Learning Rights Law Center

Shantel Vachani will launch an alternative sentencing project to address the disproportionate confinement of minority youth with disabilities. These individuals are pushed out of schools and into the juvenile justice system as a result of systemic failures at various levels. Vachani’s approach links mental health interventions, special education, legal reforms, community organizing, and advocacy to address the issues facing disabled youth at their point of entry into the system. The project brings together community stakeholders to tackle the root causes of delinquency, with an emphasis on prevention and rehabilitation rather than incarceration.

Vachani received her BA in International Development Studies and Psychology from UCLA in 2000 and is completing a joint degree at the UCLA School of Law and School of Social Welfare. She is the founder of the UCLA South Asian Law Student’s Association and Co-Chair of the Diversity Action Committee. Vachani was a law clerk at the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, she participated in an effort to document labor conditions on the Gulf Coast, resulting in a publication entitled And Injustice for All: Worker’s Lives in the Reconstruction of New Orleans. Vachani also served as a clinical therapist at the Koreatown Youth and Community Center, where she provided counseling to court-mandated youth returning from juvenile institutions.

Los Angeles, CA  |