Your work has exemplified the heart energy that Sullivan Ballou expressed. As a talented young lawyer with a Fulbright Fellowship and a masters degree in international affairs, you could easily have chosen the career path of self-serving accomplishment and material success. Instead, you have consistently chosen to stand up for the powerless in society, with the Public Defender’s Service of the District of Columbia, the Save the Children project in Bolivia, and American University’s United Nations Committee against Torture project in Geneva, Switzerland.
But it is to the children of Mexico that you are totally committed. About half of Mexico’s prison population is in pre-trial detention, awaiting trial without being convicted. This is bad enough for adults, but the consistent research on children is that detention usually worsens their problems. Most of the children in Mexico’s pretrial detention system will sit in prison for months before ever seeing a judge. Few have the possibility of being released on bail, and many of those cannot afford it. Kids from rural areas or indigenous communities often lack basic paperwork, such as birth certificates, needed to qualify for release, which means that regardless of the offense they will remain in detention. In some states in Mexico children are in pretrial detention for as long as 14 months.
By starting International Justice Consulting, Inc, and “The Children in Prison Project”, you have become a major force for reform of this faltering juvenile justice system in Mexico. The goal of the Children in Prison Project is to reduce and eliminate excessive juvenile detention in Mexico, both pre-trial and pre-sentencing detention, as well as excessive prison sentences. Together with the state and federal governments and other non-profit organizations, the Children in Prison Project has developed viable policy reforms and worked to implement them. Based on your 2013 report, “Children in Prison: Excessive Juvenile Pretrial Detention in Mexico City”, Mexico City is now planning a pre-trial services unit that can supervise juveniles on release while awaiting trial. Other states in Mexico have expressed interest in conducting similar research in order to set the stage for similar release programs. With training programs and advocacy you are building institutional support for these reforms.
Many children in Mexico will have better lives because you followed through on the compassion you experienced when you first saw their plight. We have been inspired to hear of your selfless good work. You embody precisely the kind of heart energy which the Sullivan Ballou Fund seeks to recognize and affirm. We are honored to be able to acknowledge you in this small way.
Congratulations!
Elissa and Bruce Peterson, Founding Members