ABSTRACT
In the muddled world of "youth crime prevention", some social justice groups engage in the neoliberal charter school movement—which is favored by those on the right, in part, because it weakens labor unions. Social justice organizations are working to disrupt, decriminalize, amend, regulate, and repair many of the mid- to low-level policies and practices of the carceral state. In various ways, these organizations are chipping away at the feeders to the penal systems and chipping away at the effects of the system. Like many scholars, they are trying to tackle mass incarceration by reducing the number of people who are put on probation or sent to jail and prison in the first place, improving the lives of troubled people and communities, and doing so through grassroots mobilizing. By taking on services and functions that have historically been provided through the state sector, public-private partners in the community are participating in the privatization of what may have once been public functions.
