RISE for Youth is a nonpartisan organization committed to dismantling the youth prison model and ensuring every space that impacts a young person’s life encourages growth and success. RISE promotes the creation of healthy communities and community-based alternatives to youth incarceration. Our work centers youth and their communities who together, challenge and dismantle racial and social injustice in Virginia.
RISE For Youth’s Annual Youth Development Academy actively works to decrease youth incarceration and reduce referrals of youth to the criminal legal system. The Academy aims to provide robust training, skill-building, and employment opportunities to youth who may not traditionally have access to such opportunities. By offering advocacy training, mentorship, community service, and internships, the Academy is building career paths for youth and helping to create healthier living environments for youth and their families. The ultimate goal is to reduce the number of youth engaged in the legal system and empower youth to become strong advocates and community leaders.
After a year of pandemic, protests, and political strife, America’s divisions are clear, but a new survey reveals that reforming the youth justice system is an issue that brings Virginians together across education and ideological lines. The vast majority of Virginia residents support a range of reforms to the youth justice system designed to fundamentally shift focus and resources to prevention and rehabilitation instead of punishment and incarceration.
Linked here are key findings from a recent survey of 500 adults in the state of Virginia conducted by GBAO on behalf of the Youth First Initiative.
Incarceration is not the answer for Virginia’s system-involved youth. Our youth don’t need prisons, they need wrap-around services and support available to them in their own communities. This is why RISE has worked tirelessly to close our state youth prisons and worked to fight against the construction of new facilities.
We shut down Beaumont Juvenile Correctional Center!
We stopped the construction of new juvenile correctional facilities in Chesapeake and Isle of Wight!
We are closing the Bon Air Juvenile Correctional Center!
How does Virginia’s Juvenile Justice system impact health? Valerie Slater, Executive Director of RISE for Youth joined RHV to discuss the need to reform Virginia’s juvenile prisons.
Our Juneteenth celebration was an enormous success; we had over 300 people come out and support our youth out loud! The Keep Our Kids Free: Youth Talent Showcase lifted up youth singers, hip-hop artists, dance teams, mixed-media artists, and even a
Watch this powerful YouTube video. Prisons Don’t Work!
A new poll shows that Virginians of all political stripes support shifting the youth justice system. Read the Full Report. Youth First Virginia Poll Memo Feb 2017 Final
Thank you Sen. Mark Obenshain for helping our most vulnerable youth by investing community-based alternatives to prison.
RISE for Youth | P.O. Box 2347 | Chesterfield, VA 23832 | info@riseforyouth.org