Letter-writing campaign

This Easter Camden Youth hunt for tougher Drug Laws not chocolate Bunnies

 

St. Joseph’s/Camden Churches Organized for People (CCOP) Community Youth and Adult Letter Writing Campaign

 

 

“Do you know how it feels to be a kid and to think that drugs are more important to your dad then you are…I do” This is just one of the shocking sentiments shared in more than 234 letters that have been sent to Assemblyman Angel Fuentes, State Sen. Donald Norcross, and Gov. Chris Christie, as part of a letter writing campaign to encourage New Jersey lawmakers to make the needed revisions to the Drug Offense Restraining Order Act of 1999.

 

Following a community meeting with Assemblymen Fuentes and Wilson and Norcross, St. Joseph’s/CCOP learned recently that the proposed bill A2416 needed to be revised and reworked.  The rationale behind the revisions is to ensure that the new legislation does not just sound good on paper but actually enables New Jersey police departments to use the Drug Offense Restraining Order, DORO.

 

Fearing that this legislative hurdle will slow down the process St. Joseph’s/CCOP leaders decided to keep the pressure on by sharing the deeply personal and upsetting stories from youth and adults from their church community. 

 

“This has confirmed not only how resilient Camden teenagers are, but how much we owe it to them to fight to give them more than a ride home from a church event,” commented Kristin Prinn, CCOP leader and youth director at St. Joseph’s Pro-Cathedral.

  

Reading these letters you can see the full picture of the drug epidemic.  From the elementary age child in East Camden who writes, “I’m tired of hearing of the people getting killed,” to the suburban family out side of Camden who write “For 15 years we lived a life of hell, giving us an inside look of the damnable world of drug addiction.”

 

“The power is in the hands of our lawmakers to rewrite the bill and pass it so Camden and all N.J. police departments can actually do something with it,” explained Teresa Reyes, CCOP leader from East Camden.  “We don’t just want a bill that looks good on paper; we want a bill that gives our police department the power to keep drug offenders out of our neighborhoods.”

 

St. Joseph’s/CCOP leaders plan to run the letter writing campaign until there is a bill that accomplishes the task at hand, that is making DORO work on the streets not just on paper.  They have already sent 234 letters.