The Youth Justice and Power Union (YJPU) is a youth advocacy organization that advocates for defunding the police, raising the minimum wage to as much as $24 an hour, increasing taxpayer-funded housing, and increasing rental subsidies. YJPU is fiscally sponsored by The City School, ¹ a youth advocacy nonprofit that works to “build collective power to challenge systemic oppression.” ²

History

The Youth Justice and Power Union was founded in 2011. It held its first big event in 2020 when it held the Defund and Invest Rally. This rally included activists from YJPU, The City School, and the Roxbury Environmental Empowerment Project blocking an intersection in Boston and demanding that the mayor take away 10 percent of the police budget and give it to Black communities. ³

In 2021, YJPU held the DefundBosCops rally at Boston City Hall. This rally called for the city to freeze police hiring, take $120 million out of the police budget, and use that money for government-funded health care, housing, and education. ⁴

Campaigns

Defund the Police

The Youth Justice and Power Union’s defund the police campaign is its primary focus. YJPU stated that police “cause violence as part of a destructive system of mass incarceration; they are not a real solution, and with a massive $474 million budget they continue to take money from community investments.” ⁵

From 2020 through 2023, YJPU and its partner organizations convinced politicians to remove $19 million from the Boston Police Department’s budget. YJPU argues that having “trained community responders” ⁵ would be effective for dealing with mental health issues and suggests that police are not suited to take on that role. ⁵

Budget Campaign

YJPU’s budget campaign lays out how the money taken from the police should be used in Black communities, including investment into taxpayer-funded housing, taxpayer-funded jobs for young people, and raising wages for those jobs up to as much as $24 per hour. It also demands the city of Boston put aside $40 million into a participatory budgeting fund on which citizens could vote. ⁵

YJPU states that even with $10 million in the budget to build affordable housing, rents are still too expensive and more money for rental subsidies is needed in Black communities. Victoria White, an activist from YJPU, said, “It’s hard to see that $50 million are going towards the police instead of at least just 2 million going to youth jobs to support us.”  ⁶

YJPU suggests that more money is necessary for Black communities to be better off, but it never suggests that the money could come from any source other than the police budget. ⁶

Projects

The Youth Justice and Power Union, along with the Center for Economic Democracy, runs the Better Budget Alliance, a coalition pushing for participatory budgeting in Boston. ⁷ The Better Budget Alliance aims for participatory budgeting to redistribute money into Black communities, give more power to people who do not feel satisfied with current democratic processes, and to be based on the experiences of people who have been “most impacted by systemic oppression.”  ⁸

The Better Budget Alliance argues that the city will need an oversight board for the program and suggests that the board should be “led primarily by working-class BIPOC residents, as well as other individuals who have been most directly impacted by oppressive systems in our city.” ⁸ The Better Budget Alliance now helps the city directly with its participatory budgeting program through which “All Bostonians 11 and older, regardless of citizenship, are eligible to vote.” ⁹

1. “Youth Justice and Power Union Donation.” Give Lively. Accessed February 10, 2025. https://secure.givelively.org/donate/the-city-school-inc/yjpu-donation.
2. “Our Mission & History.” The City School. Accessed February 10, 2025. https://www.thecityschool.org/our-mission-and-history.
3.  Kim, Young-Jin, Asher Klein, and Michael Rosenfield. “Protesters Calling to Defund Police Block Major Boston Intersection.” NBC Boston, June 23, 2020. https://www.nbcboston.com/racial-justice-protests/protesters-to-rally-at-city-hall-call-on-walsh-to-reallocate-police-funds/2147566/.
4. “Defund Boscops.” Defund BosCops. Accessed February 10, 2025. https://www.defundboscops.org/.
5. Youth Justice & Power Union. Accessed February 10, 2025. https://www.yjpu.org/.
6. Bleichfeld, Avery. “Protesters Call for Increased Funding for Youth Jobs, Housing.” The Bay State Banner, June 12, 2024. https://baystatebanner.com/2024/06/12/protesters-call-for-increased-funding-for-youth-jobs-housing/.
7. Bleichfeld, Avery. “Voting Begins for First Round of Participatory Budgeting Process.” The Bay State Banner, January 23, 2025. https://baystatebanner.com/2025/01/23/voting-begins-for-first-round-of-participatory-budgeting-process/.
8. “Our Vision.” Better Budget Alliance. Accessed February 10, 2025. https://betterbudgetalliance.org/our-vision/.
9. “Ideas in Action: Voting.” Boston.gov, January 15, 2025. https://www.boston.gov/departments/participatory-budgeting/ideas-action/voting#:~:text=All%20Bostonians%2011%20and%20older,you%20want%20to%20see%20funded.