Executive Summary

Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice (CURYJ, pronounced “courage”) was established in 2011 by formerly-incarcerated community activists focused on ending Oakland’s gang injunctions, a kind of “group restraining order” that encouraged racial profiling and severely limited youth freedoms. Early in the journey, a platform for organic community building emerged. Our work centers on the healing, growth, and leadership of systems-impacted and formerly-incarcerated young people ages 14-26. Our goal is to end youth incarceration in California by 2030. Our approach is holistic. Made up of two buildings located directly across from each other at the Fruitvale BART station, the Oscar Grant Youth Power Zone is more than a physical site for CURYJ: It is the first building-block of community infrastructure that will help us realize the end to youth incarceration in California during our lifetimes. Designed as a movement-building space, a community healing space, AND a true community-based alternative to incarceration, the Oscar Grant Youth Power Zone provides leadership development, policy advocacy, life coaching, social enterprise, and community healing. Through a combination of in-house programming and strategic partnerships, we create a continuum of care for young people, their families, and communities. We need spaces to demonstrate that we can work differently with young people who would otherwise be incarcerated and get good outcomes. We need spaces that provide the chance for power and growth before a young person “fails in” to services. Ending youth incarceration requires that we tackle the issue of criminalization at the individual, community, and systems levels.

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