Towards a Restorative Vision of Criminal Justice

While being involved with Next Gen Politics this year, I realized how much civic engagement and activism meant to me. During the second semester of being a civic fellow, I chose criminal justice, specifically gang violence, as the topic that I wanted to focus on creating reform for. Gang violence is such an important and significant issue that is never addressed correctly by the media as it too often just uses stories for profit. There is so much of the justice system that needs to be fixed and since we can only start at one place, we chose to start addressing gang violence with Project Restoration. 

Project Restoration’s goal is to “provide gang-involved youth with a path forward in their lives that helps them take accountability for any harm done in ways that do not involve an arrest, criminal conviction, and incarceration AND that equips them to succeed on a new non-criminal life trajectory.”

I was given the opportunity to work with Jarrell Daniels, which was so eye opening to me. We interviewed him and asked him about his experiences and his perspective as he was previously incarcerated. Through talking to him, we realized the most effective and efficient solution is to create preventative solutions for gang violence, rather than only addressing AFTER a person has returned from being incarcerated. We compiled a list of opportunities, resources, and programs in New York City that are specifically geared towards youth who are in high-risk communities. We plan to distribute a flyer with the best resources in schools located in Brownsville, Brooklyn, and the South Bronx. 

I want people to know that the cycle of gang violence needs to be broken in order for there to be change. These programs that exist in New York City outside of the classroom should also be available to all youth. We want school administration to acknowledge the factors that lead youth to join gangs and they should work actively to prevent their own students from becoming involved. Most schools barely pay attention to these issues and they brush it off. School is the most important place where intervention can occur effectively. Conflict management and de-escalation courses could result in gang-involved youth avoiding jail time which will allow them to be guided to a more stable path in life. 

For more information on our Civic Action Project, please check out our slideshow or the video of our presentation here.

Eshaal Naveed is a sophomore at Mountain House High School in California and a Next Gen Politics Civic Fellow. She believes that everyone has a voice to advocate for issues that they care about and she continues to advocate and use her voice for people who can't. She has joined the blog to continue and further her passion for writing and she writes for the Environment and Science & Technology section.