Public Welfare Foundation Launches Summer Public Service Announcement Campaign “See You, See Youth”

Public Welfare Foundation (PWF), the country’s only endowment fund dedicated exclusively to investing in new transformative approaches to youth and adult criminal justice announced the launch of its summer public service announcement campaign “See You, See Youth.”

PWF has traveled the country asking young people what they want to see – for their community and themselves – in the future. This narrative campaign is designed to help leaders shaping policies and public opinion see beyond headlines written to drive clicks and increase advertising revenue and rather focus on the voices of youth who represent some of this country’s most valuable resources.

Summer is too often a time when violent crime can increase in communities where resource droughts are a common occurrence. Young people in those communities – predominantly Black and Latinx – often become scapegoats for the failures of the collective society. When youth make poor decisions that place them at ends with the law, society is conditioned to fear them, rather than question the lack of thriving schools, pro-social activities, and professional training opportunities available to those youth and their communities. Our nation must grapple with the long-term impacts of that choice for the youth themselves and for the rest of society.

Public Welfare Foundation created this campaign to highlight the voices of youth and organizations on the frontlines providing solutions that are transforming communities. The challenges are complicated, but our nation’s young people deserve our best efforts and ideas.

“Instead of fearing young people that our country has both overlooked and hyper-criminalized, we need to fear for them, for their feelings, futures, families, and formation. We need to put the YOU back in youth. If we could see ourselves in these youth, we would collectively demand better outcomes for their future,” said Public Welfare Foundation President and CEO Candice C. Jones.

Public Welfare Foundation’s ”See You, See Youth” campaign was developed based on information highlighting that i ncarcerating youth doesn’t make us safer. Here are some of the facts:

Harm prevention and reduction efforts cost less than incarceration and boast better outcomes.
Tough on crime tactics like isolation and solitary confinement further traumatize young people and hurt outcomes, doing more harm than good.
Fewer than a third of youth incarcerated in juvenile facilities were accused of or adjudicated for a serious violent offense (murder, sexual assault, armed robbery, or aggravated assault).
Teenage impulsivity is a natural part of brain development. Kids’ brains are developing until the mid-20s. Once their brains are fully developed, the impulsive activities largely end.
Black youth are 5 times more likely to be incarcerated than white youth, Native American youth are 3.2 times more likely to be incarcerated than white youth, and Latino youth are 2 times more likely to be incarcerated than white youth, according to the Haywood Burns Institute.

Please follow Public Welfare Foundation on social and visit seeyouth.us to learn more and hear directly from young people fighting for a more just nation.

Since its founding, the Foundation has made over 5,700 grants totaling more than $700 million. With more than $620 million in current assets, Public Welfare Foundation looks for strategic points where its funds can make a significant difference. The Foundation focuses its grant-making in some difficult and often overlooked social justice areas where it believes it can serve as a catalyst for reform in adult and youth justice.