Name: Lay Leaders Town Hall with Bishop French
Start: 2025-01-02T19:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-01-02T20:00:00-05:00
Location: Zoom Meeting

ECS Briefing—Juvenile Justice

November 20, 2021 @ 10:00 am — 11:00 am

Register Now: https://bit.ly/ECSJuvenileJustice

New Jersey’s youth justice system is failing young people, particularly Black and Brown young people:

• New Jersey currently has the worst racial disparities among its incarcerated Black and white youth in the nation. A Black child is 21 times more likely to be detained or committed to a youth facility than a white child.

• New Jersey’s current youth incarceration system is a waste of precious taxpayer dollars, funneling millions each year into largely empty youth prisons. The state spends approximately $300,000 each year to incarcerate each young person in a state youth prison.

• New Jersey’s youth incarceration system does not significantly reduce recidivism or increase public safety.

• Incarcerating our children in youth prisons damages their natural development by removing them from positive support networks, their communities, and their families.

Our Speaker: Ashanti Jones

Ashanti Jones’ life experiences with the New Jersey foster system’s challenges, her MSW from Columbia University, and her experience as an administrative social worker are the foundation for her work with families, organizations, and communities of color concerning issues of access and equity. Ashanti’s journey has included work with re-entering citizens, children and adults with developmental disabilities, strategic planning, education advocacy, as well as developing programs to strengthen families and better communities. Ashanti is an emerging social work professional with a goal of empowering underserved communities to be the strongest advocates for the change they deserve to see. Ashanti has worked for the last couple of years as the Director of Community Engagement at Newark’s South Ward Children’s Alliance. She previously worked at the Community Chest in Englewood, Delaney House in Newark, and interned at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey. Ashanti is a member of the Network for Social Work Managers.