CRINMAIL 69
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INHUMAN SENTENCING: Youth justice campaigning
This month's CRINMAIL features a youth justice campaign in the United States that aims to stop children being criminally sentenced to inhuman forms of punishment, including life imprisonment, and being tried in adult courts and detained in adult prisons. This issue forms the basis of a CRIN campaign, and we hope the report will help draw further attention to the cause, as well as provide advocacy ideas and best practice for other organisations working on the same issue.
Our guest editor is Liz Ryan from the Campaign for Youth Justice.
Youth Justice Campaigning in the United States
The US leads the world in youth incarceration and every year an estimated 250,000 youth are tried, sentenced and incarcerated in the adult criminal justice system. Youth who are charged or sentenced as adults can be held in adult jails and adult prisons where they are at risk of assault, abuse and death. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) estimates that 100,000 youth are cycled in and out of adult jails and prisons annually in the US. Youth of colour are disproportionately impacted by these policies.
To end the prosecution, incarceration and sentencing of youth in the adult criminal justice system, the Campaign for Youth Justice (CFYJ) was launched in 2005. CFYJ serves as a national clearinghouse on the issue and a hub around which state and local campaign efforts are connected. The campaign maintains the latest research, reports, and fact sheets on our website, as well as other resource materials and contact information on state and local campaigns. We provide technical assistance to state and local campaigns, focusing on peer to peer support to campaign organisers, media and communications strategies, policy development, coalition building, and youth and family engagement.
Campaigning ideas
One of the ways that we have assisted campaigns to engage individuals and grassroots organisations is to provide outreach and educational materials such as videos of personal stories of impacted youth and families, a short film entitled "Childhood Interrupted" and discussion guide, and wristbands promoting awareness about youth justice. The film is available on the web. These materials have helped to provide a variety of ways for people to get involved in campaign efforts on a volunteer basis. We have also created toolkits and how-to guides with tips, sample educational materials, action alerts and informational resources for campaign organisers to utilise to engage and manage campaign volunteers. These materials can be found on our website here.
To build broader community awareness, we sponsor National Youth Justice Awareness Month (Y-JAM) in October, a concept created by a parent of a teenager who was prosecuted in adult court and committed suicide while detained in an adult prison. Throughout October, parents, youth, families, grassroots groups and statewide organisations host events such as 5k run/walks, poetry slams, community forums, film screenings and discussions. These events are designed to promote awareness about the status of youth in the justice system and engage people in their community. Y-JAM has grown from one local event with several dozen people in Missouri five years ago to 30 events in more than twenty states with thousands of participants in 2012. For more information on Y-JAM, go here.
Along with on-the-ground activities, in 2012 CFYJ launched a two-month Social Media campaign "Playground to Prison" through a weekly series featuring a video of a family member sharing their story, a blog post from the family member, and a Facebook forum for other family members and individuals to engage people in a dialogue about the issues. We also created a "Playground to Prison" infographic to promote understanding and build awareness through social media and shared this on the web, blog, Facebook and Twitter. We printed the infographic as a poster to promote and share at Y-JAM events.
Organising and advocacy pay off
Since the campaign was launched, roughly 20 states have enacted more than thirty pieces of legislation to reduce the prosecution of youth in adult criminal court system and end the placement of youth in adult jails and prisons. The states have changed state policies by removing youth from adult jails and/or adult prisons, raising the age of juvenile court jurisdiction, and changing transfer laws to keep more kids in juvenile court. We’ve documented these successes in a report, “State Trends” and also posted all of the policy reforms on our website.
One of the states where we’ve just seen some tremendous campaign work is Maryland. Organisers Kara Aanenson, Jabriera Handy and Rashad Hawkins have spearheaded efforts to halt the construction of a $100 million jail to house youth charged as adults. They have fought against the jail construction for three years and it was announced recently that Governor O’Malley has backed off his plan to build the jail. In an article in the Baltimore Sun dated 19 January, “There's more to Baltimore than prisons: Maryland's abandonment of new juvenile jail could send positive message”, reporter Jean Marbella stated that “[i]t was quite the victory for a group of activists who have been agitating against the proposed jail, and slowly building support for their cause. I have to say, I didn't think they had a chance, given how much planning and design money had already been allocated by the General Assembly. After a certain point, projects like that tend to fall under Newton's first law of motion, turning into that object that continues to move forward at a constant speed unless external force is applied.” We are thrilled with this success as it underscores the power of organising and advocacy.
Challenges ahead and objectives
We look forward to building on the previous successes and launching new campaigns. For 2013, our biggest priorities are to support our allies in accomplishing policy reforms in three (or more!) states and to strengthen the work with directly affected youth and their families. One of the challenges in the current political climate is ensuring that our efforts are not undermined at the federal level through budget cuts and proposals that would send more youth into the juvenile and adult criminal justice systems such as placing more law enforcement in schools in the wake of the Newtown, CT tragedy.
We hope to hear from CRINMAIL readers on successful strategies and tactics for advancing juvenile justice reforms! We post regular updates on our blog and invite you to share information with us and your networks. We look forward to learning from CRINMAIL readers and other allies on successful strategies and tactics as we move forward.
Further Information:
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NEWS AND REPORT ROUND-UP
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UPCOMING EVENTS
Juvenile justice: International Colloquium on Juvenile Justice
Dates: 16–18 March 2013
Organisation: Penal Reform International et al.
Location: New Delhi, India
More details here.
Europe: 13th ISPCAN Regional Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect – Protecting Children in a Changing World
Dates: 15–18 September 2013
Organisation: International Society for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (ISPCAN)
Location: Dublin, Ireland
More details here.
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