Our young people are a big part of the community of possibilities. We can do better by them and for our communities, by ending the practice of youth confinement, closing youth prisons and developing resources for communities to be the place where young people belong.
It is time for us to see young people’s behavior as an expression of needs that persist unmet. So as we meet our need to hold young people accountable, we also must work hard to meet their needs. What we advocate for here is a different approach, one that creates an array of services that reflects the guiding principles stated within and is designed to truly respond to our young people.
As a collaboration of community-based organizations, we see firsthand the promise and assets in our young people, their parents, their siblings, their grandparents and their fictive kin and neighbors. We know that isolation is not good for young people, and certainly not the best way to help them. Instead, like all of us, young people need inclusion, support that they can relate to and opportunities to grow and develop. And they need their families.
We hope this report will help communities, systems and families, with the guidance of directly impacted young people, to develop a vast array of services and supports in the community that eliminate the need for any young person to be incarcerated.
