PO Box 73688, L.A., CA 90003 / www.youth4justice.org / 323-235-4243

Is Number

One

L.A. LOCKDOWN

#1 worldwide: Incarceration (Prison Spending and Prison Population); Pornography Production/Export; Gangs Creation/Export; Meth Production/Export; Import/Export of 5 Illegal Drugs; Hand Guns; White Supremacy Gangs and Orgs

#1 nationwide: Gap between rich and poor, Homelessness, Youth in Foster Care - many were “orphaned” by the prison system, “Riots,” Children and People Living in Poverty, Immigration and Deportation

L.A. is home to:• The world’s largest county jail system with as many as 140,000 people

a year cycling through as many as 8 county jails.• The world’s largest juvenile halls - Eastlake, Barry J. Nidorf and Los

Padrinos - with as many as 20,000 youth a year detained. • The world’s largest Probation Department - with over 20,000 youth and

40,000 adults on Probation.• The world’s largest youth prison system - L.A. has nearly as many

Probation “camps” - 19 - as community colleges (20).• The United States has 5% of the world’s population but 25% of the

world’s prison population. The U.S. is #1 in prisons, China with 1/3 of the world’s population is #2.

• California leads the nation in the number of people locked up: (over 200,000 a day in state prisons, youth prisons, youth camps and ranches, jails, juvenile halls and those held in detention with ICE - Immigration and Customs Enforcement - holds.

the Youth Justice

Coalition

THE YOUTH JUSTICE COALITION is working to build a youth, family and prisoner-led movement to challenge America’s

addiction to incarceration and race, gender and class inequality in Los Angeles

County’s, California’s and the nation's juvenile and criminal injustice systems. The

YJC’s goal is to dismantle policies and institutions that has ensured the massive

lock-up of people of color, widespread police violence and corruption, consistent

violation of youth and communities’ Constitutional and human rights, the

construction of a vicious school-to-jail track, and the build-up of the world's largest

network of jails and prisons. We use direct action organizing, advocacy, political

education and activist arts to agitate, expose, and pressure the people in charge in

order to upset power and bring about change.

YJC youth members, ages 7 to 24, are the young people L.A. has

labeled as criminals, gangsters, thugs and hoodlums - in other words,

we’re disregarded, dismissed, and generally dissed. To most people,

we are invisible and forgotten, locked away in dusty corners of LA

County, behind barbed wire and concrete - in juvenile halls, county

jails, Probation camps and youth authorities. We’ve been pushed out

of the school system into Continuation and Probation Schools where

the teachers are overworked and under-trained, the books and

materials are in short supply, and there are more Probation Officers

than guidance counselors. We report to Probation and Parole on the

regular, and have gotten use to routine police searches and peeing in a

cup on demand.

The YJC has made a commitment to building youth leadership by promoting a voice, vision and action plan for community justice that is developed, led and staffed at all levels by people who have experienced the justice system first-hand. The project represents one of the nation's few organizing projects led by young people who have been, or are currently under arrest, on probation, in detention, in prison, on parole, who have been deported or face deportation, or whose parents/guardians, brothers or sisters have been incarcerated for long periods of their lives. Parent and family leaders as well as liberated lifers are also active as organizational leaders.

Organizing Campaigns: 1. Think Outside the Cage - (Conditions of Confinement) - Impact conditions at juvenile halls, camps, county jails and prisons, including challenging LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE and other extreme sentences. Reduce L.A. County’s over-reliance on incarceration and increase community based alternatives to arrest, court, detention and incarceration, with a goal of reducing lock-up by 75% in ten years, including closing CYA/DJJ youth prisons (3/4 are closed so far), and stopping the building of any additional cells at all levels. (No More Jails Coalition, End solitary confinement, Senate Bill 9, Senate Bill 260, Senate Bill 261) 2. No War on Youth - End California’s War on Gangs including ending the use of gang databases and gang injunctions. (Gang injunction exit process, Senate Bill 458, Senate Bill 829)3. LA for Youth - Move law enforcement dollars to youth jobs, peace/intervention workers and youth centers. (In L.A., just 1% = 100 million a year.) 5. College Pre Not Prison Prep - End the school-to-jail track - no truancy tickets/truancy sweeps or fare evasion tickets, free metro passes, replace police in schools and school push-out with peace-builders and transformative justice.6. S.T.O.P. Police Violence.

Just

1%

of L.A.’s Courts, LAPD, Sheriffs’ District Attorney’s, Probation’s and City Attorney’s Budgets = $100 Million and would pay for: 500 full-time peacebuilders/ intervention workers; 50 youth centers open from 3pm - midnight, 365 days a year; and 25,000 youth jobs.

Even as our states and counties are in a fiscal crisis, we have enough money for what we need. Across the U.S., we must challenge the notion thatpolice and prison budgets are untouchable.

Additional Savings: In Los Angeles, each murder costs $1 million to Investigate and averages $16 million more in Jail, Court and Incarceration costs. With drastic decreases in homicide across the nation, the money saved should be reinvested

in our schools and communities.

The cost of incarceration in California is $50,000 a year, per person in state prison - and more than $100,000 a year for people who are elderly, disabled or seriously ill; $120,000 a year in juvenile hall; $220,000 a year in a Probation camp; and as high as $261,000 a year for a youth in the state’s youth prison system.

The failure rate (recidivism) of those systems is between 70 and 81%.

The costs to lock up one of theseyouth for a year - arrest, court and incarceration costs - could provide programming in this park for2,000 youth from 3pm - midnight, year-around, including hiring 25 youth.

The cost of RJ/Tj and other community and school-based alternatives to arrest, court, detention and incarceration is between $1,000 and $30,000 (residential treatment) a year, per person - and has a recidivism rate less than 30% . Seventy percent of participants donot cycle back into the system.

Safe passage programs, (like this one run by “Big Mike” Cummings), get youth safety to and from school and save hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in hospital, police, court and incarceration costs. When he is paid, Big Mike makes 1/3 what a rookie police officer makes. Many years, he volunteers due to lack of funding.

Job and Cost Comparisons Between Law Enforcement and Intervention

LIKE MOST ORGANIZING GROUPS, WE WERE CAUGHT UP IN THE BATTLE - OVERWHELMED BY THE MASSIVE NUMBER OF YOUTH WHO WERE GETTING CAUGHT UP IN THE STREETS AND THE SYSTEM - AND TRYING TO MONITOR CONDITIONS IN THE LOCK-UPS AND PUSH TO CLOSE JUVENILE HALLS AND YOUTH PRISONS. BUT, MORE AND MORE YOUTH WERE ALSO FACING REAL DRAMA IN THEIR LIVES - FIGHTS, NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCES, FAMILY MEMBERS MURDERED BY STREETS OR POLICE, AND EVERYONE WAS

GETTING PUSHED OUT OF SCHOOL… IT WAS GOING TO TAKE A LIFETIME TO SEE THE CHANGES WE NEEDED IN OUR COMMUNITIES. IN THE MEANTIME, WE HAD TO DO MORE TO IMPROVE YOUNG PEOPLE’S IMMEDIATE LIFE CHANCES.

We prioritized 7 essential services for our work:

LEGAL EDUCATION TRAINING YOUTH AND COMMUNITIES ON WHAT TO DO WHEN STOPPED BY THE POLICE, COP WATCH, NEGOTITAING COURT, FIGHTING A CASE AND IMMIGRANT, PROTEST AND STUDENT RIGHTS.

COURT SUPPORT TO REDUCE CONVICTIONS AND IMPACT SENTENCEING HELP DEFENSE WITH INVESTIGATIONS, TRACKING DOWN AND PREPPING WITNESSES, MONOTORING DA AND POLICE MISCONDUCT ON CASES, COURT MONOTORING AND ACTIONS.

FREE L.A. HIGH SCHOOL TO PROVIDE STUDENTS RETURNING HOME FROM LOCK-UPS OR THOSE PUSHED OUT OF OTHER SCHOOLS AN OPPORTUNITY TO EARN THEIR HIGH SCHOOL DEGREE, PREPARE FOR COLLEGE AND A CAREER, AND LEARN AND LEAD ORGANIZING.

CHUCO’S JUSTICE CENTER A FREE YOUTH AND COMMUNITY CENTER, A MOVEMENT SPACE AND GATHERING PLACE TO SUPPORT LIBERATION ARTS AND SOCIAL JUSTICE WORK.

We prioritized 7 essential services for our workcontinued :LEGAL CLINICS TO EXPUNGE AND SEAL RECORDS, CLEAR TICKETS, PREPARE IMMIGRATION APPLICATIONS, PETITION FOR GANG INJUNCTION AND GANG DATABASE REMOVALS, AND ASSIST WITH DEFENSE AND

APPEALS IN CRMINAL CASES. THE FAIR CHANCE PROJECT, WALK THE YARD AND WELCOME HOME TO SUPPORT LIFERS AND OTHER PEOPLE WITH WRITS, APPEALS, SUPPORT IN RETURNING HOME, AND “WALK THE YARD” - TO CONNECT YOUTH GOING INTO PRISON WITH LIFERS INSIDE TO MENTOR THEM IN AVOIDING POLITICS AND WRITE-UPS, RUNNING POSITIVE PROGRAMS, PREPARING FOR PAROLE, AND STAYING SAFE.

& PEACEBUILDING - INTERVENTION AND TRANSFORMATIVE JUSTICE TO REPLACE SCHOOL POLICE WITH PEACEBUILDERS, PREVENT AND REDUCE CONFLICTS AND RETALIATION IN SCHOOLS, STREETS AND LOCK-UPS, AND REDUCE VIOLENCE - INCLUDING HOMICIDES - BETWEEN NEIGHBORHOODS AND CREWS.

Abolition of Juvenile and Criminal Injustice Systems

Ideal Becomes Reality

STARVE THE BEAST What we can change with today’s realities & YJC’s current

power. Campaigns for short-term systems change, transformative justice and triage (emergency services) to

save lives, pull people out of the system and keep them out.

THINK OUTSIDE THE CAGEMajor Changes to System

YJC’s Mid-term Campaigns to Win Larger Changes and Contribute to Powerful Movement

Where We Are What’s happening today.

Modern Roots

What We Lost, a.k.a. U.S. Lockdown - How We Got the

Current SystemWhere We Started Roots In Restorative Justice - What We

Had

< 500 years Last 500 years through 2002. 2003-2006 2007-2020 2020-? RIP PIC

How We See Ourselves and

Each Other

FROM VICTIM, OFFENDER, PREDATOR, JUVENILE, MINOR, DELINQUENT, WARD, PROBATIONER,

ILLEGAL ALIEN/IMMIGRANT, CONVICT, MINORITY,HIGH RISK YOUTH, INMATE, PRISONER…

TO HUMAN BEING: (PEOPLE/YOUTH IN PRISON, CONVICTED PEOPLE, YOUTH IN CONFLICT WITH THE LAW, UNDOCUMENTED PEOPLE.)

FROM GANG MEMBERS

TO CHILD SOLDIERS

FROM YOUTH ARE MONSTERS

TO THE SYSTEM IS MONSTROUS

FROM PUNISHMENT WORKS

TO TRANSFORMATIVE JUSTICE, INCLUDING TAKING REPONSIBILITY AND REPAIRING HARM

FROM “DO ADULT CRIME, DO ADULT TIME.”

TO NO YOUTH IN ADULT COURTS, JAILS OR PRISONS. AND FAIR AND HUMANE TREATMENT FOR BOTH YOUTH AND ADULTS.

THIS INCLUDES ENDING OUR USE OF DISRESPECTFUL TERMS FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT