What is the #Invest in me ct Campaign?
#InvestInMeCT is a campaign that seeks to reduce the number of system-involved youth by addressing the root causes of youth criminalization.
The goal of the #InvestInMeCT campaign is to build opportunity-rich communities where all youth and families can access the resources they need to succeed. By urging decision makers to support in the futures of our state’s youth by investing in success instead of arrests we seek to end the criminalization of youth.
Why Investment?
Through hosting community conversations, AKA vision sessions, our Justice Advisors were able to identify 7 inequities and injustices commonly experienced by system-impacted youth and communities.
Economic Insecurity
Housing Insecurity
Trauma within Communities
Lack of Trust in a System that Displays Abuses of Authority
A need for More Positive Influences and Credible Messengers
Lack of Hope
Need for Equal Opportunities
Referred to as the 7 Themes of System Change, these root causes of youth criminalization reveal a stark reality most common in traditionally underserved communities and communities of color. These inequities mean communities of color and communities impacted by poverty do not get the same opportunities to thrive as wealthier, predominantly white communities.
We realized that addressing the 7 Themes requires investment – of money, but also of time and care, into communities that have long been left out and left behind.
Addressing the Seven Themes
We developed the #InvestInMeCT campaign to tackle the root causes of justice system involvement by working to identify solutions that directly address the 7 Themes. To identify solution to the 7 Themes, our Justice Advisors continued hosting vision sessions with system-impacted youth, families, and community members.
We examined these conversations in our report, “Ending the Criminalization of Youth: One Investment at a Time,” and from these conversations identified 10 Calls to Action which make up the #InvestInMeCT campaign.
Some of these actions seek to address the needs of system-involved youth, to ensure when youth exit the juvenile or adult systems, they are able to do so successfully and without re-entering the justice systems in the future.
Other actions work to prevent justice system involvement entirely for all youth and community members.
Ultimately, all calls to action work to keep kids out of the system by addressing the root causes of youth criminalization. Developed in conjunction with system-impacted youth, families, and communities, these actions are the necessary next steps to tackling the inequities in our current system.
Do you believe all Connecticut youth deserve an equal opportunity to live safe, healthy, and fulfilling lives? If so, join us.
Ending the Criminalization of Youth
In the last 15 years Connecticut has made significant advancements around juvenile justice. Legislation to raise the age of juvenile jurisdiction, limit the pathways into detention, reduce out of home placement and remove youth from court who do things like run away or skip school has ensured fewer youth are engaging with the courts than previously. Taken together, these changes have meant fewer youth entering the courts, being detained or incarcerated, or being transferred to the adult system.
When we started looking more closely at the data though, we could see progress had been made in improving conditions and outcomes for youth across the board, but we also realized that these reforms had helped some kids more than others. The number of youth entering the justice system decreased significantly overall, but we saw the greatest decrease in white kids entering the courts and justice systems - noticeably more than we saw for Black and Hispanic kids.
This made our next steps clear. We wanted to know why some kids were being helped more than others and we wanted to develop reforms that would support the youth who were still falling through the cracks. Since 2017, we have shifted the way we operate, by working to ensure the voices of those directly impacted by the justice system are incorporated into all discussions around juvenile justice policy, practice, and reform.
Our just released report, “Ending the Criminalization of Youth: One Investment at a Time,” pulls together the many conversations we’ve had with system-impacted youth and community members and their recommendations for creating equitable system-reform.