NCYL was among the many organizations that had received funding from the JEHT Foundation, whose benefactors had invested their funds with the Wall Street broker charged with perpetrating a $50 million Ponzi scheme. The Foundation, which funded NCYL’s juvenile justice work and was the Center’s second largest contributor, was forced to stop all funding and close its doors at the end of last year.

NCYL had received $204,000 from JEHT in 2008 to fund its work reforming the juvenile justice system in Arkansas, but will not receive an additional $25,000 that was promised before the end of the year. NCYL has spent the past year working directly with the Arkansas Division of Youth Services to create a blueprint for reforming the system, with a focus on creating community alternatives to incarceration. NCYL had hoped to receive funding from JEHT in 2009 to continue that work.

NCYL Director John O’Toole says that while the Center, and its work in Arkansas, will go on, JEHT’s demise will leave a major gap.

“We were very sad about the JEFT Foundation. There are very few foundations that fund juvenile justice reform, so this is a big loss to those who care about helping youth in the juvenile justice system.”