Avenues for Justice offers 2nd chance for inner-city youth at risk for going or returning to jail
LOWER EAST SIDE, Manhattan (WABC) -- From the courtroom to neighborhoods, one local group has spent the last 45 years fighting to save thousands of young lives.
Avenues for Justice, which started on the Lower East Side, intervenes to stop teens and young adults from entering and returning to jail.
The 15th floor of the Manhattan Criminal Courts building has seen intensity and chaos from the trials of former President Donald Trump, Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein, but down the hallway, for nearly four decades, there's a quiet space of hope.
"Right now, we're dealing with about 500 kids a year," said Avenues of Justice co-founder and President Angel Rodriguez.
Avenue for Justice serves as a legal liaison, offering a second chance for inner-city youth. Rodriguez is the co-founder.
"Sometimes we surrendered the kid who we knew the cops were looking for, then later went to arraignments and said to a judge if I can bring the kid to the police to surrender them, I think I can bring them back to court to the issue of bail," Rodriguez said.
He says judges would release the teens to the organization's Andrew Glover Youth Program based on the Lower East Side.
"Unfortunately, my mother was a drug addict, and I got involved in the streets at a pretty young age around 11 years old," Elsie Flores said. "I started selling around 13."
By her third arrest, at age 16, Elsie Flores was charged as an adult.
"If I didn't have Avenues for Justice in play, I could've easily did the nine years that I was facing and I could've easily been a statistic or a number to the city, state," Flores said.
Rodriguez said that aside from saving lives, they are saving them money.
Supported mainly through private donations, the non-profit, which has a staff of about 15, says it costs almost a half a million dollars to keep someone in prison per year.
"We can keep that same individual out in the community productively back to work, school, or treatment for about $6,300," Rodriguez said.
Referrals into the program come from police and lawyers, like criminal defense attorney Kevin Sylvan.
"Whenever we're able to work out a case so that the client can indeed succeed, it creates a feeling that's hard to match," Sylvan said.
With the program now expanding into Harlem and other boroughs, it's a feeling that for 45 years, Rodriguez has always strived for.
"I'll show you that this person can make those changes and that second chances do work," he said.
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