Policy & Advocacy
At NYJN, we envision a world where young people thrive in well-resourced communities, and when they make mistakes, they are held accountable for their actions in age-appropriate ways that do not draw on our nation’s current system of policing and prisons.
This requires deep investments in historically disenfranchised communities, specifically Black, Brown, Indigenous, LGBTQIA+, and Disability communities. It also requires a culture shift away from punishment and incarceration to one that values young people and views our collective duty as supporting young people in their development into adulthood.
NYJN’s Policy & Advocacy Department serves as a hub to support organizers and advocates so that they have the tools needed to vision, strategize and align state-level advocacy campaigns toward this new vision of youth justice.
National Advocacy Agenda
NYJN is committed to advancing a national advocacy agenda that dismantles punitive carceral systems and creates a community-based, healing-centered continuum of care. We do this by:
- Organizing and collaborating with members, national partners, impacted youth and families
- Compiling and disseminating up-to-date research
- Monitoring state and federal youth justice policies
- Supporting strategic communications, media advocacy and long-term narrative change
- Cultivating transformative leadership
- Cataloging national advances in the field annually
- Publishing policy platforms, fact sheets & toolkits, and other publications
- Developing webinars, workshops and trainings
Working Groups and National Coalitions
NYJN’s working groups help foster strategic alignment on issues that cut across states and jurisdictions. We work with national partners on the Act 4 Juvenile Justice Coalition (Act4JJ), the National Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Coalition (NJJDPC), and the LGBTQ Steering Group. Our current Working Groups include:
- Raise the Minimum Age Working Group
- Narrative Change Working Group
Technical Assistance Hub
NYJN’s Technical Assistance Hub provides capacity building tools for members to advance transformative change in their respective states and nationally. Technical assistance support can be customized based on the needs of your campaign, including:
- Policy research and analysis
- Campaign development and strategy
- Narrative and strategic communications planning
- Legislative support
- Member-to-member connections
- Policy platforms
- Publications
- Toolkits
- Webinars, workshops and trainings