Saturday
September 7, 2024 
We are youth advocates who were incarcerated at the ages of 14 and 15. We don’t want the juvenile legal system to do to others what it did to us and our peers. When a juvenile under 18 comes into the justice system, the juvenile must be treated not as adult, but as a child, a kid.
Direct file is not treating kids as kids. Forcing youth with no money to pay the courts isn’t treating kids as kids. Overuse of placement and detention is not treating kids as kids but rather a case number, a punishment rather than a supportive service.
One of us was incarcerated at age 15 and was ordered to pay the courts thousands and thousands of dollars. Being a child navigating life and ordered to pay money that was literally not possible to pay, added another hardship to the incarceration. Young people are in school and still learning life. Families are also not able to pay.
Asking youth to pay all these fees puts them in debt before they can think about buying food every month, paying for gas or electricity — and let’s not forget the rising housing cost crisis in Philadelphia. Because young people can’t pay, the courts never receive the money, but families go into debt or youth are kept on court supervision longer. How is this justice? It just increases poverty in Pennsylvania.
One of us was also sent to placement. Placement should not be the first answer for children. There are more solutions than locking kids away. Young people do better in their homes and communities. We need to invest in alternative support and diversion opportunities. Young people coming into contact with the juvenile justice system are being placed instead of being directed to supportive services to target a youth’s challenges.
Placements are overcrowded with little to no education, and limited tools and resources to help youth change positively or even thrive. Sometimes young people face challenges at home. When the justice system gets involved, youth face over-punishment and being sent out of their homes instead of receiving the support they need in their homes. Addressing these problems — with good schools, community supports and positive programming — needs to be the starting point for support for a young person, not out of home placement. Young people are being charged as adults without a fair hearing.
Under 18, youth are juveniles and we believe that they deserve the right to not be directly charged. Youth who are directly filed in adult court are placed in adult jail with no supports or resources to address their needs, which are different from adults’ needs.
We care about commonsense reforms to the juvenile legal system passing because our futures are at stake. If we are being honest, no one in power wants to help change this — but what will we do when the youth are of age to work after being damaged by the system? This won’t help make a good doctor or pediatrician, firefighter, lawyer, judge or child advocate. The system is creating long-term harms and trauma.
Those in power say that young people are out of control now. If we don’t better support our young people, what will it look like 20 years from now? This is why we are advocating for HB1381.
We may tell you 1,001 times how harmful the system is, but now we want people to know how this bill can help the system and our youth. Ending direct file, ending juvenile fines and fees, and helping to keep young people out of placement will help a lot of young people. Our youth need everyone to have their best interests at heart like they would for their own children. No kid deserves to be treated this way.
HB1381, a comprehensive juvenile justice reform bill, would address many of the harms we faced. The provisions in the bill came out of recommendations from a bipartisan Pennsylvania Juvenile Justice Task Force two and a half years ago. It’s time to see them become law.
Aqilah David is 24. Alexandria Rivera is 24. They are youth advocates with Juvenile Law Center, which is based in Philadelphia, and members of #CareNotControl.
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