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As we look to create a system that successfully supports people to return to their communities, we should draw inspiration from the healing-centered ideals advanced nearly a century ago. Community supervision should be an opportunity to support those targeted by our racist criminal legal system in achieving economic opportunity.
Earlier this summer, the Biden-Harris Administration invited a coalition of youth and young adult facing organizations to participate in a roundtable on youth employment as part of the Administration’s comprehensive strategy to respond to violence and ensure public safety.
Duy Pham was a guest on the Leslie Marshall Show, where he spoke about youth and President Biden's Build Back Better plan.
The public health and economic crises of the past year have exacerbated existing economic inequities. The pandemic has devastated Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color; workers in jobs paying low wages; youth and young adults; women and women of color; and people impacted by the criminal legal system.
Duy Pham was quoted about CLASP youth-focused fact sheet in response to the White House's infrastructure plan.
CLASP joined over 90 state, local and national criminal justice, workforce development, antipoverty, and racial equity organizations in calling for Congress to ensure youth and adults impacted by the criminal legal system remain a priority in the American Jobs Plan.
In a recent New York Times magazine article, actor Steven Yeun said, “Sometimes I wonder if the Asian-American experience is what it’s like when you’re thinking about everyone else, but nobody else is thinking about you.” These words hit me harder than expected, particularly during a year where Asian Americans have been disparaged physically, emotionally, and economically while the “progressive” community remains silent.
The Biden-Harris Administration must undertake criminal justice reform with an obligation to divest from systems of oppression and invest in the healing of historically oppressed communities.
We once again are painfully reminded that a system rooted in white supremacy will never bring justice for Black lives. And we can no longer expect it to. However, that doesn’t mean we can’t continue to demand justice for Breonna Taylor and the countless other Black lives lost to state-sanctioned genocide.
As a nation, we have underinvested in the health and wellbeing of Black communities, while we’ve overinvested in systems that enact violence on these communities. To protect Black lives and heal Black communities, we must divest from the police and invest in Black communities.