Here is an amazing quote from our own Sharon Hines in a Fort Worth Star-Telegram story about advocacy at the Juvenile Board:

. . . . "Community Frontline, an east Fort Worth advocacy group, and the Justice Network of Tarrant County, held a press conference Wednesday in support of Youth Advocate Programs. . 'My heart is broken because this is 2024, we’re fighting a program that has 100% success rate of their kids,' said Sharon Hines, an Air Force veteran and member of the Justice Network. 'They go to high school, they get their GEDs, they get jobs. Why would we be against that program? Tarrant County is scary.'” . . . . 

This is such important work.  Why use a "punishment-first" model on youth whose brains are still developing?  Other evidence-based alternatives that provide our youth what they need to turn their lives around are available, but instead, it seems that Tarrant County would rather cancel those programs and throw our youth into a detention center.  And once that happens, it's much more difficult for them to avoid a life of incarceration.  

We need your help.  Very little attention has been paid to Juvenile Justice in Tarrant County.  We are throwing a light on this important topic.