California is one of 15 states that use Direct File, allowing prosecutors to send youth to the adult criminal justice system without any review, appeal, or oversight of their decisions. There, people under the age of 18 are sentenced to lengthy adult prison terms, and they lose access to the services and education provided in the juvenile system. We have a chance to turn that around right now.
Our colleagues in California are trying to put this issue and other ground-breaking changes to the criminal justice system in a ballot initiative that would be voted on by the people on November 8. But if they don’t get enough signatures, it won’t be on the ballot. There are just three weeks left to get the signatures needed.
If you are in California, please help us gather signatures of people registered to vote in California. If you don’t live in California, you probably know someone who does – please forward this appeal and urge them to sign up.
This is an old-fashioned grass-roots political effort – boots on the pavement, putting pen to paper – so we need as many volunteers as we can get.
Click here to have petitions sent to you.
For a quick training or to get questions answered, call in Wednesday nights at 6 p.m. PST: 916-407-2826.
Don’t fail to act because you think the little you can do doesn’t matter. The opposite is true.
- Can you commit to getting just four signatures?
- Could you fill one petition (eight signatures)?
- How about a petition for every youth you know who has faced California’s horrendous fitness and direct file laws?
- Make judges, not prosecutors, the ones who decide whether a youth stays in juvenile court and gets rehabilitation services, or goes to the adult system.
- Increase parole chances for prisoners with non-violent offenses.
- Make it possible for anyone in prison to work off time or get credit on a prison sentence by participating in education, treatment, and rehabilitation programs.