Mei Soopper

The Youth Sentencing & Reentry Project (YSRP) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to ensuring that every child’s story is heard in court and beyond. YSRP improves outcomes for youth prosecuted in the adult criminal justice system by supporting their court-appointed attorneys at sentencing, and the youth and their families before, during, and after incarceration. YSRP’s goal is to have cases originating in adult court sent back to the juvenile system, where possible, and to achieve shorter and fairer sentences when cases remain in the adult system. By beginning reentry planning before a child is incarcerated, and remaining a support for them and their families (broadly defined) beyond the court case, we improve outcomes for system involved youth, and we enhance the ability of criminal justice system actors to approach sentencing and reentry through a youth-specific lens. YSRP is currently the only organization addressing this problem through a holistic approach of sentencing advocacy, support during incarceration, and reentry planning. Our approach is informed by our background in juvenile advocacy and our belief that justice requires that context be considered at sentencing. YSRP’s organizational model is inspired by the Supreme Court’s recent acknowledgment that charging children as adults does not negate any of their youthful characteristics. Moreover, in recent years, there has been a deepening recognition in the public realm that children are developmentally different from adults, with neurological evidence showing that the brain is not fully formed until a person’s mid-twenties. YSRP addresses this discrepancy in terms of how we treat children; it aims to remind the adult system that despite their actions in individual cases, kids are still kids. At YSRP, we focus on more than the outcome of a criminal case; we focus on the outcome of the individual child.