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Just six months ago, while standing in front of the New Jersey Training School for Boys ("Jamesburg") – the largest prison for boys in the state – the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, joined by nearly 400 people of all ages, races, faiths, and genders, made a commitment to fundamentally transform youth justice in our state by closing its failed prisons for young people.
On that day, which was Jamesburg's 150th anniversary, the Institute officially launched its "150 Years is Enough" campaign.
We were compelled to take action because New Jersey's youth justice system is a moral failure. It is racially discriminatory and does not reduce recidivism or increase public safety.
The numbers don't lie:
A Black child in New Jersey is, incredibly, over 30 times more likely to be incarcerated than a similarly-situated white child, even though Black and white youth commit most offenses at similar rates. As a result, only 18 white kids are incarcerated in the state.
No state in the country has a greater black/white racial disparity in youth incarceration rates than New Jersey.
And New Jersey spends $250,000 each year per child in custody. Imagine how an annual investment of $250,000 could change a child's life.
Because every child can be saved and there are no throwaway kids, we came together to demand a system that supports the possibility of each child.
We also declared that it is time for us to summon for children of color the same empathy and resources our courts and justice system has made available for white children for decades, and more recently for white people ensnared in the opioid crisis more broadly.
And our voices were heard. In a direct response to our campaign, former Gov. Chris Christie closed Jamesburg and the Female Secure Care and Intake Facility ("Hayes") – New Jersey's prison for girls – and announced that they would be replaced with two rehabilitation centers to be built based on national best practices for children.
This is one of the most significant youth justice reforms in our state in the last 150 years.
The closing of New Jersey's youth prisons stands as a powerful example of how people in communities across the country are advancing progressive reforms, despite the racist, xenophobic, and dangerous policies being promoted by national leaders, including President Donald Trump.
At this moment in history, people who care about racial and social justice cannot afford to be timid. Our "150 Years Is Enough" campaign demonstrates that resistance and change must happen from the ground up in our communities. Together, we can advance a bold, ambitious, and progressive agenda that addresses some of the greatest social and racial justice challenges of our time.
So, what comes next?
Now we must ensure that our vision for youth justice becomes a reality in our state.
To chart the way forward, the Institute has proposed a transformative vision for youth justice in New Jersey.
First, we must ensure that the default for every child involved in the youth justice system is to stay at home with community-based wrap-around services and treatment. Studies have shown that such programs provide real and transformative rehabilitation for our youth.
Second, in the rare occasions when an out-of-home placement may be necessary for public safety, children should not be sent to prisons. Instead, New Jersey must create small, cottage-like, holistic, child-centered, treatment-focused facilities that offer wrap-around services and rehabilitation. These centers should be based on national best practices: located in areas that ensure sustained family engagement and staffed by public workers who are not only trained in youth rehabilitation but also provide culturally sensitive, developmentally-appropriate, and trauma-informed care.
We must work together to ensure that this transformative vision for youth justice becomes a reality in our state, and that New Jersey finally closes the book on youth incarceration because 150 years is enough.
More than a century and a half ago, Frederick Douglass famously argued that, "It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men." Douglass's words echo today, with eerie precision, in youth detention centers and prisons across New Jersey.
Together, we can make New Jersey a standard bearer for social and racial justice. Together we can help build strong children so that we don't have to repair broken men and women.
By Ryan P. Haygood
21 February 2018
