Massachusetts Juvenile Justice Task Force on Racial Disparities

The Task Force is a group of community stakeholders who have come together to demand unprecedented transparency and accountability from the juvenile justice system whose policies and practices have devastating outcomes for youth in our state, particularly youth of color. We are organizing for fair treatment of all youth and less reliance on detention in our state. With training and support from Community Justice Network for Youth (CJNY), our group has been meeting regularly since 2008. Our group is comprised of members of Citizens for Juvenile Justice, City School, Louis D. Brown Peace Institute, Project Hip Hop, and Reflect and Strengthen, and we welcome more partners.

What We Do

The task force is focusing on two main goals at this time.
1. Education: We are committed to exposing the inequalities of the juvenile justice system to youth and families in our communities. The task force has built on curriculum created by CJNY and made it fit the realities of Massachusetts. We offer workshops on myths and facts about the system, history of the juvenile justice system, navigating the system, and the importance of data collection to create real change. We hope that through popular education, we can build a base of people who are armed with knowledge and strategies to reform the system.

2. Data Collection: Data is the key to creating positive, measurable change in the juvenile justice system. Right now, the state of MA doesn’t keep track of how many youth were arrested last year. What we do know is that youth of color make up approximately 20% of the state’s youth population but 60% of the youth held in locked facilities. We demand data collection and reporting at every decision point of the justice system so that we can attack racial disparities everywhere they are happening. These are our youth trapped in a system that we pay for. This data belongs to the people, and we will use it to identify policies that are harming youth of color and fight to change them.
Sign on to our letter of support for data collection legislation
by sending your organization’s name and contact information to cfjj@cfjj.org

For more information about the task force or our workshops, contact:

Mallory Hanora
Reflect and Strengthen
mallory@reflectandstrengthen.org
(860) 268-1369