Children need help, not handcuffs.
The re_direct Project seeks to empower the community to make an informed decision about involving law enforcement.
The re_direct Project’s focus is digital futures. To secure these digital futures, our youth should have every opportunity possible available to them. We cannot separate the real world consequences of justice system involvement from our activities online.
Our goal is to keep as many young folks out of the justice system as possible.
Once a young person becomes justice-involved, it again falls to us in the community to provide effective and robust opportunities to reduce the likelihood of recidivism.
The re_direct Project advocates for the creation and implementation of restorative justice programs for justice-involved youth. By empowering a young person to repair the harm they have caused we simultaneously strengthen their relationship to the community and instill a sense of collective social responsibility.
As we grow a community of mentors, build resources for the whole-of-society, and connect young people to career and educational pathways, we seek to be an alternative-to-incarceration recognized by defense attorneys, prosecutors, and court systems alike. We highlight below the urgent need for such a program.
“It’s outrageous how much this country spends to lock up a single child for a nonviolent offense…. On average the state of Connecticut spends $134,000 per year to incarcerate just one child. When we lock up a child, not only are we wasting millions of taxpayer dollars, we’re setting him or her up for failure in the long run. The system as it exists now is unfair to everyone involved and needs to be changed.”
— Senator Christopher Murphy, (D) Connecticut
“Today across the United States, thousands of children – disproportionately youth of color – languish in locked facilities. It is a sober reminder that our nation continues to choose to warehouse our most valuable asset: our children.”
- Public Welfare Foundation
Examples of Restorative Programs
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The Dutch National Police High Tech Crime Unit and Dutch Probation Service (Reclassering Nederland) created the Hack_Right program. Hack_Right pairs young first time justice-involved youth with private sector mentors to create programs that enhance cybersecurity, repair harm, and raise collective awareness of cybersecurity best practices.
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Drawing upon a series of recent briefs by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice Research and Evaluation Center on the public safety and permanency outcomes of thousands of youth served by community‐ based programs, a report by Youth Advocate Programs found that more than eight out of 10 youth in an alternative‐to‐incarceration program remained arrest free, and nine out of ten were at home after completing their community‐based program, at a fraction of what it would cost to confine these youth.
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By providing our justice-involved youth opportunities to teach others about their experiences, we build relationships, trust, and empathy. The sense of community and responsibility that teaching others engenders is proven to reduce recidivism and create positive social relationships.
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In 2011, middle school students in Minnesota divulged sexually explicit images of a student they had found on her boyfriend’s cell phone. By the time school officials intervened, the photos had already been distributed to several pupils. Many students could have been charged with possessing and distributing sexually explicit pictures of a minor (child sex abuse material).
Instead, the school district, along with the prosecutor and the local sheriff decided to divert the case to the County’s Restorative Justice Agent, who organized a restorative group conference with the involved students, their parents, the prosecutor, the police, and school administrators and teachers.
The girl was able to express her experience and the harm done was better understood. She explained that her intention was for the pictures to remain between her and her boyfriend, but was now forced to live with the consequence of the picture being ‘forever floating’ on the Internet.
The conference resulted in a signed agreement made through unanimous consensus, stating that:
the students would apologize, write a written report on the risks and dangers of sending or receiving child sex abuse material and promise immediately to report to the school administration or the school resource officer any sexually explicit pictures they might receive in the future or believe are circulating;
the parents would monitor more closely their child’s cell phone and Internet use; and
the school district and county probation would develop one presentation for parents and one for students in the district, with age appropriate lessons on sexting, legal and school consequences and cyber literacy.
This incident resulted in the development of a county-wide program to handle sexting cases involving minors, as well as prevention and education.
Source: EU Forum on Restorative Justice.
Noam Biale
Partner, Sher Tremonte
re_direct Project Board Member
“As a federal criminal defense lawyer, I have seen time and again how my clients get trapped in a cycle of involvement with the criminal justice system. My first-hand experience confirms what empirical research consistently has shown: the way to reduce crime is to offer people better opportunities, not longer prison terms.
Particularly in my cybercrime practice, my clients often have incredible technical skills, but, like all young people, do not yet have the judgment of fully matured adults. The re_direct Project seeks to harness those skills for the benefit of society—giving these brilliant young people the opportunities they deserve, while saving the staggering costs of incarceration and making us all safer.”
An alternative to police involvement with our kids.
Some US schools are already using a restorative justice practice to secure better futures for our kids.
Number of total districts engaged in restorative practices: 1474
Number of total schools engaged in restorative practices: 32,529
Number of total students in those school districts: 18,888,823
Other schools in the US prioritize law enforcement on campus over services for kids.
• 1.7 million students are in schools with police but no counselors.
• 3 million students are in schools with police but no nurses.
• 6 million students are in schools with police but no school psychologists.
• 10 million students are in schools with police but no social workers.
• 14 million students are in schools with police but no counselor, nurse, psychologist, or social worker
Police In Schools
ACLU analysis of the federal data found that in schools with police presence students were arrested at a rate 3.5 times higher than at schools where police were not present. In some states, the disparity in arrests between schools with and without police was even higher. For example, in Delaware, students attending schools with police were arrested at a rate of 72 arrests per 10,000, eight times the arrest rate for students attending schools without police (9 per 10,000). Although these data are cross-sectional and no causal analyses can be conducted, other reports have also found an increase in school police to be associated with school arrest. Schools that prioritize police over school-based mental health professionals create environments where typical adolescent behavior is criminalized. Having law enforcement on campus is a key contributor to this school-to-prison pipeline. The likelihood of a student dropping out of school increases significantly every time they touch the criminal justice system. Racial minorities and children with disabilities were also disproportionately more likely to become justice system involved.
Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB) Report on the Lapsus$ Group:
Some studies have found that adolescents can start hacking between the ages of 10 and 15, primarily learning their skills through online forums and websites. This has a particular nexus with the development of cheats for popular video games. Forums, including those where game tips are shared and discussed, effectively serve as “talent development” pipelines for criminal elements that openly recruit juvenile and novice participants.
Sandbox games, where players have a high degree of freedom to explore and interact, are acting as a gateway for minors to develop technical skills that can be leveraged for malicious intent. Sandbox games also offer an avenue for turning in-game currency into real money, and researchers have noted the intersection of a monetary incentive and a lack of adult supervision is a factor in adolescent participation in online criminal communities.
Criminal gangs, in turn, exploit adolescents’ legal status in the criminal justice system, redirecting repercussions that could be imposed on adult threat actors operating in the background. Some members of Lapsus$ and its related groups seem to have followed this path.
