“Members of Maine Youth Justice, a campaign to end youth incarceration, are calling on a state task force to recommend closing the Long Creek Youth Development Center in South Portland by next year. On Tuesday morning they rallied outside the Capital Judicial Center in Augusta, where the task force was scheduled to meet. But that option is currently not among those being proposed to reform Maine’s juvenile justice system.”
Keep reading...FOX: Young Mainers call for closure of Long Creek
“I’m out here because I know that $18.2 million in my community could help my friends get housing, it could help my friends get community centers in their town,” said Al Cleveland, a campaign manager for Maine Youth Justice.
Keep reading...WMTW: Maine youth criminal justice advocates call for closure of Long Creek by 2021
“If we live in a society where children aren’t being treated as children, then we’re not moving forward,” Tutu Oryem, of Maine Youth Justice, said
Keep reading...Maine Beacon: Young Mainers protest state task force for ignoring calls to shut down Long Creek
“Maine Youth Justice points out that the task of reforming broken carceral systems around the country falls in large part to state legislatures and governors’ offices, as the vast majority of incarcerated people are held in state prisons and local jails.”
Keep reading...Maine Public: This Year’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day Marks A ‘Reality Check’ On Race
“So I think this fight is not only for black people anymore,” Ali said. “I don’t think this fight is only for people of color. I think his fight is for white people, too. I think this fight is for everybody to come in unity and say, ‘Hey, we’ve really got to stop this.’”
Keep reading...Maine Beacon: Young Mainers want to close and repurpose Long Creek youth prison
As another state commission looks into what to do with Maine’s last youth prison, Long Creek Youth Development Center in South Portland, a group of system-impacted youth have some demands.
Keep reading...Portland Press Herald: Spend juvenile-justice money on Maine’s youth, not prisons
Young people who have been in Long Creek urge the state to invest in things like housing, education and after-school programs.
Keep reading...Release The Detained – Covid
Maine Youth Justice is calling on Governor Janet Mills, Maine Department of Corrections Commissioner Randy Liberty and Colin O’Neill to #FreeOurYouth and #CloseLongCreek. Here’s how it works! Make 3 phone calls to the following 3 officials with power to release people from Maine’s jails & prisons: Governor Janet Mills – Has the power to take […]
Keep reading...Maine Youth Justice Campaign Project Manager
The Maine Youth Justice Campaign (MYJ) at Maine Initiatives is working to close Long Creek, Maine Youth’s Prison, and use the money spent to sustain that facility to create safer and stronger communities by investing in a continuum of community-based alternatives to incarceration for youth where all of Maine’s young people can thrive. The Campaign […]
Keep reading...Portland Press Herald: Juvenile justice group convenes with mission of reform
Chief Justice Leigh Saufley tells the task force that the work of creating alternatives to incarcerating youths at the Long Creek Youth Development Center is unfinished business begun a decade ago.
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