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Intro
The Freechild Project believes that the United States is suffering an epidemic of injustice that
relies on the steady increase in the numbers of young people of
color and low income young people in prison.
This epidemic is perpetuated by systemic racism, and facilitated
by the prison-industrial complex. A growing community of
young activists are working to change this formula.
Facts
Only
6 countries known to have executed juvenile offenders in the
last... For more facts, click
here>
Point to Ponder
"Our youth are not failing
the system; the system is failing our youth. Ironically, the very
youth who are being treated the worst are the young people who are
going to lead us out of this nightmare." - Rachel Jackson, of
Books Not Bars.
Resources
Included here are organizations, websites, and publications
that share important information about juvenile injustice,
identified by youth researchers at Freechild.
Organizations
Books Not Bars
The goal is to expose and end the
over-incarceration of youth. As one force among many, BNB is
working to build a bottom-up movement that will transform the entire
criminal justice system.
Voices of Incarcerated Youth
This past month, Sound Portrait
Productions, Friends of Island Academy and WNYC presented Youth
Portraits about five youth who served on Rikers Island and are now
dedicated to turning their lives around.
No More Youth Jails
A group of youth, students, parents,
community members, former prisoners, prisoners' families and community
activists are working to stop New York City from building 200 more
cellblocks to lock up youth, mostly youth of color from
African-American, Latino/Latina and Asian communities. The
campaign is urging Mayor Bloomberg to cancel the proposed $64.6
million in the capitol budget to build 200 beds, close the notorious
Spofford juvenile facility in the Bronx, and reallocate these funds
towards schools and community-based programs such as after-school
programs and alternatives to incarceration.
Schools Not Jails
A network of youth organizers whose reach
extends far beyond jails, but whose message shoots right to the hear
to the matter: young peoples need more opportunities, more rights, and
for their lives to be seen as valuable. Build more schools.
No More Prisons
"Its not just a book or album - its a
movement." The home of much activist work, with links to
hundreds of great resources.
Rethinking Schools on the Criminalization of Youth
Haywood Burns Institute
The Burns Institute, a project of the Youth Law Center led by James
Bell, offers
site-based services, including on-the-ground technical assistance on
best
practices for reducing the over-representation of young people of
color in the
system.
Building Blocks for
Youth Network
The Building Blocks for Youth initiative
provides juvenile justice advocacy
assistance and materials to constituency groups promoting juvenile
justice
reform, with a particular emphasis on addressing racial disparities in
the
justice system. The initiative provides materials such as talking
points on
current juvenile justice issues for use with the media, a media
advocacy tool
kit on juvenile justice, and hosts conference call briefings on
juvenile justice
issues. If you represent a national, state or local organization
involved in
promoting juvenile justice reform and are interested in participating
in the
Building Blocks for Youth Network, fill out the participation form on
the
initiative's
website.
Juvenile Justice Center of the American Bar Association
Publications & Video
The Beat
Within
The Beat Within is a publication of the
writings and art from Juvenile Halls and beyond.
Voices From Within, Youth Speak Out: Youth in Care in Ontario. By
Kim Snow and Judy Finlay. The Office of Child and Family Service
Advocacy, with support from the Laidlaw Foundation and the Children's
Aid Foundation worked with a number of young people to interview youth
in care in Ontario; including child welfare, young offender and mental
health program / service recipients. This report expresses the views
and experiences of the youth interviewed, and offers a number of
recommendations.
Corrections:
Private Prisons are Back
CORRECTIONS is a
documentary, the story of justice turned to profit, where the war on
crime has found new investment from venture capital and in for-profit
prisons. This is the story of the private prison.
Through the Eyes of the Judged
These are the autobiographical stories of
8 young men locked up in Washington
State prisons. They admit the crime and take full responsibility
- but the book portrays all the reasons why in a very convincing way.
Juvenile Injustice: Proposition 21
Ain't no power like the
power of the youth 'cause the power of the youth don't stop!" The
chant rose up among the crowd along Market Street in San Francisco
this week as youth activists mourned California's voters' choice to
pass Proposition 21.
Kids and Guns: How Politicians, the
Experts, and the Media Fabricate Fear of Youth
"Kids and guns” are not the problem, but a
diversion by a complacent, established America that propagates
demographic myths about age and race, culture-war trivialities, and
sensational scapegoating to avoid facing its own violence.
Race and incarceration
in the United States
In this briefing, human rights
watch presents new figures documenting racial disparities
state-by-state in the incarceration of African Americans and Latinos
throughout America.
Innovations and lessons
learned from the Juvenile Detention
Alternatives Initiative (JDAI)
The Annie E. Casey Foundation has
produced a
series which includes 12 publications on juvenile detention reform.
Ex-delinquents seek
rethink of jail; Youth-offenders-turned-activists fight city hall over
juvenile jail expansions
Several youth activists were featured in
this recent article by Alexandra Marks, staff writer of The Christian
Science
Monitor in their efforts to reduce juvenile detention. "I think it has
the
potential to become the next real civil rights movement in this
country," says
Bart Lubow, senior associate of the Annie E. Casey Foundation's
Juvenile
Detention Alternatives Initiatives.
Building Blocks for Youth
A summary of key studies
on juvenile detention available
online.
Children Behind Bars - Juvenile Crime Link to Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
Prison
Activist Resource Center's High School Curriculum on the
Criminalization of Youth
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