Profile: Sadie Nelson

Sadie Nelson, leader of J.O.Y. Club at Lincoln High School

By Jaden Schiffhauer

In November of 1994, an Oregon policy was passed by voters, one that would change the lives of hundreds of teens by trying them as adults and preventing them from receiving an education: Measure 11. Sadie Nelson, the new leader of J.O.Y., or Justice for Our Youth, hopes to inform people about both this current issue and others relating to abuse within prison systems.

Nelson has always had an interest in prison systems but has found that many Oregon voters remain unaware of the systemic problems within it.

“Human atrocities take place every day merely because voters are unaware,” she says, “therefore, people who have been violating fundamental aspects of youth’s lives have been elected for years.”

Through education with J.O.Y., she hopes that both current and future voters will begin to become aware of this topic which she’s known about for years.

“I think what made me realize how terrible the institution is would be when I learned at age 13 about the death penalty and how it is applied.”

At the first meeting of the club, Nelson spoke about the issue of drugs’ legality being used to target minorities. For example, President Nixon’s War on Drugs is often said to have targeted black individuals through attempts to associate them with what would soon be the criminalized heroin and cocaine. Today, nearly half of the millions US incarcerations are for drug offenses, many of which were nonviolent.

We now are responsible for “25% of the world’s prisoners despite only making up 4% of the population,” Nelson says, a statistic well known to both her and frequent members of J.O.Y. Club.

In Oregon, teenagers and young adults make up a sizable percentage of such drug offenses, so that instead of receiving the rehabilitation that is likely needed for their young minds, they are punished, released, and often return to drugs.

In a society that villainizes criminals while glorifying the justice system, Nelson “hope[s] to shift the perspectives people have when looking at offenders.”