Dear Youth Advocates:

The SAVE Coalition is reaching out to the juvenile justice community requesting your support for reform of the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), especially as it applies to incarcerated youth.  We are a coalition of organizations and individuals dedicated to protecting the U.S. prison and jail population--a group that is increasingly vulnerable to violence and abuse since the 1996 enactment of the PLRA.  Members of the SAVE Coalition have studied the impact of the PLRA and developed proposed reforms to the law that do not interfere with its stated purpose: to reduce frivolous litigation by prisoners.

Applying the PLRA to juveniles serves neither the goals of the Act nor the welfare of our country’s children.  The PLRA was designed to reduce the number of frivolous prisoner lawsuits reaching the courts.  But juveniles do not generally file lawsuits, frivolous or otherwise.  They generally lack the literacy skills, knowledge of the court system and access to legal materials that would be needed to engage in litigation.  The SAVE Coalition therefore recommends that incarcerated youth be exempted entirely from the PLRA.

The PLRA has negatively impacted incarcerated youth generally, but a few provisions in particular have proven especially troublesome for juveniles.  Most prominent among them is the exhaustion requirement, which holds that a prisoner must exhaust all administrative remedies at his or her facility before filing a lawsuit in federal court.  In order to satisfy this requirement, youth must navigate convoluted grievance systems and comply with often challenging rules regarding deadlines, the necessary content of complaints, and appeals processes.  Many youth either do not know of, or do not understand the grievance systems in their facilities, and many more fear retaliation for filing grievances.  As a result, this provision effectively undermines the rights of incarcerated youth by denying them any access to the federal courts and the oversight and accountability that the courts provide.

As youth advocates, your support of this initiative is incredibly important.  By signing on to the letter, you will be sending a strong message to Congress that the PLRA needs to be reformed before any other youths are victimized by its stringent and inappropriate provisions.  In showing strong support for our efforts amongst juvenile justice experts and advocates, we will demonstrate the urgent need to ensure that incarcerated youth are excluded from the harmful impacts of the PLRA.

This issue has already generated significant interest on Capitol Hill.  In the 110^th Congress, Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA), chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, held two hearings on his proposed remedy to the PLRA, the “Prison Abuse Remedies Act,” H.R. 4109.  We are now working to ensure that PLRA reform  legislation is reintroduced in this new Congress.  With your support for this initiative we hope to stop the PLRA’s ability to undermine the rights and protections of incarcerated youth.

If you have any questions, please contact SAVE Coordinator Amy Fettig at [log in to unmask] or 202/548-6608 or visit our website www.savecoalition.org.  We would appreciate your affirmation of support for the letter by March 13.