Parents Are The Best Resource

In the Parent’s Resource Center, you will find helpful information about how to navigate the criminal justice system and how to start a campaign to get your voice heard. You will also find a parent outreach video to engage others, and information about how to contact your local parent groups and local campaigns that are happening in your state.

> Parent's Guide to Transfer - Comprehensive guides for parents whose children are undergoing the process of transfer in Vermont, the District of Columbia and Virginia. 
> Find Your State Contacts - Interested in getting involved? Here are a list of organizations and individuals working to prevent the prosecution of youth in adult court. 
> Values of the National Parent Caucus - Want to know more about the National Parent Caucus? Here are a list of values and activities espoused by the NPC. 
> Parent Tools - Interested in getting involved and starting your own movement and following? Here are tools for parents who want to educate the media, the legislature and public about youth tried as adults.

Welcome from CFYJ

Hello,

We are happy that you have found us!  This web space is intended to serve families and friends of children and adults locked up or impacted by the juvenile and adult criminal justice systems.  If you have a child involved in the juvenile justice system or a child that has been charged, tried or convicted as an adult, this is the place for you!

The Campaign for Youth Justice has long recognized the need to have the people most impacted involved in the work to end mass incarceration and the laws that perpetuate the wholesale caging of millions in this country.  We believe that the family and youth voice is missing from reform efforts and that without those voices reform efforts run the risk of just creating better “cages.” The US does not need more or better cages. We need to STOP, take a hard look at this failed experiment and make significant and sustainable changes to an out of control system.

The United States incarcerates at the highest rate in the world with 2.3 million people behind bars and another 5 million on some form of probation or parole.  Research shows that 2.2 million kids are arrested every year; 1.7 million kids are referred to juvenile courts; 400,000 children cycle through juvenile detention centers; and nearly 100,000 youth are confined in boot camps, juvenile jails, prisons and other residential facilities on any given night.  Corrections budgets have quadrupled in the last two decades, and though many people believe this has no impact on their lives, the truth is there is not a man, woman or child not affected by the insatiable corrections budget in the billions.  The question is or should be, to what end?

Research and data, when paid attention to, gives us the answers.  Children charged and sentenced as adults are more likely to reoffend, reoffend quicker and with more serious charges than their counterparts who remain in the juvenile justice system.  If our goal is public safety then as a nation we are pouring billions into the one thing that we know doesn’t work.

As families of those locked up, we number in the millions.  We are the people that should be challenging the rhetoric and politicians who use this rhetoric to scare people into voting for foolish and ineffective crime policies. The National Parent Caucus is a group of families and allies from around the country that have made a decision to take a stand and demand a more just and effective juvenile and adult justice system.  Through the NPC we are gaining advocacy skills and becoming empowered to use our knowledge in our communities, our states and at the national level.

We, as families and friends, welcome you to our community!