On Juneteeth, June 19, 2019, the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary held a hearing on H.R. 40, an act to create a commission to study and develop reparation proposals for African-Americans. Our summer fellow Marion Humphrey, Jr. wrote a blog this week highlighting how juvenile justice needs to be apart of the reparations discussion. 

The brief was released in response to the passage of the Juvenile Justice Reform Act of 2018 (JJRA), signed into law on December 21, 2018. The JJRA reauthorized the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA) for the first time in sixteen years and, in addition to many other important reforms, the law will now require states to remove all youth, from adult jails and lock-ups pretrial.

Summer is here and CFYJ has a new class of summer fellows! Our 2019 fellow class represents diverse backgrounds from all over the country and have come to Washington this summer with one goal-- to help advance justice for young people. Learn more about their backgrounds and aspirations.

Pictured left to right: Ashni, Ashley, Francine, and Marion

 Today we remember Kalief Browder and the children who sleep in adult jails and prisons every night across the country. Anniversaries can be moments of celebration or they can be reminders of our losses and short-comings.

Netflix's highly anticipated limited series, Ava DuVernay's "When They See Us" chronicles the story of the tragic Central Park Five case about five teenage boys who were wrongly convicted of the rape of a white woman which they didn't commit in 1989, and the 25-year fight for justice following their conviction.

In this episode, we speak with Eddy Zheng who became involved in the justice system by getting entangled in the migration to school to prison and deportation pipeline. Eddy has taken his experiences since his release and is now an advocate for youth justice. Check out his story.

Souls of Young Folk: The Disproportionate Prosecution of Black Youth as Adult in New Jersey, a new brief by the New Jersey Parents’ Caucus, highlights the historical and social treatment of black youth in New Jersey and the emergence of the state’s youth waiver laws.  

Since 2016, five states, Louisiana, South Carolina, New York, North Carolina, and Missouri, have passed laws to raise the age of juvenile court jurisdiction to age eighteen.  Now, only four states remain with lower ages of juvenile court jurisdiction without laws to raise the age in the near future.

CFYJ would like to introduce our Weekly Legislative Update. The update provides a look at the most recent legislation that has been introduced in states across the country concerning youth prosecuted as adults.

Many activists and organizers are well versed in the ways that structural racism drives unfair outcomes for youth who come in contact with the law.  It is well documented that despite a near 60% drop in youth incarceration and continued falling arrest rates that in many places racial and ethnic disparities are increasing despite reform efforts.