Dear Attorney General Holder: Young people across this country need you to take strong action to improve the delivery of legal services to children who come into contact with the juvenile delinquency system. As the 50th anniversary of the seminal United States Supreme Court case In re Gault fast approaches, juvenile indigent defense systems across this nation remain under-developed, under-resourced, and fundamentally unfair to the children they are designed to serve. Although Gault extended due process rights to juveniles in delinquency proceedings and acknowledged the high stakes and collateral consequences associated with a juvenile court adjudication, the promises of Gault and due process are merely illusory for far too many youth. The juvenile defense field is tainted by a history of neglect and disregard of the role of the juvenile defender in the delinquency process. Wrought with systemic barriers inhibiting access to counsel, the harm associated with juvenile court involvement continues to grow exponentially. An alarming number of youth appear in court unrepresented, and youth are entering plea agreements and waiving counsel at an extremely high rate. On the front end, most states fail to appoint counsel early enough to ensure meaningful client assistance, and on the back end, a disturbing number of youth do not have access to counsel during the post-disposition phase, leaving critical legal needs unmet. Very few states deem children truly indigent, and youth and families are often saddled with costly fees, fines, surcharges, and other expenses that make representation prohibitive and can lead to future court involvement or incarceration for failure to pay. Many juvenile defenders are overburdened with heavy caseloads and work within offices that have extremely limited resources, restricting access to investigators, social workers, and even the most basic tools of legal practice such as LexisNexis or Westlaw. Nearly 20 years ago, these and other horrific systemic deficiencies were documented in A Call for Justice—a national assessment of access to counsel and quality of representation in delinquency proceedings. The National Juvenile Defender Center’s (NJDC) subsequent assessments of 21 state juvenile indigent defense systems confirm these unsettling problems and demonstrate that there is still much work to do. Recognizing the dire need to overhaul juvenile indigent defense systems and advance reform nationally, the Department of Justice (DOJ) established the Juvenile Indigent Defense Special Initiative—a collaborative project between NJDC and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) to create a roadmap to fully develop the field. With this charge, NJDC intensely engaged juvenile defense experts and stakeholders across the country arming OJJDP and DOJ with substantive information and recommendations to lift juvenile defense practice. Now it is time to act. We, the undersigned, call upon you to: Promote Specialization in Juvenile Defense Practice The failure to recognize juvenile defense as a highly specialized practice has resulted in inadequate representation. Juvenile defense requires a unique skill set and knowledge base that is considerably different and broader than what is needed for adult criminal defense. The practice is equally as intellectually challenging and akin to appellate or capital work. Establishing training programs and promulgating standards that are specific to juvenile defense and incorporate adolescent development, such as the Juvenile Training Immersion Program (JTIP) and the National Juvenile Defense Standards, is imperative to promote specialization and regulate the practice. Establish Solid Infrastructure to Deliver High Quality Juvenile Defense A system is only as strong as its foundation. As it stands, there is little to no infrastructure in place to support high quality juvenile defense practice. However, the array of juvenile indigent defense delivery systems that currently exist across the country present vast opportunities for reform and innovation. High quality systems will necessarily be structured differently, but each must provide: (1) a comprehensive scope of representation, including appointment beginning no later than the first court appearance and continuing until the client is discharged from the system; (2) intentional leadership such as juvenile chiefs; (3) a commitment to specialization that is rooted in sound developmental practices; (4) access to high quality training and standards that guide and uniform practice; and (5) specialized units within the practice to handle complex juvenile defense issues, such as appeals, post-disposition advocacy, sex offenses, and juvenile transfer to adult court. Without the building blocks of a well-functioning juvenile indigent defense system that embraces the Ten Core Principles for Providing Quality Delinquency Representation Through Public Defense Delivery Systems, it is exceedingly difficult to ensure due process in juvenile court. Resource the Juvenile Defense Field to Support Widespread Innovation Advancing and sustaining meaningful juvenile defense reform requires resources. The juvenile defense community is ripe with ideas to ensure access to counsel, enhance juvenile defense practice, and expand the capacity of juvenile defenders to provide high quality representation to youth. It is imperative to resource this work at the federal, state, and local levels and invest in widespread innovation across all of the 50 states and territories to advance reform. In spite of the lack of resources and the daily challenges facing front-line juvenile defenders, the juvenile defense community works tirelessly to innovate and zealously advocate for policy and practice reforms to uphold Gault. The juvenile defense community has the expertise and talent to advance reform, and has demonstrated readiness to take on this important work; however, we cannot tackle this we...

To urge action to stop the dramatic increase in random beatings and assaults on u of i campus arising from a gang activity referred to as "knockout", a vicious unprovoked attack by multiple gang members on college students.

Please support and sign this petition to end workplace bullying. It destroys lives and the workplace. It increases each day when no one deals with this issue or takes it seriously. It only takes 1 incident to create a toxic working environment. When not taken seriously it can result in loved ones committing suicide or ending up behind bars for defending themselves. The perpetrator ends up winning and moving on to the next victim. This petition is on behalf of my brother and other victims of bullying in school and workplaces.

I have seen lives destroyed by just a few months in prison. Going to prison in America is just going into a hornets nest. People are forced to become Racist , Predators , and overly aggressive humans to survive prison. It is hard to adjust back to society when you have lived under the harsh circumstances of the American prison system.

Two Black fathers have been shot dead for nothing. Keith Lamont Scott of Charlotte, North Carolina, had been waiting in his car for his son to arrive home from school, and Terence Crutcher, of Tulsa, Oklahoma had been waiting at the side of the road after his truck stalled. Both men are now dead, wrongfully gunned down by police. Both are Black men. Families should never have to fear that our loved ones could come to harm at the hands of those charged with protecting them. Keith Lamont Scott and Terence Crutcher join a long and unending line of African American and Latino youth and community members killed by police, including: -- Philando Castile of Falcon Heights, Minnesota, who was shot and killed by police during a minor traffic stop because of a broken taillight. -- Alton Sterling, who was selling CDs when police tackled him to the ground and shot several times at close range. -- Eric Garner, husband and father, who was choked to death in New York. -- John Crawford, who was shot to death when he picked up a toy gun that was for sale in an Ohio Walmart. -- Seventeen-year-old unarmed Jesús Huerta was shot to death while handcuffed in the back of a police car. -- Eighteen-year-old unarmed Ramarley Graham who was shot to death in Bronx, NY -- Sandra Bland, a 28-year-old black woman who was found hanged in a jail cell in Waller County, Texas. The horror of losing family members to senseless, racially motivated police violence is a daily threat in the lives of Black and brown people in America. Studies show that, even though White Americans outnumber Black Americans fivefold, Black people are three times more likely than White people to be killed when they encounter the police in the US, [1] and Black teenagers are far likelier to be killed by police than White teenagers. [2] Law enforcement currently kills Black Americans at nearly the same rate as Jim-Crow-era lynchings. [3] Mothers, fathers, and other family members demand change that protects our young people from reckless policing. Families across America urge the federal government to take definitive and immediate action, including but not limited to the following reforms: • A fully-resourced and rigorous civil rights and criminal investigation by the DOJ into discriminatory policing, excessive force, and death or injury by police in every state in the country; • A comprehensive, streamlined, public national-level database of police shootings; excessive force, misconduct complaints, traffic and pedestrian stops, and arrests, broken down by race and other demographic data, with key privacy protections, the exclusion of personally identifying factors and information, and deportation immunity for civilians; • Mandating of Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission (POST) in every state and inter-state coordination between all POSTs; • An executive order that creates a strong and enforceable prohibition on police brutality and discriminatory policing based on race, ethnicity, religion, national origin, age, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, immigration status, disability, and housing status; • Increased funding for the DOJ's Office for Civil Rights to ensure additional, accessible state-level responders for police and other civil rights violations Divestment of federal anti-drug grants and federal funding for police departments that demonstrate abuse of power and massive reinvestment in community controlled and based policing practices; • Support for the passage of the End Racial Profiling Act (ERPA); • Streamlined national use of force matrix and mandating that state and local police have clear and streamlined matrices; and • Strict limits on asset seizure without due process and the transfer of any military equipment to local law enforcement under the 1033 program, guidelines that ensure that the equipment is not used on non-violent protesters, and an end to the requirement that such military weaponry is used within a year. [1] Mike Brown’s shooting and Jim Crow lynchings have too much in common. It’s time for America to own up, The Guardian, August 25, 2014. [2] “What we know about who police kill in America,” VOX, Oct. 16, 2014. [3] Mike Brown’s shooting and Jim Crow lynchings have too much in common. It’s time for America to own up, The Guardian, August 25, 2014.

I have noticed that people that are being found guilty of drug charges are being sentenced to extremely heavy prison terms, especially with the federal government cases. It seems as if persons with drug charges are being more heavily punished then persons found guilty of murder, raped and other violent crimes. It appears that the government is more focused on drug dealers than missing people, domestic violent, homeless individuals, the economy, rising minimum wage, cold case files, and many more serious problems happening in our country. Stand up and put a stop to over punishing what is not as important over things that are much more important.

I was deeply disturbed by this column in the Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/fairfax-should-force-police-to-come-clean-over-shooting-of-unarmed-john-geer/2014/10/15/7be2d804-54b2-11e4-892e-602188e70e9c_story.html?hpid=z2

On July 16th 2014, 22 yr old mother Natasha Adams rode her bicycle to work, Natasha had just dropped her 3 yr old son off at his daycare moments before,unfortunately Natasha never made it to work, Natasha was hit and killed by a distracted driver. The consequence for the driver who caused the death of a precious life was much too easy, receiving only 2 traffic citations. There is no laws in South Dakota with harsher penalties and consequences for Drivers who are sober and kill pedestrian/bicyclists while distracted or negligent. If you are driving distracted and you should take a life you should be held accountable to the same extent as an individual under the influence receiving jail time as well as losing your Operators license. Support Natasha’s Law to bring change to South Dakota and Make our Streets and Hiway’s safer. Maybe the next life that is spared will be yours.

My name is Doug DiZoglio, and I live in Bay County, Florida. On Jan 14 2013, a Bay County deputy entered my home uninvited, without warrant, without cause, and without procedure. He demanded I give him my dog, saying "You will give me that f**** dog, Mr. DiZoglio.” I responded by telling him to leave my house and said "If you are not the police or a deputy at this time, just an armed intruder, then I am about to call 911 to have you arrested. Please leave." At that point he charged at me and began beating me. He cuffed me and said if I ever speak of this to anyone he will be back to finish this. Then he uncuffed me, repeated the threat, and left. While this happened, an animal control officer also came into my home and took my dog, dragging him by the neck out of the house and to the shelter. I reported this to Internal Affairs, but there was no action. The deputy did not do his incident report until 5-6 weeks later, and it was a story I had to work hard to recognize. There was no accountability, from either the Sheriff’s Office or Animal Control. They break the laws, hurt us, and do it without fear of consequence. Isn’t it the job of the Sheriff’s Office to help the public feel safe? Isn’t it their job to supervise their deputies? Isn’t it their job to respond to honest reports of harm done to citizens? Please sign my petition, saying you agree that things are out of control and that we the public demand accountability.

I have been personally affected by this losing 14+Years of my life for a crime I am innocent of. Please help me get the Justice deserved. We need this case opened and the actual killer deserves to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Please sign on and allow Justice to be reached for me as well as the family of TJ Emfinger. Thank you and God bless!

I have a brother who was given 50 yrs for aggravated assault, that was never proven he did. He was a business owner with no previous background history. Injustice like that has to stop.

My son Pavielle Walton, has been housed at the county jail here in the state of Arizona every since February 2012. I have tried several of our black leaders to come and see what's going on and know one is willing to come and see how corrupt their system is for people of color. I have reached out to Al sharpton, the Nation of Islam and the NAACP as well but no help.