Milwaukee Christian Center was founded to help local immigrants. It provides programs for first-time juvenile offenders. Karen Higgins is executive director.

Rep. Fred Kessler, D-Milwaukee, introduced a bill in the Wisconsin Legislature that would raise the age at which youths are treated as adults in criminal cases from 16 to 17.

William E. Harris is executive director of Restorative Justice Ministry, a program of the West Ohio Conference of the United Methodist Church in Reynoldsburg, Ohio,

Jack R. Kloppenburg Jr. is a professor in the department of community and environmental sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He teaches a course called Food, Culture and Society, which explores hunger issues.

James P. Ziliak is director of the Center for Poverty Research at the University of Kentucky, where he also holds the Gatton Endowed Chair in Microeconomics. He was the lead researcher on a 2008 national study of hunger among the nation’s senior citizens.

Lili Garfinkel is with the PACER Center’s Juvenile Justice Program, which works with Minnesota’s juvenile offenders.

Luceia LeDoux is program director of public safety and governmental oversight grants for the Baptist Community Ministries of New Orleans. She oversees this Christian nonprofit’s community grants that benefit young offenders and at-risk youths in the New Orleans area.

Charles Staples is an evangelical Christian and an attorney in Virginia Beach, Va., who deals primarily in juvenile justice and juvenile advocacy cases.

Betty Gernert is a leader of Epiphany Ministry, a Christian ministry to incarcerated youths based in Danville, Ga.