As the United States approaches its 243rd Independence Day, one reflects on who in our country is entitled to the freedoms of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” that are embedded into our Declaration of Independence?  Are we all truly seen as equals entitled to these unalienable rights? From the inception of U.S. Independence Day, it has been clear that only some Americans are granted such privileges. From the U.S. Constitution’s consideration of slaves to be 3/5 of a person, and the 13th amendment permitting enslavement for the incarcerated, it is clear that our founding fathers didn’t grant everyone freedom.

Today, June 26, is the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. Here in the U.S., survivors of torture from all over the world have sought asylum and received support and care from groups like the Center for Victims of Torture. The U.S. government even issued a statement today in which Secretary of State Pompeo, with what one presumes is a straight face, asserted: 

“The United States is unambiguous. We never conduct torture, period, full stop.”

By Marion Humphrey, Jr.

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.

As introduced in the The Color of Youth Transferred to the Adult Criminal Justice System: Policy & Practice Recommendations, in the United States, “the vestiges of slavery are embedded in the criminal justice system and codified in the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution: Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

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

By Marcy Mistrett, CEO

Anniversaries can be moments of celebration or they can be reminders of our losses and short-comings.  The exoneration and settlement awarded to of five young men charged with rape, assault, robbery , attempted murder, and rioting  in NY in 2014 juxtaposed to the tragic suicide of Kalief Browder in 2015 underscores this fact.

Today is the 4th anniversary of Kalief Browder’s death; he was 22 years young when he took his life, after spending three years on Rikers Island in New York as a teenager, two of which were spent in solitary confinement.  His story moved a nation—and the state of New York fundamentally changed the way it looked at 16 & 17 year olds in their justice system.

By Aprill O. Turner, CFYJ Communications Director

NOTE: CFYJ Communications Director, Aprill Turner appeared on WHUR.FM (Washington, DC) with cast member of "When They See Us", Asante Blackk. Check out the full interview here--What You Will Learn From the Documentary of Central Park 5.

 ***

Today Netflix releases the highly anticipated limited series, Ava DuVernay's "When They See Us". The series chronicles the story of the tragic Central Park Five case about five teenage boys of color from Harlem 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.

The Campaign for Youth Justice had the opportunity to participate in an advanced screening of the film last month in New York, along with other social and criminal justice advocacy organizations.

By Brian Evans, CFYJ State Campaigns Director

Back in 1994, the year the infamous federal Crime Bill passed – accelerating mass incarceration throughout the United States – the voting public in Oregon chose to endorse Measure 11, a “tough-on-crime” proposal that required children as young as 15 to automatically be transferred to the adult criminal justice system for a wide variety of crimes. By 1997, the legislature had expanded the list of crimes to 23 and lengthened the mandatory sentences associated with them.

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. Michigan’s legislature recently passed bill packages in the House and the Senate to raise the age. 

Brian Harrington was fourteen-years-old when he was prosecuted as an adult in Illinois and sentenced to twenty-five year under the state’s truth in sentencing law.  On April 11th, his attorney and loved ones presented his clemency petition in the hopes of bringing him home before he spends over half of his life incarcerated.

On December 7, 2018, an undercover Columbus Police officer shot and killed sixteen-year-old  Julius Ervin Tate Jr. in a sting operation. The police allege that Tate pulled a gun on one of the officers during their exchange, but that claim is under dispute.  A week later, the police arrested sixteen-year-old Masonique Saunders, Tate’s girlfriend, for aggravated robbery and the felony murder of her boyfriend.