Inform. Empower. Apply.
Across the nation, over 100,000 young people are incarcerated in juvenile detention facilities. As children, they need to learn how to read, write, and reason. As accused or adjudicated children, they need to understand the juvenile justice system. As citizens, they need to understand their constitutional rights and responsibilities under the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 8th Amendments. With recidivism rates near 75%, the goal of the National Youth Justice Alliance is to empower youth to embrace constitutional literacy as a weapon against recidivism.

The National Youth Justice Alliance seeks to reach these young people by educating them about the Constitution. The goal is to bring together law students, juvenile defenders, and youth detention professionals to create regular teaching opportunities for motivated educators. By providing teaching materials and developing local partnerships, the hope is to build a national network of constitutional literacy projects. Each project would develop independently based on the specific needs of the community and realities of the local law schools and detention centers.

The National Youth Justice Alliance is based on the success of the Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project developed at the Washington College of Law at American University. The Youth Justice in America curriculum is being taught in high schools and detention centers in Washington D.C. and other cities. Contact us at info@nyja.org for more information. (The book is available at www.cqpress.com / www.amazon.com.)