Dear John,
It’s Youth Justice Action Month! Our network of allied advocates and supporters use this month to celebrate the actions we’ve taken in the movement to end youth incarceration and provide all our children and teenagers with the support they need to thrive.
The Sentencing Project’s Youth Justice Team is thrilled by the response to our recent publications, including our fact sheet on the shameful practice of sending kids to adult courts, jails and prisons and “Too Many Locked Doors,” which shows that despite a decade of reform, children are locked in juvenile detention centers or youth prisons about 250,000 times a year -- and that youth of color are vastly more likely to have the harshest punishments.
But we’re not just interested in highlighting the well-documented problems with our nation’s system of youth justice. We’re ready to advance solutions.
Even as elected officials distort the scope of youth crime, we showed how violence among youth didn’t spike during the pandemic and joined with Liz Ryan, the Administrator of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and experts from around the county to talk about what does work for kids in trouble with the law. Among the best solutions? Keeping kids away from formal court involvement entirely, as shown in our most recent report, "Diversion: A Hidden Key to Combating Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Juvenile Justice."
We can also point to vital legislative successes that we supported in Indiana, Maryland, and Wyoming that will shrink the number of kids kept away from their families and bring new clarity to the scope of the problems in youth justice.
We stand ready to keep fighting until all of our kids come home and appreciate your support in the fight.
