Youth Represent
Our mission is to ensure that young people affected by the criminal justice system are afforded every opportunity to reclaim lives of dignity, self-fulfillment, and engagement in their communities.
Youth Represent was created from a recognition that young people need comprehensive representation to address their diverse and unique legal issues. What began as a single attorney working from a borrowed desk is now a citywide organization that provides free legal services to more than one thousand youth annually.
Recently, we met 22-year-old “E.B.” through his court appointed lawyer at The Legal Aid Society. Last year, “E.B.” was charged in Brooklyn Criminal Court with grand larceny in the fourth degree. This was the first time “E.B.” faced a felony charge, which if convicted would remain on his record and certainly negatively impact the rest of his life.
Fortunately, “E.B.” was eligible for a supervised release under the Center for Court Innovation’s Brooklyn Justice Initiatives (BJI). BJI seeks to use arrests for misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies as an opportunity to provide alternatives to incarceration to change the direction of a participant’s life and help them avoid future contact with the justice system.
“E.B.”’s supervised release required he complete a six-month, court approved community-based program. Upon successful completion of the program the grand larceny felony charge would be reduced to a disorderly conduct violation. For a variety of reasons, including a tragic death in the family, “E.B.” was unable to complete the requirements of the program and faced the real reality of being tried for a felony.
Youth Represent intervened at the request of the public defender and submitted an impassioned advocacy letter to the court requesting that “E.B.” be afforded another opportunity to complete the program. By leveraging our good standing with the court and the strong relationships we have with local community-based organizations we were able to convince the court to approve “E.B.”’s placement into a Getting Out and Staying Out program. A lot of organizations are closed, or are not accepting new clients due to the health crisis, so this was a significant challenge, but we were able to place him in an excellent program and get him credit for the four months he completed in the original program.
“E.B.” is working on completing a GED course and plans to attend college, so he can become an NYC MTA train conductor in the future. By helping him avoid the negative effects of a felony conviction and connecting him to the resources needed to avoid future justice-system involvement he can make those goals come true.