Community Members Attend Townhall Meeting for New Chief Probation Officer Mr. Bill Sifferman

Juvenile Justice & the Schools, Not Jails Youth Movement

For over two decades, Coleman Advocates has brought together a diverse network of young people, parents, youth service providers, community organizations, and legal advocates to create a new juvenile justice system in San Francisco that supports young people’s development into healthy, productive and empowered citizens. We still have a long way to go.

In the last few years, young people have played a special role in this work. In San Francisco, across the state and the nation, resources are being poured into such things as policing in schools and prison construction, while huge numbers of students are failed by educational and social institutions and end up incarcerated, uneducated or unprepared for college and the job market. The poorest students, overwhelmingly youth of color, are increasingly labeled, pushed out of schools and into the “prison-track”. From the youth-led mobilization against Proposition 21 to youth organizing against new Oakland and San Francisco juvenile hall construction, young people are calling for “SCHOOLS, NOT JAILS” and asserting their leadership in turning the system around.

We Believe that Juvenile Justice Reform Should:
· Reduce the over-incarceration of young people & significantly lower the juvenile hall population.
· End the misuse and overuse of detention when young people come into contact with law enforcement.
· Reduce the number of young people in the entire juvenile justice system, including those on probation, in placement, in detention or at the California Youth Authority.
· Eliminate the over-incarceration of youth of color, especially the disproportionate detention of African American youth.
· Re-allocate public funds from police and detention/incarceration to community-based programs that support young people’s development and strengthen the family unit.
· Hold all aspects of the system accountable for producing positive outcomes for young people -- probation officers, police officers, department heads, elected officials, the school district and service providers with city contracts.
· Ensure that detention facilities are safe and humane, with effective services and staffing.
· Protect public safety without sacrificing young people’s rights, safety or opportunities for positive development.
· Hold schools accountable for the ways in which discipline policies and practices (such as zero tolerance) are implemented, particularly those practices that bring youth into contact with law enforcement.

Strategies
-Engaging young people in youth-led policy advocacy and direct action
-Convening coalitions of youth advocates to pressure city government for policy change
-Budget Advocacy -- advocating for increased funding for community-based alternatives to incarceration in the city budget process
-Data Monitoring & Analysis – tracking juvenile crime, the juvenile hall population and putting key data in the public arena
-Providing training to young people and parents in the juvenile justice system about their rights in the system and who the policy “power-players” are.
-Monitoring police policies and practices on school grounds & mobilizing for police accountability
-Media advocacy – promoting coverage of juvenile crime that addresses the root causes of crime and violence, and promotes alternative solutions to law enforcement and incarceration.

Our Impact
Our efforts have led to major policy reforms in the city, pushing resources from incarceration and institutionalization to community-based alternative services. This includes removing status offenders from the system in the mid 1980s, improving public (rather than judicial) oversight of the Juvenile Probation Department with a voter-mandated JPD Commission, and instituting an alternative intake system called the Community Assessment and Referral Center (CARC) in the mid-90s.

After two years of organizing efforts involving intensive outreach & education to hundreds of youth, mobilizing youth to juvenile hall actions, public hearings, and juvenile justice policy meetings, Coleman and Youth Making a Change helped to win the implementation of a juvenile hall intake reform called the “Risk Assessment Instrument” or RAI, which has been key to reducing unnecessary and unfair youth incarceration across the country. The juvenile hall population has declined steadily since the RAI implementation January 15th, 2003.

Current Work
-Providing leadership within the San Francisco Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative – working to reduce unnecessary incarceration by increasing the number of alternatives to detention.
-Supporting the founding and development of the Juvenile Justice Providers Association, as an advocate for community-based providers of services to high-risk & street-involved youth
-Engaging advocates and providers in the effort to preserve $4million in funds for community-based alternatives to incarceration.
-Monitoring the construction of the new, larger Juvenile Hall & ensuring it will not be filled once open in November, 2005.

• Coleman's Youth Justice Project
  The Youth Justice Project (YJP) is a new initiative at Coleman that engages 10-20 juvenile justice-involved youth per year in leadership development and youth-led advocacy to win concrete improvement in the lives of San Francisco’s highest risk youth. The youth participants attend weekly leadership workshops, work on advocacy campaigns, and take video production classes to reinforce their advocacy efforts. Youth voices long silenced, rarely heard or valued are joining the public debates about juvenile crime, incarceration, gang violence and “disconnected” youth. Young people primarily regarded as 'delinquents to be rehabilitated' will develop and advocate for solutions that 'will reform the systems' that have failed them. Coleman is partnering with Mission Neighborhood Centers, Instituto Familiar de la Raza, the Detention Diversion Advocacy Project, Hunters Point Family, Community Assessment & Referral Center, Conscious Youth Media Crew, & the Youth Commission on this project.
  
  

Resources, Reports and Articles

• Center on Juvenile & Criminal Justice
  
  
• Annie E. Casey Foundation – JDAI Initiative
  
  
• Haywood Burns Institute & the Community Justice Network for Youth
  
  
• Commonweal (statewide juvenile justice advocacy)
  
  
• Youth Force Coalition
  
  
• Schools Not Jails
  
  
• Ella Baker Center for Human Rights – Books Not Bars
  
  
• San Francisco Juvenile Probation Dept. Data
  
  
• San Francisco Juvenile Probation Dept. Public Meetings
  
  
• San Francisco Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice
  
  
• California Crime Statistics
  
  

• MAYOR NEWSOM'S SEARCH FOR NEW CHIEF JUVENILE PROBATION OFFICER IN FINAL STAGES— WILL IT BE A HAPPY NEW YEAR FOR INCARCERATED YOUTH?
  Over 3,000 youth in San Francisco’s deeply troubled juvenile justice system have the most at stake in Mayor Newsom’s upcoming appointment of Chief Probation Officer to run the Juvenile Probation Dept. We hope to hear an announcement of a new Chief Probation Officer, hopefully in the next few weeks, who supports the vision of a community-based juvenile justice system that truly supports and rehabilitates young people. Click here to see a copy of the "Community Criteria for the Selection of the Next Chief Probation Officer."
  
  
• DISPROPORTIONAL AMOUNT OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN YOUTH IN SF'S FOSTER CARE SYSTEM
  A recent study, the Disproportionality Report, conducted by a taskforce of community advocates, academic researchers, the Dept. of Public Health, and the Dept. of Human Services found that more than half of black male youths killed violently on the city’s streets during the past 2 years had been victims of child abuse or neglect. The 30-member taskforce, which includes Supervisor Maxwell, created 9 recommendations on remedying the disproportionality problem, including finding permanent placements for foster youth. Next steps include formation of a legislated task force on the issue, coordination with the Mayor’s office, and improved data collection and communication within DHS. For more info, call Dan Kelly, Principal Analyst with theDHS: 557-5871, dan_kelly@ci.sf.ca.us. Click here for a copy of the report.
  
  
  
• Read Coleman's Report on Police Misconduct at Thurgood Marshall High School
  
  
• Announcing a new youth-led content analysis on Bay Area news--Click here for report from the Youth Media Council
  What we read, watch, and listen to matters.
  FACT: Juvenile homicides have dropped by 45% since 1993, but two-thirds of Americans believe that violent youth crime is on the rise. FACT: Although less than one half of one percent of all American kids were arrested for a violent crime last year, youth and young adults are most often portrayed on the evening news as victims or perpetrators of violence. FACT: Two-thirds of the public say they make decisions about important policy issues based primarily on information from news and entertainment media.
  
  When inaccurate facts about youth of color are coupled with media stereotypes, our ability to advocate for effective policy solutions is curtailed, and the media becomes a threat to young people of color.
  
  In the Bay Area, young people are building the skills and developing the leadership to hold media outlets accountable for bias, and to congratulate those news organizations that consistently evaluate and improve their coverage of youth. By invitation of the San Jose Mercury News, the Youth Justice Project of Coleman Advocates for Children & Youth has just completed a media content analysis of the "the Merc's" coverage of youth and youth policy, with technical assistance and leadership from the Youth Media Council. We are excited to share our findings with you in this report.