It’s time to increase the state’s investment in the successful Redeploy Illinois program, which gives counties resources to keep non-violent youth out of state prisons by providing a range of community-based services to the youth and his or her family.

Juvenile Redeploy – Successful Fiscal Incentive:
In the past six years, the Redeploy Illinois program has diverted more than 880 youth from state juvenile prisons, allowing the state to avoid more than $40 million in added incarceration costs and increasing the likelihood those juvenile offenders will change their behaviors.

Increase funding to apply Redeploy programming in all top committing counties:
In recent years, state funding has stayed steady at about $2.3 million per year and established Redeploy Illinois in 28 counties and provided planning grants to a handful of other interested counties.  Over a dozen sites, including Winnebago, Vermilion and Cook County, are completing planning grants to prepare to set up Redeploy programming.   With the additional funding proposed by Gov Quinn – an increase to $4.9 million – these new planning grant sites which account for more than half the current commitments to state juvenile prisons, can all have Redeploy programming to divert youth from prison.   This will result in improved public safety and increased saving for Illinois.

Juvenile Redeploy Illinois- A nationally acclaimed model of fiscal realignment:
Juvenile Redeploy Illinois creates a fiscal incentive to encourage counties to use limited state resources to expand community-based alternatives while decreasing reliance on costly incarceration.   In Juvenile Redeploy, sites pledge to reduce their commitments to state correctional facilities (Dept. of Juvenile Justice) by 25 percent over a three-year base average, in return for state funding to support alternative community programming for youth that judges would otherwise incarcerate.  

WHERE:  Human Services Budget-the Dept of Human Services (DHS) is allocated funds for Juvenile Redeploy Illinois

Full committee membership is included HERE. For more details about legislators and committees, visit www.ilga.gov.  For a fact sheet about Redeploy funding, click HERE.

There’s a hearing in the House tomorrow on the DHS budget. We would specially like to make sure there’s strong support for Redeploy Illinois so the current planning sites could come on next year. The 3 planning sites are Cook, Vermillion and Winnebago counties. These 3 counties committed over 51% of the youth in DJJ for FY11. It would be excellent if you could slip in support for Thursday.

HB3465 98TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

Page 38

For Grants and Administrative Expenses of Redeploy Illinois………………………….4,885,100

http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/98/HB/PDF/09800HB3465lv.pdf

PLEASE FILE A WITNESS SLIP (AS A PROPONENT) FOR TOMORROW’S COMMITTEE HEARING IN THE HOUSE HERE.

Remember that when you file your slip to check “record of appearance only” since you won’t actually be testifying in support of the bill.

We are excited to announce the next in our series of workshops for the first half of 2013.  We are partnering with the Chicago Freedom School as part of their “Communiversity” series for these workshops.  All workshops are inter-generational (they are accessible to people ages 14 and up).

All workshops are from 1 to 4:30 p.m. (unless otherwise specified); and will be held at CFS, 719 S. State Street, Suite 3N.  CFS is accessible and there’s an elevator at the back of the building.

We invite you to BRING YOUR LUNCH with you.

IMPORTANT: We thank those who are interested in our workshops and trainings. In order to prepare for these interactive workshops, we must have an accurate count of people who will attend. We strive to make our workshops accessible and therefore we sometimes offer these at no cost to participants. However, we as an organization to incur costs in organizing and delivering these opportunities. We ask that those who plan to attend PRE-REGISTER but ONLY IF YOU ARE CERTAIN THAT YOU WILL ATTEND. We really mean this. Space is limited in our workshops and we ask that you PLEASE DO NOT SIGN UP IF YOU ARE NOT ACTUALLY PLANNING TO ATTEND. Please be considerate of us and others. We have adopted a new policy as of May 1st. If you pre-register for one of our (free to you) workshops and do not attend, we will no longer register you for future (free to you) opportunities.

Policing, Violence, Resistance, and Alternatives:
This workshop will introduce participants to the work of Chain Reaction, a participatory research and popular education project with the goal of supporting conversations about alternatives to calling police on young people. Driven by our political goal of ending youth incarceration, Chain Reaction volunteers held workshops and recorded audio and video at youth centers and other spaces around the city, including a center for LGBTQ youth and youth experiencing homelessness. Youth told stories about being targeted by police because of their race, gender identity, sexual orientation, and age. Their experiences with police often set off a chain reaction that funnels youth into the prison industrial complex, a system that targets people of color, transgender women, and other folks from marginalized groups.

The workshop will provide an overview of a history of policing and police violence. Participants will then learn about the work of Chain Reaction and listen to some of the stories we collected. Through interactive activities and personal storytelling, we will explore what alternatives to calling police exist for those considering relying on police interventions within our communities, and imagine the ideal chain reaction we could set off in response to fear, violence, or harm in our communities. We will also ask what role can adult allies can play in promoting alternatives to calling the police on young people and diverting young people from the prison industrial complex.

Finally, Project NIA and the Chicago PIC Teaching Collective have developed several resources (including zines, curricula, and pamphlets) that can be used to foster conversations with youth about policing. We will share these resources with workshop participants.

Pre-registration is REQUIRED. Please register HERE (only if you are certain to attend).

Birmingham Children’s March (May 1963)

“On 2 May, more than a thousand African American students skipped their classes and gathered at Sixth Street Baptist Church to march to downtown Birmingham. As they approached police lines, hundreds were arrested and carried off to jail in paddy wagons and school buses. When hundreds more young people gathered the following day for another march, commissioner Bull Connor directed the local police and fire departments to use force to halt the demonstration. Images of children being blasted by high-pressure fire hoses, clubbed by police officers, and attacked by police dogs appeared on television and in newspapers and triggered outrage throughout the world.

On the evening of 3 May, King offered encouragement to parents of the young protesters in a speech delivered at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. He said, “Don’t worry about your children; they are going to be alright. Don’t hold them back if they want to go to jail, for they are not only doing a job for themselves, but for all of America and for all of mankind.””

CFS will commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Children’s Crusade/March with a screening of the documentary “Mighty Times: The Children’ March” followed by a panel of contemporary Chicago youth activists and organizers who will discuss how they are currently working for social change and justice.

Saturday, May 4
2 to 4:30 p.m.
Chicago Cultural Center
78 East Washington Street
Garland Room

Please register for this event HERE.

Read more about the Children’s March here.

Register HERE by May 20th only if you are CERTAIN that you will be able to attend. Space is LIMITED. We ask that you be considerate of others.

“The Administration is calling on Congress to help schools hire up to 1,000 more school resource officers, school psychologists, social workers, and counselors, as well as make other investments in school safety. We also need to make sure every school has a comprehensive emergency management plan so they are prepared to respond to situations like mass shootings. In addition, the Administration is proposing to help 8,000 schools put in place proven strategies to prevent violence and improve school climate by reducing bullying, drug abuse, violence, and other problem behaviors.”

Today, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pulled the entire gun reform package from the floor after Senators blocked the background check portion of the bill yesterday. This means that the other provisions of the bill including potentially more funding for police in schools are now on hold. This provides us with a reprieve for the time being. We are profoundly grateful to everyone who has been involved in advocating against more police in schools and for more counselors and restorative justice programs. Your voices have made a difference. Below is some background and an update about the Yes To Counselors, No To Cops Campaign launched in response to part of President Obama’s gun reform proposals.

Summary of Chicago Activism and Organization

In Chicago, parents, educators, students, advocates, and community members gathered on January 24th to discuss our concerns about the President’s proposal to offer funds to school districts to hire more police or counselors. This meeting was organized and convened by Project NIA and co-sponsored by the Mansfield Institute for Social Justice and Transformation.

Meeting participants worried that many districts would decide to hire police officers rather than to invest in more counselors to help address the root causes of student disciplinary issues. As the Dignity in Schools Campaign (DSC) points out:

“Schools around the country have invested heavily in security measures such as metal detectors, armed police officers and school resource officers (SROs), often with devastating results for students – especially students of color, LGTBQ students, and students with disabilities. As research by the American Psychological Association and others has shown, these measures, which are usually implemented along with “Zero Tolerance” discipline policies that employ suspensions and expulsions, have neither increased graduation rates nor made students feel safer. In fact, they have increased the time students spend out of school and increased arrests and referrals to the justice system – especially for nonviolent student behavior like “disrespect” – and further increased racial disparity in school exclusion and educational outcomes.”

With these realities in mind, a loose coalition of individuals and organizations in Chicago formed to pressure our Senators (in particular) to oppose any new funding for police officers in schools and to take an affirmative position in support of more counselors and restorative justice programs. We also wanted to be proactive in asking the Chicago Public Schools to pass a resolution that would state unequivocally that any new funding received from Federal grants to improve school safety based on the President’s gun reform plan will be used to hire COUNSELORS NOT COPS. Our coalition accomplished a great deal in just a few short weeks:

1. Students at Roosevelt University collected over 900 hand signed letters for Senators Durbin and Kirk. They delivered these to the Senators’ offices on April 4th.

2. Students at Roosevelt also gathered over 320 signatures for a petition to Senator Durbin urging him to support more counselors rather than cops in our schools. Roosevelt students received some press coverage for their efforts.

3. Students at the University of Illinois at Chicago collected and mailed over 165 postcards asking Chicago Public Schools Board President David Vitale to support more counselors not cops in schools. These students also helped to draft language for a proposed resolution that we would like to see the CPS Board adopt on this matter.

4. We organized a call-in day to Senators Durbin and Kirk to press our message on April 3rd. They received dozens of calls asking them to oppose more funding for police in schools. We timed this action to coincide with the National Week of Action Against the School-to-Prison Pipeline.

5. We also encouraged individuals to call our Senators again during the week of April 13th as debate began on the gun reform bills in the Senate. We used social media to get the word out about this action.

6. This Sunday at 5 p.m., join several people who will begin to work on a “Counselors Bill of Rights” on a conference call facilitated by Veronica Bohanan. Call 1-646-307-1300 and dial 2995124 to join the conference call.

7. Finally, we produced a short film documenting how one urban school in Chicago manages school safety without relying on law enforcement or harsh school disciplinary policies. We will use that film to promote the campaign and also to provide a concrete example illustrating that it is in fact possible to ensure school safety without relying on cops.

Visit the Yes To Counselor’s Blog section for updates about our efforts. For more information, email us at yes2counselors@gmail.com.

The Yes To Counselors, No To More Cops in our Schools Campaign has been coordinated by Project NIA.

restoring hope from Leah Varjacques on Vimeo.

All workshops are from 1 to 4:30 p.m. (unless otherwise specified); and will be held at CFS, 719 S. State Street, Suite 3N. CFS is accessible and there is an elevator at the back of the building.

We invite you to BRING YOUR LUNCH with you.

April 27 — Understanding the Criminalization of Youth 101 – 1 to 4:30 p.m.
The goal of this workshop is to increase awareness of the systematic criminalization of young people, specifically youth of color in Chicago, and to address the myths of “criminal youth” to prevent young people from being victimized by it.

Workshop participants will leave with a better understanding of the individual and social forces that lead to the hypercriminalization of youth of color in Chicago.

In his book “Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys,” sociologist Victor Rios’s suggests that “criminalization was a central, pervasive and ubiquitous phenomenon that impacted the everyday lives of the young people [he] studied in Oakland.” He added:

“By the time they formally entered the penal system, many of these young men were already caught up in a spiral of hypercriminalization and punishment. The cycle began before their first arrest — it began as they were harassed, profiled, watched, and disciplined at young ages, before they had committed any crimes. Eventually, that kind of attention led many of them to fulfill the destiny expected of them.”

Rios defines hypercriminalization as “the process by which an individual’s everyday behaviors and styles become ubiquitously treated as deviant, risky, threatening, or criminal, across social contexts.”

This workshop will explore the real life consequences of “hypercriminalization” for young people in Chicago.

Facilitated by Mariame Kaba.
Mariame is an organizer, educator, and writer who lives in Chicago. Her work focuses on ending violence, dismantling the prison industrial complex, and supporting youth leadership development. She is the founder and director of Project NIA, a grassroots organization with a mission to end youth incarceration. Mariame has also co-founded several other organizations including the Chicago Freedom School. She is a published author and runs the blog “Prison Culture.” Mariame is a teacher and has served on numerous nonprofit boards.

We thank those who are interested in our workshops and trainings. In order to prepare for these interactive workshops, we must have an accurate count of people who will attend. We strive to make our workshops accessible and therefore we sometimes offer these at no cost to participants. However, we as an organization to incur costs in organizing and delivering these opportunities. We ask that those who plan to attend PRE-REGISTER but ONLY IF YOU ARE CERTAIN THAT YOU WILL ATTEND. Space is limited in our workshops and we ask that you PLEASE DO NOT SIGN UP IF YOU ARE NOT ACTUALLY PLANNING TO ATTEND. Please be considerate of us and others.

All events take place at the Pop-Up Just Art Space, 729 West Maxwell Street. RSVP to policeviolence2011@gmail.com

Black & Blue: Art about Policing, Violence and Resistance
Project NIA believes strongly in the value and importance of creative resistance. We use art (in its various forms) to communicate with a broad array of individuals about the injustice of the prison industrial complex. To that end, we invited artists (youth & adults) to contribute prints and posters relating to policing, violence, and resistance. We are thrilled to be able to exhibit art created by Billy Dee, Eric Garcia, Leigh Klonsky, Eva Nagao, Mauricio Pineda, youth from La Lucha Arte, students from Bowen High School, and others. The exhibition opens on March 19th with a reception from 5 to 7 p.m. Join us. In addition, you can still contribute art to the exhibit until March 28th.

Saturday March 23rd
4 to 6 p.m. — Intergenerational Readings about Policing, Violence, and Resistance

Join youth and adults from across Chicago as we share and read poetry and prose about police violence. Bring an original piece of writing or bring your favorite existing poem or prose to share.

Feel free to come as early as 3:30 p.m. to view the Black & Blue exhibition and to have some snacks.