Our work · Justice
Reach them before the record does.
Intervention at first contact, mentoring through the gate, grants for local programs, and a push for a system that restores people instead of warehousing them.
Why it matters
Support arrives too late.
Young people are usually identified by their record, after arrests, injuries and years of system contact. People come home with a record, a debt and no ID, and too many go back.
We go in earlier, and we stay longer.
Programs
What we run.
Juvenile intervention
Defining Narratives programs in juvenile facilities, with mentors who build trust before release and stay after it.
Run alongside state and county partners. The Youth Intervention Program.
JCVI
Juvenile Community Violence Intervention: our model for reaching young people at high risk of gun violence at first contact.
Inside, bridge and outside, with twelve months of re-entry. Read about JCVI.
Re-entry
Mentors who meet people before release and walk through housing, ID, work and family.
The months after release are where most support ends and most risk begins.
Grants
Funding for local nonprofits running mentoring and rehabilitative youth programs.
Cook County, Illinois and Harris County, Texas. See grants.
Reform
Bail reform, fair fines and fees, and accountability that actually makes neighborhoods safer.
Advocacy in Miami and Houston, and The Talk for families on encounters with police.
Partnership
Inside the system. Rooted outside it.
We work with detention centers, courts, prosecutors, probation and police, and we stay rooted in the neighborhoods they serve. Partners get the reporting they need. Young people keep the trust they need.
The word we stand on
The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners.
Luke 4:18
Your move
Ways to help.
Start with whichever fits.
- Become a mentorWalk with one person through their first year. Apply.
- Bring JCVI to your cityAgencies, courts and funders: start a conversation.
- Fund a grantBack local leaders doing this work. Give to grants.
- Give monthlyFund mentors, re-entry kits and transport. Join the Revolutionaries.