Category: Youth

It Starts with You: Planning a Health Fair

By Natalie DeMola

From PHN Issue 26, Fall 2015

My name is Natalie DeMola, and I am currently housed at Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla, California. I am serving life without the possibility of parole, and I have been incarcerated since the age of 16. I work as a peer health educator about sexually transmitted infections, HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, women’s health and the Prison Rape Elimination Act and support women here when a health crisis or issue arises. Continue reading “It Starts with You: Planning a Health Fair” →

Interview with Joshua Glenn of Youth Art & Self-Empowerment Project (YASP)

By Naseem Bazargan

From PHN Issue 15, Winter 2013

What is YASP all about?

   We are a youth-led organization working to repeal the laws that allow young people to be tried as adults [in Pennsylvania]. The current law is if you are tried for anything that can be considered a violent crime, you will automatically be charged as an adult, and you will be held in an adult prison pretrial.Before 1996, you could only be automatically charged as an adult for murder, and all other cases the DA had to petition to get you charged as an adult. [Act 33] made it so that the crimes you could be charged for varies; it could be anything considered violent, and the DA has the discretion on what’s violent and what’s not. We don’t think young people should be charged as adults at all. We want them to repeal the amendment so it could be like it was before 1996. We have facts that show that since 1996, charging young people as adults, it never reduced crime. Continue reading “Interview with Joshua Glenn of Youth Art & Self-Empowerment Project (YASP)” →