During my time with Avenues for Justice (AFJ), I have witnessed incredible transformation, breakthrough and resilience while walking alongside hundreds of young people. Still, there are moments that stop me cold.
‍
Last week, it was the sight of a young Black man holding a hairbrush on the subway. He was in his twenties, standing by the train door with a wooden hairbrush in his hand. Nothing about the moment was remarkable. And yet, I could not stop looking at the brush.

I immediately thought of Khiel Coppin, the 18-year-old who was killed by police officers in Brooklyn in 2007 while holding a hairbrush they believed was a gun. I thought about Tamir Rice, who was only 12 when he was killed in Cleveland while carrying a toy gun.

And I thought about Kalief Browder.

Kalief was 16 when he was arrested and sent to Rikers Island, accused of taking a backpack. He spent three years there waiting for a trial that never came, nearly two of them in solitary confinement. The charges were eventually dropped. Two years after he came home, he took his own life.

Kalief never held anything that anyone mistook for a weapon. He was a Black teenager wrongfully confined by a system that failed him at every turn.

Let me be clear: the object itself is not the issue.

The real issue is the systemic bias that dictates who we deem dangerous, and how instantly that judgment can derail a life. It is the assumption that young Black and Brown men are threats to be feared before they are human beings to be understood.

After twenty years, I wish I could say we have outgrown this. We haven't. This prejudice still drives overpolicing, unfair prosecution, harsh sentencing, and the theft of lifelong opportunities.

A hairbrush on the subway and a cell on Rikers Island may seem worlds apart, but they force the exact same question:

Who gets the benefit of being seen as a whole human being?

We are officially less than a year away from New York City's legal deadline to shut down Rikers Island, but the numbers don't add up.

• The Reality: The city's jail population is stuck at 6,700, but the planned borough-based replacements can only hold 4,160.
• The Delays: The “opening of Brooklyn's first replacement jail” has slipped to 2029, prompting City Council to draft legislation pushing back the original 2027 deadline.

Most headlines focus entirely on bed counts, building contracts, and missed timelines. Those logistics ignore the root issue. We need to shift the conversation from how many cells we are building to a much bigger question:

How do we prevent our youth from ending up behind bars in the first place?

For us at Avenues for Justice, the answer starts with seeing the whole young person. Their family. Their school. Their fears. Their talents. What happened before they walked through our doors and what they hope their life can look like beyond them.

Our Court Advocates are on the front lines every single day. They stand besides our young people in court, provide a safe haven in our community centers, and offer unwavering support through every moment in between. By showing up when it matters most, they help Participants—and everyone around them—see, believe in, and unlock their true potential.
And it works.

94% of the Court-involved Participants who complete our program are not reconvicted within three years. At AFJ, serving one young person costs $8,900 annually, compared to roughly $500,000 for incarceration. Last year, we supported 692 individuals between the ages of 13 and 24. Every single one is a whole human being whose future should not be defined by a single moment.

I hope the young man I saw on the train reached his destination safely. And I hope everyone who passed him saw exactly what was in his hand: a hairbrush. Nothing more.

This remains the reason I do this work. We see the full humanity, potential, and future of every young person who walks through our doors. We will keep fighting for a justice system that does the same.

Liz Frederick

Executive Director

‍