I'm going to be (attempting to) (poorly) live-tweet the @NewJerseyOAG Task Force on Youth Justice in NJ's Community Listening event tonight at Barringer High School in Newark. The Task Force was established by @GovMurphy. 
Youth of color represent 90% of the 70% decrease in county youth facility populations in NJ. Incarceration for minor offenses have been almost eliminated. 90% of kids in state custody have committed viloent offenses and have on avg a 5-year sentence.
There was already a listening session with currently incarcerated youth. There are 2 more public sessions, Trenton on 1/16 and Camden on 1/23. nj.gov/oag/youthjusti…
NJ policy says that every police department must have a way to give kids a break and not move the case forward. Either curbside, in the field, or station house, after the kids has been brought to the station. Many Police Departments do not have any policy and those that do vary.
The Task Force is looking at making this more uniform, expanding offenses that qualify, and tracking it's use to make sure it's being applied equitably.
Residential Facilities: Currently 14 facilities 11 no-secure community homes, 3 secure. One each for female youth. Average daily population last year was 312, 134 in secure. 5% female, 95% male. This Committee visited the community homes (had been at secure facilities).
Bonds issued must be used only for new facilities not programing. Many community homes are old and don't have space for programing. They spoke with the current kids in custody. They appreciated the opportunity to speak. They wanted job training, life skills programming,....
...and a chance to return and be productive adults.
Parole Subcommittee: looking at length of time in custody, the parole system, post release supervision, racial disparities, and the sentencing guidelines. Spoke to former and currently incarcerated kids. Evaluated systems used by other states.
NJ youth sentences are indeterminate. They have a length of sentence but can be released at any time on parole. NJ currently is one of only a few states that uses the adult parole board for youth. In NJ 70% serve their entire term, being denied parole.
Black youth are less likely to be paroled and more likely to serve their entire sentence. After release youth are supervised for 1/3 the length of their sentence. If they violate during that time they have their parole revoked.
Sentencing provisions: mandatory for youth to be listed on the sex offender registry given certain offenses despite a 2.75% recitivism rate for your sex offenders. Also looking at imposition of financial fines.
Subcommittee is considering: Should early release move from the parole board to the juvenile system. Should we remove technical violations for violating parole. Reevaluating post-release supervison. Should sex offender registry be mandatory. Should fines be eliminated.
Comment: Has a nephew who has been in prison since 14, charged as an adult. A lot of the problems he's had have been from Corrections Officers and she has heard from other COs that some COs even have racist tattoos. TF says they'll evaluate hiring practices.
Comment: Concern that closing existing secure and building newer fancier facilities is not what we need. We need community programs. Racial disparities need to be acknowledged and need to evaluate the systematic institutional racism…
...A child walked into Livingston HS with a gun. He didn't go to the youth house, no public court hearing. He was diverted to counciling which is a chance kids in Newark who do far less should get too.
Comment: Entered Jamesburg at 12 for violating curfew. From 12-55 he was never home for more than a year. He learned to be a criminal inside the system. His parole was determined by the superintendent of the institution not the parole board. He thinks that should return...
...Several NJ prisoners who entered the system as 14-18 year olds are still in prison today after 40+ years.
Comment: We are in a school and we can't not start there. Teachers who are afraid of 3rd grade black boys. Criminialization of black youth starts in school, disruptive, needs to be medicated. Children need therapy but the community is also broken when they are violated...
...We need to see the love the children bring to the table. She has been a victim of crime. But how can I not love them as a mother or a professor. Isolated children's brains do not develop. Her 2 black sons travel all over the world, she's most afraid when they're in Newark.
Comment: The system is wrong. Left the projects, graduated college. But his friends didn't. They made a mistake. It can't be about warehousing, it has to be about rehabilitation. Kids are treated like cattle. Where is the money to help these kids? Skills, job training, etc...
...Need transparency.Need people who look like him on positions that show they can do it too. Need to help every person victimized by the current system.
Comment: Women are the largest growing portion of the prison and youth facility populations. Grew up an at risk youth in a single parent household. A product of the juvenile system. A 23-year formerly incarcerated success story. Glad the Subcommittees are lead by women...
...They already have the men, now they're coming for the women from the house, so who are they going to come for next. Need to include success stories. Went from a HS drop out to a college graduate.
Comment: Acknowledges the prior female speakers. With juveniles, you also have to deal with the parents. And you're dealing with problems the parents couldn't. Need to take care of the children, but they see what happens to their parents. Are we giving the parents 2nd chances.
Comment: Review opportunity youth programs because they haven't gone anywhere. Need to look at contract programs because they're not evaluating for mental health. Need resources for the LGBTQ community.
Comment: Why are we spending on incarceration instead of communities? When kids get out they return to the same broken communities. We're operating from the perspective that we have to incarcerate our kids. We don't. We could provide those services in the community.
Comment: What are we doing to keep kids from getting locked up? Product of the system. There is no rehab in those places. They go on kids and come out gang bangers. They're fighting for their lives in the place that's supposed to rehabilitate them…
...Upon release there was no plan, he was just told you're free to go. Whether it's this or that, you're building places to lock up our kids. What are we doing to rehab our children?
Comment: A ounce of protection is worth a pound of cure. Kids weren't born to go to prison. They were born to learn and thrive. They need support, mentors, role models and a village to raise them.
Comment: 17 year old woman. You see nothing wrong when 70% of kids in prison are black. Why do you see black kids as a threat, because of the color of our skin? Youth prisons don't work, it doesn't fix the harm the caused, and it doesn't help them avoid the system...
$289k/year to incarcerate a single kid. Why not spend that on the kid, their family, and their community. Why can't they have a suburban education and get the same opportunity.
Need to treat incarcerated youth as humans to give them any chance. See them as kids who need love, guidence, support, and protection.
Comment: Parent of an 11 year old. There is a paralysis of analysis in the government around this issue. Community based treatment allows for rehabilitation of the citizen. Essex County leads the state in sentencing of youth. NJ has been in this business for a long time...
...Don't blame Trump, take the lead and get us criminal justice reform in NJ. The Newark Superintendent and the Mayor don't want a youth incarceration facility in Newark. Points to Philly as a better model.
Comment: One of the things that's missing is empathy. Also a product of the juvenile justice system from 1959. Spent 20+ years in prison. Nobody on your panel looks like me. No one has the experience of being in that juvenile facility...
If we're going to label people with mental illness we need to treat it when they're there and give them a plan for when they bring that home with it. "I've now educated myself, had a career in mental health, why aren't I on the panel?"
Comment: Got a station house adjustment when she was 16 because she was white and middle class. Need Nneighborhood based and child centered. "Our black and brown children are caught up in a system that is designed to fail them. We know that, they know that."
Comment: "I too wear the stigma of incarceration." Was traumatized at age 14 and the people she trusted and closest to her didn't have her back. Hurt people hurt people. When there was an opportunity for healing through a program in the youth house she had her ah-ha moment....
...Need the opportunity to escape. Now has a Bachelor's in Social Work. "Now I'm a change agent." Credits to the youth who have shown up today to stand up for themselves. "I am the example of what change looks like."
Comment: Also a product of the juvenile justice system. Wants to go back to the question asked by the 17-year-old speaker, she wasn't answered. The panel needs to have formerly incarcerated and youth on it. Speaks to the youth in the room. "You have a voice, use it!"
Comment: Was directly impacted by the juvenile justice system. It is not a place for kids. It doesn't give you the tools to return and be successful. All they did was yell and give orders. Found a program after release that didn't give up on him and he felt like they cared...
...The community programs exist and work, why not fund them? You could invest in communities not prisons. "The future of our kids are in your hands."
Comment: 1st grade teacher in Newark. Do the therapeutic centers have concrete walls and barbed wire? Have you talked to therapists about what that type of facility looks like?...
...We've said what we want for years and decades now. We want what's happening in the city's just next door where his doesn't happen to their kids. If it's lawyers we want those. If it's good teachers, we want those. If it's what's being poured into families, we want that.
Comment: Who's deciding what research is being used to shape these new plans? Who's measuring if it's working? Who's looking at what's happening and being used today and if it's best practices.
Comment: Worked in a school in NYC that had a police precinct and a cell in the building. But everyone always said the kids were the problem. What would the conversation be if it was reversed and we were locking up 70% white kids? What would that solution look like?...
How would we talk about that? We need to get at the root causes that allow our children to develop in ways that they lose their human dignity....
...Ideas: Fully fund the school reform act. Expand pre-school seats. Reorganize the Youth Policy Board out of the OAG. Support children's cabinets to align on strategy. State level grants for anti-racism training. Fund trauma informed partnerships between schools and health depts
Comment: 21-year-old woman. In foster care from age 12, many other kids ended up in the criminal justice system. The youth system focus on restrictions and compliance. No one taught me how to express myself....
...We are treated like animals and then thrown back into the community. There's money for youth prisons but not for aftercare.
Comment: Represent parents and grandparents of incarcerated youth. Has an incarcerated granddaughter. Works with incarcerated youth. "Criminal or unconscionable?" They can't bring glasses from home but it takes 9-months to get glasses while they're supposed to be learning. ...
...Who's watching the COs when they're yelling, retaliating, using profanity? Who's managing and monitoring the system? When behavior inside can take your 3 years and make it 5 or 7. It's a disgrace. ...
...They closed a detention center in Union County, but where did the money go? They give out token amounts to Community programs, but not even enough to hire a professional. If she treated my child this way she would be arrested.
Comment: Was a multi-system youth, foster and juvenile. Locking up kids is not a solution. Recitivism rate shows the current system is broken. Falling to supply our kids with the love, support, and guidence they need. ...
...Your children or your children's children could end up there one day. "What saved me was my community, people who care about me. Being locked up did nothing but destroy me." Don't just hear us, listen. We do not want any new youth prisons built.
Comment: Reading comments from another person just released from JCC. Was 17 when I went in, 22 now. Almost the same person he was when he was arrested. Wants to return to his old life but doesn't want to disappoint those that care about him. ...
...Bracelet is broken but Parole Officer says it's working. Has been beaten by COs, called the n-word.
Comment: We know the research, we know the numbers. Points to OH, TX, NY as successful community programs. Asks state and local policy makers to ask themselves: ...
..."What will you do? Will you follow emperical data that says community programs work or say the bond says we have to build something?" "Will you look your children in the eye and say I worked the system or I worked to change the system."
Comment: Did 20 years, 10 years in solitary. Need to include formerly incarcerated. You can't understand what the experience is. "The circus don't change, only the clowns."
Comment: Don't do anything less than you'd do for your own children.
Comment: Speaking on the behalf of young men he's worked with who are or were incarcerated. Ask them why did you get into trouble? There was nothing to do. No space in the community center. They are then sold to the lowest bidder to put in a cell for rehabilitation. ...
..."Our youth are not for sale!" Non-violent offenses, that don't affect the community, but the punishment is abuse and trauma inflicted by the system.
Comment: The statistics, maybe you have some distance. But the conclusions you will come to will be tied to you. Think about your legacy, don't be the states pawn. Don't let yourselves be used as a pawn of white liberalism. Need to see the report and what comes of it.
That's it. Bad service so I couldn't post in real time.
Thank you to everyone who spoke. You all coveyed your points well.
I'm listening, others are listening. We'll do everything we can to make sure @GovMurphy and @NewJerseyOAG are listening.
I'm listening, others are listening. We'll do everything we can to make sure @GovMurphy and @NewJerseyOAG are listening.
