MISSION
We unite a diverse network of advocates and organizers that are working towards community-based, trauma-informed and healing-centered responses to youth needs and away from prisons and policing. We seek to end youth criminalization and incarceration. Our work centers the needs of the most marginalized youth and reimagines a future where all youth have the freedom, resources and opportunities necessary to thrive.
VALUES
NYJN’s mission and strategies are driven first and foremost by the belief that our youth legal systems are inextricably bound with systemic and structural racism. In order for our movement to achieve the transformative and healing-centered vision of justice we seek, we must be committed to:
- Anti-racism: We ground ourselves in the principles of anti-racism to combat the centuries-long practice of targeting Black, Indigenous, Latine, Middle Eastern and North African, Asian and Pacific Islander youth in the legal system, and we commit to the work of racial equity and justice.
- Challenging systems: we are committed to working to prevent future harm to youth by dismantling current systems that cause harm, while simultaneously working to build alternatives that will better support our young people. We support changes that will decrease the power and reach of current systems and stand against changes that would strengthen or rebuild those systems and/ or further perpetuate oppression.
- Dignity for All Youth: We honor currently and formerly incarcerated youth by pursuing transformation that does not leave those already caught in the system behind.
- Healing Justice: We seek to address the consequences of oppression on our minds, bodies, and advocacy efforts by integrating healing practice and methodology in order to deepen our capacity for healing and liberation work.
- Intersectionality: We center the compounding negative impact of justice involvement for youth who are LGBTQIA2S+, gender non-conforming, immigrants, girls, working-class, rural, disabled, with mental health diagnoses, struggling with substance use and/ or experiencing school pushout.
- Shifting Power: We emphasize the critical importance of developing and amplifying the work and leadership of Black and Brown led and Black and Brown serving grassroots organizations, as well as youth that are system-impacted and/or currently or formerly incarcerated. We believe community driven leadership is the best way to develop policy and sustainable changes to improve the lives of young people.
THEORY OF CHANGE
NYJN’s members collectively strive to achieve systemic change by working collaboratively to form unified policy strategies, share resources, and provide support to each other. The principles that guide us in creating transformative change are:
- Abolition: We advocate for a total transformation of our nation’s response to youth needs – away from punishment and incarceration to one that values young people and views our collective duty as supporting them in their development into adulthood. We are committed to decriminalizing youth and building a future without policing and prisons.
- Community: Our policy and organizing pursuits are grounded in non-carceral, community-based youth legal system transformation. Success requires us to empower, uplift, educate, and take leadership from current and formerly incarcerated or at-risk youth and those living in racial and economically marginalized communities.
- Healing Justice: We understand that our everyday practices develop patterns for sustainable advocacy. We engage in sustainable advocacy practices by centering accountability, self and community reflection, accessible healing modalities and evolution of advocacy. We learn and integrate healing into our advocacy and work so that we do not replicate systems of oppression but rather create sustainable communities of care.
- Opportunity: Justice is ours when we make deep investments in historically disenfranchised communities in order to build opportunities for youth to dream and fulfill their potential. This requires us to divest from funding carceral systems and invest in community-based models of care, support and advocacy.
- Prevention and Diversion: Transforming youth justice means creating an ecosystem of health, educational, recreational, and economic resources that help youth grow into adults who never have to encounter the legal system. We are committed to policy pursuits that are grounded in non-carceral, community-based systemic transformation.
- Restoration: We advocate for age appropriate accountability when harm occurs that is guided by restorative justice and community healing principles. We support non-punitive, survivor-centered repair that addresses the root causes of harm. We invest in policies, organizations, skill-building, and culture-shifting practices that center the dignity of all and facilitate mutual healing.
- Transformation: We are progressive and transformative in our analysis of what true youth justice looks like, and we are committed to a future without policing and prisons.
- Narrative Change: We work to challenge harmful narratives about youth criminalization and uplift narratives about youth leadership, support, healing, and community in order to change the way that youth justice is viewed by society. This is integrated throughout all of the work that we do.