YSRP Co-Director Joanna Visser Adjoian, and Stoneleigh Emerging Leader Fellow Natasha Felder presented at Community College of Philadelphia (CCP)'s 2017 Law and Society Week.
On March 30, 2017, the Philadelphia Citizen published "We're Number One! Philly leads the nation in a dubious category: juvenile life without parole. Does it need to be this way?" Author David Love interviewed several of YSRP's partners and colleagues, and Co-Director Lauren Fine.
YSRP is featured on NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt on March 5, 2017 shining a national spotlight on Philadelphia's harmful practice of charging parents for the cost of their kids' incarceration in juvenile detention.
YSRP, the Justice Lab at Temple Law School and Juvenile Law Center were profiled for their efforts in ending the City of Philadelphia’s decades-long practice of charging parents for the cost of their children’s incarceration in the juvenile justice system. In his March 3, 2017 Marshall Project article Philadelphia Will Stop Billing Parents When Their Children Are Incarcerated, reporter Eli Hager reports that the Philadelphia Department of Human Services moved to end the practice just hours after the initial Marshall Project story was published in The Washington Post. DHS Commissioner Cynthia Figueroa testified at Friday’s special Council Hearing on the department’s decision to end the practice. Writes Hager,
Last year, a group led by the Youth Sentencing & Reentry Project, a nonprofit legal organization that assists juveniles in the justice system, and the Justice Lab at Temple Law School’s Sheller Center brought the issue to the attention of Democratic Mayor Jim Kenney. DHS began rethinking its policy, including seeking guidance from the state.The city made its final determination after reviewing the state’s prepared comments for Friday’s hearing, [Spokeswoman for the Philadelphia Department of Human Services Heather] Keafer said.
We applaud the City on taking this major step in ending the harms of this unjust practice on Philadelphia’s families.
Since early 2016, YSRP and Justice Lab have been working to stop the harmful practice of collecting costs from parents of children who have been incarcerated.
Kameelah Davis-Spears testified before Philadelphia City Council on March 3, 2017
In June of 2015, our partner Kameelah brought to our attention that the City of Philadelphia was taking her to court to collect fees from her for the time her son spent in a private juvenile placement (a secure facility in the juvenile justice system, often analogous to a prison).
Shocked by this practice, YSRP partnered with the Justice Lab at the Sheller Center for Social Justice at Temple Law School with law students Sela Cowger, Kelsey Grimes, Wes Stevenson and Professor Colleen Shanahan to investigate the origins of this unjust practice and push for a moratorium to it. This investigative work culminated in this report calling on the Philadelphia Department of Human Services (DHS) to put a moratorium on the practice.
On Friday, March 3, 2017, in advance of a planned City Council Hearing called for by Philadelphia City Councilmember Kenyatta Johnson, the Department of Human Services announced it would stop billing parents for their children’s incarceration costs. This ends a nearly 20-year-old practice in Philadelphia, and means that no new parents will be faced with the damaging imposition of these costs that Kameelah has had to go through.
We are grateful to DHS for doing the right thing, but the work is not done. YSRP testified at yesterday’s hearing to make clear that we will be monitoring the implementation of this new policy to ensure that no new families have to endure this double punishment.
The most important testimony at yesterday’s hearing came from Kameelah. She brought this issue to our attention and has seen it through to a policy change. We are so grateful to Kameelah for having the courage to speak up about a practice that has affected thousands of Philadelphia’s families, and to the Justice Lab students for their commitment to uncovering and ending this practice. We applaud Philadelphia for standing on the right side of justice.
YSRP and the Justice Lab’s work is featured in the The Inquirer by Samantha Melamed in her March 3, 2017 article entitled "Under Fire, Philly Stops Suing Parents of Incarcerated Kids for Child Support"
Join YSRP on Friday, March 3rd at 1:00pm in Council Chambers, room 400, for a public hearing on DHS' practice of charging parents for their child's incarceration.
The year-long collaborative work of Youth Sentencing & Reentry Project and the Justice Lab at Temple Law School’s Sheller Center for Social Justice was featured in Eli Hager’s March 2, 2017 Washington Post article entitled Your Child’s Been Sent to Jail. And Then Comes the Bill. Hager’s article describes the practice of how the Department of Human Services in Philadelphia collects fees from parents for the cost of their child’s incarceration in the juvenile justice system through a city-contracted attorney who summons parents, often working-poor parents, to his office and assesses their ability to pay. Writes Hager,
From the Washington Post on March 2, 2017
“Groups of law students, juvenile defense lawyers and others have begun to challenge this payment system, arguing that it is akin to taxing parents for their child’s loss of liberty — and punishing them with debt. In Philadelphia, the City Council is meeting Friday to consider abolishing the practice.”
The article goes on to describe other jurisdictions across the country where the practice exists in various forms. In only a handful of counties, particularly three in California, has the practice been banned altogether. Read the full article here.
