As we reflect on our most recent victories and the progress made for children over the past four decades we are thankful for the generous support of advocates like you and our many partners that make this possible. With your support:
We listened. ACNJ empowered students and families to share their story, making the case for children still exposed to lead poisoning, students struggling with attendance and families unable to find affordable, quality child care.
We rallied. From engaging our network through e-advocacy to gathering more than 300 babies and advocates to ACNJ’s first-ever rally for babies in Trenton, Strolling Thunder, we gave a voice to New Jersey’s youngest residents.
We delivered. We secured significant wins for children: legislation to address child hunger and student absenteeism, and millions in allocated state and federal funding to support preschool and child care. Read our 2018 Annual Report.
But the fight is not over. With your help, we can make 2019 another year of big wins for kids. On December 5th, join us to celebrate our achievements but also to show your continued commitment to giving every child a chance to grow up safe, healthy and educated. Reserve your seat today!
Recently, ACNJ policy counsel Peter Chen and I had the opportunity to speak to the Paterson Alliance—a coalition of non-profits focused on the city of Paterson—about the importance of the upcoming 2020 Census. We were impressed by the enthusiasm and eagerness of the audience to spread the word about the Census and to ensure that all are counted.
Notably, Paterson is taking a proactive approach to this work, forming their own complete count committee this past summer. Complete count committees are state or municipal entities created with the goal of encouraging residents to fully participate in the decennial count.
Paterson is home to a wide range of hard-to-count communities, such as immigrant groups, young children under the age of 5, people of color and non-native English speakers. These groups may not understand the purpose of the Census, may be reluctant to share personal information with the federal government or may live in non-traditional dwelling arrangements—making it difficult for the U.S. Census Bureau to reach them. In Paterson, a complete count committee is crucial in determining the type of outreach needed to ensure full Census participation. Local, municipal complete count committees are useful because they are better able to assess the unique messages and strategies needed to convince residents to complete their Census forms. They are also better equipped to identify who within the community is trusted to relay these messages.
On August 24th, New Jersey passed legislation to establish its own statewide complete count commission, asking a number of elected officials, advocacy organizations, and business representatives to develop outreach strategies regarding the Census. State efforts may be just beginning, but this shouldn’t preclude other localities from creating their own groups dedicated to a complete count. Paterson is a strong example—other cities can and should get involved too. April 1, 2020, Census Day, may feel like ages away, but the sooner planning and outreach begins, the better.
Here are some ways organizations and municipalities can start right now to prepare:
Assess the need. Do you live or work in a hard-to-count community? Resources, such as these fact sheets created by ACNJ and these interactive maps, allow you to identify particular areas of the state where a complete count may be difficult.
Become a Census partner. Census partners receive the most current information and resources from the U.S. Census Bureau. Learn how you can partner.
Form a local complete count committee. You know your community best. A complete count committee based in your town or city can leverage its community knowledge to tailor outreach strategies to specific populations. The U.S. Census Bureau offers these resources to help get the effort started.
Organizations within Paterson already had ideas about how best to reach hard-to-count groups—such as at places of worship, schools and grocery stores. They inquired about materials in a myriad of foreign languages from Turkish to Spanish. All of this planning and inquiry will have far-reaching effects in bringing Paterson closer to a complete count of its residents in 2020.
In a recently published article by The New York Times, reporter Liz Leyden highlighted ACNJ’s Newark Kids Count data: about a quarter of the more than 14,000 children under 6 who were tested in 2016 had measurable levels of lead in their blood. “This suggests a pervasive problem throughout the city coming from a variety of sources, and water could easily be one of them,” said Peter Chen, ACNJ policy counsel. Click here to read article.
In September, David Goodman, a New Jersey-born actor who graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in Camden, spoke to the state Juvenile Justice Commission (JJC) Class of 2018 about facing hardships and not giving up. The ceremony had all the making of a traditional high school graduation, complete with six graduates receiving academic awards, family and friends celebrating with lots of photos, and even government officials Attorney General S. Gurbir Grewal, Lieutenant Governor Sheila Y. Oliver, JJC Executive Director Kevin M. Brown, and JJC Director of Education Tremaine Harrison in attendance.
The main difference? This graduation was taking place at the state’s largest youth facility for juvenile offenders, the New Jersey Training School for Boys, otherwise known as Jamesburg.
Listening to the speakers share statistics about ongoing juvenile reform efforts, and the cheers of the audience as smiling graduates tossed their caps in the air, congratulating each other, gave me some hope that we are on the right track.
In addition to the 60 students participating in the graduation, 72 students received their diplomas or their High School Equivalency Diplomas (HSEDs) earlier in the year and have since been released from JJC supervision or did not participate in the ceremony.
During his remarks, Attorney General Grewal explained that since 2003, there has been an 85 percent reduction in the number of youth committed to the care of the JJC by the courts, from 1,200 annually in 2003 to approximately 176 statewide in 2017. Youth of color account for 85 percent of this reduction. While there is still an overrepresentation of youth of color in county detention centers, the JJC and its partners through the New Jersey Council on Juvenile System Improvement (Council) continue to have data-driven conversations to identify strategies to address this serious problem.
The Annie E. Casey Foundation recently commended New Jersey for its success under the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI), an effort to reduce the number of youth unnecessarily or inappropriately placed in detention, while protecting public safety and helping troubled youth address issues that led to criminal behavior. Since its nationwide implementation, JDAI has helped more than 300 locations safely reduce their juvenile detention populations.
New Jersey, a national model in JDAI, has decreased its average daily juvenile detention center population statewide by almost 80 percent between 2003 (pre-JDAI) and 2018 without impacting public safety, and has closed eight county-operated detention facilities since JDAI reforms began, resulting in an annual savings of $21 million. Research by the Casey Foundation has also demonstrated that in addition to the large reduction in daily detention populations, jurisdictions participating in JDAI, including New Jersey, have seen an equally steep decline in the number of youth committed to state juvenile correctional facilities.
But there is more to be done.
The JCC has been working to safely and significantly reduce out-of-home placements and incarceration, particularly for youth of color, who are still overrepresented within the system and remain in care longer than white youth, despite the positive impact of JDAI. Stakeholders, including the Casey Foundation and other national experts, are working together with officials in Camden County to determine why the racial disparities exist and how to solve them. The lessons learned in Camden County will then be shared throughout the state. Though difficult and time-consuming, the work is needed if New Jersey wishes to achieve better outcomes for our youth.
The most recent report of their progress was given at the last Council meeting. I was impressed by the effort and commitment of the judges, court staff, probation staff, prosecutors, public defenders and mental health professionals in transforming the culture and practices in Camden County. Families, schools, law enforcement and members of the community are all being engaged to build relationships that can help our neediest youth.
The New Jersey Institute for Social Justice led the charge to close Jamesburg and Hayes, the secure youth facility for girls, a goal that ACNJ supported and advocated for as well. The former Christie administration committed to the closure in December 2017, planning to replace existing large secure facilities with smaller, state-of-the-art regional facilities that are closer to the homes of these juveniles. Smaller, treatment-intensive, developmentally appropriate facilities, will allow for the delivery of therapeutic wrap-around services in a non-institutional environment, as recommended by national experts such as the National Institute of Justice and Casey Foundation. Closing Jamesburg is projected to save approximately $20 million a year, which should be applied to therapeutic and delinquency prevention services. We need to make sure that investment happens!
As we reflect on our most recent victories and the progress made for children over the past four decades we are thankful for the generous support of advocates like you and our many partners that make this possible. With your support:
