CURYJ’s Young People Are Leading the Movement to Reimagine Public Safety

CURYJ youth are organizing for a future free from policing and incarceration. Xochtil Larios, our Youth Justice Program Associate and former CURYJ program participant, is continuing the work she started as a 2020 Soros Justice Fellow. Xochtil designed and led the implementation of a peer-to-peer educational program for youth held in the Alameda County Juvenile Hall—the same facility where she was incarcerated just three years ago.

We also recently graduated the 3rd Dream Beyond Bars cohort, a paid fellowship where formerly incarcerated transitional age youth work closely with CURYJ Policy, Campaigns & Organizing staff on abolitionist legislation.

The DBB Fellowship is one of our youth development programs that stabilizes and builds power among the young people in our community. We lace up our youth with culturally-rooted organizing & advocacy training and dedicate a third of our annual operating budget to compensating them for their expertise as systems-impacted change makers.

Last year, these Fellows helped us co-sponsor two hard-earned wins in police accountability—the Police Decertification Act and the CRISES Act. These pieces of legislation will get abusive cops off the streets and start dismantling the state’s over-reliance on police for community emergencies.

In the upcoming year, the recent grads will be staying with CURYJ as Senior Fellows with increased salaries and even more intensive advocacy work. You can visit curyj.org/programs/dream-beyond-bars to learn more about each fellow and the specific legislation they’re pushing forward.