NCLR Highlights Juvenile Justice at its 2010 Annual Conference
Aug 11, 2010, The National Council of La Raza
The National Council of La Raza (NCLR)—the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States—presented two juvenile justice workshops and held a meeting of juvenile justice stakeholders at its 2010 Annual Conference in San Antonio, Texas.
(Photo, right: Edwin Desamour, President and Founder of Men in Motion in the Community (MIMIC) in Philadelphia.)
On July 11, approximately 40 Conference participants attended a workshop titled “Batting with Two Strikes: Brown and Young in the Juvenile Justice System.” Moderated by Dr. Juan Sánchez, Founder and El Presidente/CEO of Southwest Key Programs, Inc., the workshop examined the disproportionate minority contact (DMC) that Latinos have with the juvenile justice system. Mark Soler, Executive Director of the Center for Children’s Law and Policy, and Marcia Rincon-Gallardo, Site Manager at the W. Haywood Burns Institute, served as panelists. Soler presented data about nationwide DMC, while Rincón-Gallardo shared her experiences working to reduce DMC in Pima County, Arizona.
On July 12, three experts with deep ties to the Latino community served as panelists for “A Generation Lost: Community Responses to the Overrepresentation of Latino Youth in the Juvenile Justice System.” Edwin Desamour, President and Founder of Men In Motion In the Community (MIMIC), and Michael Rodríguez, Executive Director of Enlace Chicago—both of whom are members of NCLR’s Latino Juvenile Justice Network—joined Dr. Sánchez on a panel moderated by Maricela Garcia of NCLR. These community leaders shared their experiences working with Latino youth involved in the juvenile justice system with nearly 70 workshop attendees. Desamour began by sharing how MIMIC was founded and explaining the mentoring work his organization does to keep Latino youth out of jail. Rodriguez followed, describing advocacy efforts to lessen the severity of laws impacting Latino youth involved in the juvenile justice system in Illinois. To close the workshop, Sánchez showed a video of Latino youth in the juvenile justice system and called for reform of the system.
In addition to presenting two workshops, NCLR convened a meeting of community-based organizations that work with Latino youth, national juvenile justice advocacy and policy organizations, and policymakers. Meeting participants discussed strengthening and advancing a Latino juvenile justice advocacy and policy agenda.
- Issues
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Racial-ethnic fairness/DMC