about create justice
Founded by Carnegie Hall in New York City and the Arts for Incarcerated Youth Network in Los Angeles, the Create Justice initiative hosted four national gatherings from 2017-2019, bringing together a diverse group of artists, young people, policymakers, funders, nonprofits, and researchers from across the country. Forum participants explored how the power of the arts could best be leveraged for youth justice and reform, considering the possibilities for collective action and impact.
Createjustice.org is the online resource that holds the collective wisdom, resource lists, links, and learnings that emerged from those gatherings. The resources are available to everyone in the hopes of advancing work at the intersection of arts and youth justice that continues beyond the Create Justice initiative.
Inclusion, connection and community
The arts are about inclusion, connection and community. We have seen firsthand the transformative power of the arts in the lives of youth involved in our Weill Music Institute programs. The arts provide a unique opportunity for nurturing talents and creative expression, and provide pathways for youth to work toward personal goals and reach their potential.
– Sarah Johnson, Chief Education Officer Director of Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute
CREATE JUSTICE RESOURCES
Create Justice existed as a learning community and a vehicle for action. The Create Justice gatherings offered a space to share, connect, and be re-inspired. In particular, three action groups formed with a goal of creating shared resources that would be of use to the field. Over the course of a year and a half, working in focused groups and sharing back with the larger community, these action groups created the resources lists below. The areas of focus for the action groups were: Peer Learning, Policy, and Research.
PEER LEARNING
sought to identify,
develop, and support
creative collaborations
and arts-focused opportunities
POLICY
focused on youth-driven
policy actions and training
tools/prompts that could be
applied locally and nationally
RESEARCH
sought to create shared participatory
research resources/research reference list
for research and evaluation done at the
intersection of the arts and youth justice
Continuing The Conversation
There continue to be important forums to discuss and bring together arts and youth justice reforms. The following are a partial list of ongoing forums and convenings recommended (or hosted) by members and friends of the Create Justice community, as well as questions the Create Justice community can continue to ask in the Arts and Justice space.
- How can arts play a role in changing the narrative around incarceration?
- Who is incarcerated
- Why is incarceration seen as a solution
- How arts can offer alternative solutions, and create a space to think and brainstorm creative alternatives to incarceration, and to communicate a different image of those who are often criminalized
- What is the role of traditional arts/cultural arts in building community/public safety? What role could they play if they were funded well?
- How can collective art-making support a creative space for creative solution-finding?
- What role can arts play in prevention?
Justice Oriented
Commissioned Works
As part of its mission, Create Justice commissioned new work illuminating the ongoing conversations around youth justice reform, arts engagement and cultural equity.
ABOUT THE co-FOUNDERS
The Arts for Incarcerated Youth Network (AIYN) provides structure and coordination for the collaborative work of community-based arts education organizations serving youth in the Los Angeles County juvenile justice system. AIYN envisions a future where youth are empowered and the systems that serve them are transformed by centering arts as a healing strategy, and as a way to build the wellbeing of young people and their communities. AIYN serves justice-impacted youth in the Los Angeles County, leveraging the reach and expertise of its members to amplify impact, provide thought leadership for the field, and serve as a model for effective collaboration.
Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute (WMI) produces an extraordinary range of music education and social impact programs each season that extend far outside the physical walls of our concert halls. These programs reach over half a million people in New York City, across the US, and around the globe each year. WMI is driven by a belief in the power of every individual’s creative capacity and aims to inspire discovery and encourage personal growth in all its programs.
Transforming the juvenile justice system
The cost to incarcerate a young person in California is $200,000 per year and in New York the cost is $350,000 per year. In that context, it inspires us even further to invest in our youth by focusing on education, increasing access to the arts, and transforming the juvenile justice system.
– Kaile Shilling, Executive Director of Arts for Incarcerated Youth Network
What’s at Stake
