About Us
The Justice Education Project (JEP) is the first national Gen Z–led criminal justice reform organization. We equip young people to analyze and publicly challenge policing, courts, incarceration, and emerging technologies that shape the legal system. Through research and youth-authored civic storytelling, we help the public and policymakers understand how justice systems operate, who they harm, and which structural reforms advance safety and accountability.
Vision
JEP follows the Proximate Analyst framework.
When the people closest to a system are also the ones producing the analysis of it, the research gets sharper, the policy gets more accurate, and the reform gets more durable.
Countless studies demonstrate that criminal justice research systematically excludes the generation most exposed to its consequences. Gen Z is the first to come of age inside a justice system that is simultaneously expanding its reach and automating its decisions.
By building research capacity in young people and pairing it with institutional access and civic storytelling, and through the lens of the Proximate Analyst framework, JEP collectively advances a justice system in which the people it affects most have the power, standing, and tools to reshape it.
Our Theory of Change
Gen Z–Led Research & Analysis
The Problem: Criminal justice debates are dominated by people with the least exposure to their consequences. The young people who will live longest under algorithmic policing, automated courts, and expanding surveillance have almost no seat at the research tables where those systems get evaluated and defended.
Our Impact: JEP builds the research itself. We train young people to produce work that meets academic and policy standards, then develop it alongside legal scholars so it holds up under scrutiny. JEP...
-
Produces youth-led research on policing, courts, incarceration, and emerging justice technologies
-
Pairs young researchers with scholars who sharpen the analysis and vouch for its rigor
-
Turns that research into briefs, books, and commentary the public can actually use
Institutional Partnership & Access
The Problem: Young people get invited to share stories at justice convenings. They almost never get invited to produce the research or set the agenda. So youth show up as testimony, and the institutions that drive reform stay closed to the generation with the most at stake.
Our Impact: We move young people from the testimony chair to the research role. The work above only changes policy if it travels into the rooms where policy is made, so this pillar is about position, standing, and access rather than the research itself. JEP…
-
Partners with universities and research centers to host youth-led research inside their walls
-
Puts Gen Z analysts on the agenda at scholar-informed briefings and convenings, not just in the audience
-
Builds the institutional relationships that give youth analysis a seat that lasts beyond a single event
Youth Authored Civic Storytelling
The Problem: The people closest to the justice system, including young people who are currently or formerly incarcerated, get written about constantly and almost never author the account themselves. By the time their experience reaches the public it's been filtered through someone else's frame, which strips out both the accuracy and the authority that come from telling it firsthand.
Our Impact: We hand young people the pen and the editorial support to write their own analysis of the systems they've lived inside. For JEP that meant working inside Alameda County Juvenile Hall with UC Berkeley's Underground Scholars ITC program, where incarcerated youth authored civic essays that reached a national audience rather than staying inside the facility walls. JEP…
-
Supports young people in publishing co-authored research and first-person civic writing
-
Pairs that writing with moderated public and institutional forums where they speak for themselves
-
Connects local youth experience to national justice debates through strategic media
