Chief Probation Officers of California

With the deadline to sign legislation looming, California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) is considering a bill that would limit how long young people who are declared mentally unfit by a judge can be held in juvenile halls.

Starcania Ford’s first call came not too long after she had completed two months of background checks and trainings. Could she come and pick up a young man waiting at the juvenile delinquency court near downtown Los Angeles?

After Los Angeles County moved to strongly limit the use of solitary confinement in its juvenile detention facilities, advocates are now setting their sights on legislation that would restrict the practice throughout California.

An effort to extend financial support to California’s probation-involved foster youth cleared another legislative hurdle yesterday when Senate Bill 12 was unanimously approved by an Assembly committee. In one of its final pushes, the Assembly Judiciary Committee passed the bill in a 10-0 vote.

In October 2014, The Imprint published a story that showed how probation-involved foster youth were being denied extended-care benefits because of an arbitrary rule that basically said if they were locked up on their 18th birthday, they were locked out of foster care.

“Audrie’s Law” stalled in the California State Assembly’s Committee on Public Safety  this morning due to the growing opposition against the bill’s mandatory sentencing requirements for juveniles convicted of sexually assaulting unconscious or disabled victims.