Dear Barbara A. Favola,

In one month, I will have graduated from high school and be ready for the next stage of my life. When I look back on my life so far, I notice how much I have changed. Though I may look back and see a drastic difference, this change did not happen in a snap; slowly and surely I have built myself into the man I know today. Lord knows I have made my mistakes—some more lawful than others—yet I always had a safety net beneath me with my parents and close friends. I was surrounded by good influences yet even I was not free from sin. As a kid, it is almost my societal duty to make mistakes, to learn, to grow, all to ensure that I am ready for adulthood. Yet how can a kid make mistakes and grow if the full weight of the law is breathing down their neck?

At a local nonprofit where I intern, my fellow peers and I, work as a Youth Peer Court (YPC) ambassador. As an ambassador, it is my job to help youths through restorative justice practices and ensure that kids do not end up in the juvenile justice system for a minor mistake, ensuring that one action will not become an incident they will regret for the rest of their childhood. While I have seen kids not understand the gravity or treat this opportunity as a given, I would rather a youth take this chance for granted than fall into the preschool-to-prison pipeline. This is bolstered by the fact that a youth has never reentered the program after leaving, these sorts of programs work and work well. Kids are not hateful beings, they may be immature and young, but they are not full of malice. Kids simply reflect the environment they are in and as Fredrick Douglas said: “It is easier to build strong children than to fix broken men.” Giving youths a second chance now means that a sixth or seventh chance is not needed when they are adults.

Unfortunately, these sorts of programs are only local and not offered state or nation wide. With your support, we could create one of the first state-wide, state-funded restorative justice programs. These programs have been shown to work within local communities, and it is time to bring the entire state into this success. With your support, Virginia can become a leader in youth justice, a state which allows its kids to actually be kids, not just young adults. Young people are the future, it is time that we treat them as such.