Take Action for Juvenile Justice

by Matt Kelley · 2009-09-10 07:14:00 UTC
Topics:

This week marks the 35th anniversary of the U.S. Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA), which provides federal funding to states that comply with a set of best practices aimed at avoiding the institutionalization of children convicted of crimes.

It's a good law, and it's up for reauthorization this year. If you believe more resources should be devoted to juvenile justice systems and alternatives to incarceration, send your representatives a letter today urging them to strengthen the JJDPA. I'll tell you why I think this is important below.

The JJDPA requires participating states to keep juvenile offenders seperate from adults, to avoid disproportionate minority contact with the system and to provide paths back to the community for kids caught in the system. But its funding has eroded in recent years - even the stimulus hasn't saved it. A report released this week by the Coalition for Juvenile Justice - an organization of state leaders - praises the federal government for 35 years of leadership on the issue, but worries that dramatic decreases in funding could harm states' ability to comply with the law.

A coalition of organizations and individuals called ACT 4 Juvenile Justice has formed to support reauthorization of the bill and to call for stronger leadership on juvenile justice from the federal government. ACT4JJ calls for increased support of crime prevention programs, for provisions allowing even juveniles convicted as adults to be housed in juvenile facilities and for stronger action to reduce racial disparities in the system. Read the group's eight-point recommenation fact sheet here.

And take action today to play a role in better juvenile justice and crime prevention nationwide.

Photo by abardwell

Matt Kelley is the Online Communications Manager at the Innocence Project and a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Follow him on Twitter @mattjkelley.
PREVIOUS STORY:
New PSA: Educate Us, Or Else
NEXT STORY:
Make the Call! Stop the Torture of Special Needs Children in Massachusetts

COMMENTS (1)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.