Juvenile Justice

Part of this job is sticking up for populations that have no voice in the political process, no lobbyists pushing their agenda, not seat at the table in places like Washington and Hartford. For me, I believe that it is simply unacceptable for a country with 5% of the world’s population to hold 25% of the world’s prison population. We lock up too many people, wasting lives and taxpayer money. And the most egregious policy is to lock up kids, sometimes no older than 11 or 12, when better alternatives exist to address their delinquent behavior. I am working to dramatically change our juvenile justice policy so that more states enact reforms like we have in Connecticut. Our state has made significant progress in diverting more kids away from prison and into community services when they get in trouble with the law, and uses only evidence-based rehabilitation strategies for the small subset of children who do have to be incarcerated.