Spinak, 151-182. New York: Practising Law Institute, 2001.
  
• Contributor, Justice by Gender: Lack of Appropriate Prevention, Diversion, and Treatment Alternatives for Girls in the Justice System, American Bar Association, National Bar Association (2001).
• Contributor, America’s Children Still at Risk, American Bar Association (2001).
• "Prostitution and Teenage Girls." Women, Girls & Criminal Justice 1, no.6 (October/November 2000): 83-84.
  
• "Probation and the Delinquent Girl." Women, Girls & Criminal Justice 1, no.5 (August/September 2000): 71-72, 80. (Also appears in Community Corrections Report 7, no.6 (September/October 2000): 1-2, 94.)
  
• With William R. Torbert, editors. Transforming Social Inquiry, Transforming Social Action: New Paradigms for Crossing the Theory/Practice Divide in Universities and Communities. Boston, MA: Kluwer Academic Press, 2000.
  
• "What's in a Name? Runaway Girls Pose Challenges for the Justice System." Women, Girls, and Criminal Justice 1, no.2 (February/March 2000): 19-20, 26.
  
• "Law in the School-Linked Services Model: Problems and Possibilities." In Collaborative Practice: School and Human Service Partnerships, edited by Robbie W. C. Tourse and Jean F. Mooney, 201-217. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1999.
  
• The Role of Context in the Representation of Children." In Who Speaks for This Child? A Dialogue About the Legal Representation of Children, 3-16. Boston, MA: MCLE, 1999.
  
• With Barbara Kaban. "An Overview of Disposition Process in Delinquency Cases." In Juvenile Law Basics (1999-06.04-CM), [edited by] Debra S. Krupp, 205-230. Boston, MA: MCLE, 1998.
  
• With Jane Kent Gionfriddo and E. Joan Blum, editors. The Second Draft: Bulletin of the Legal Research Institute 9-10 (1994-1996)