juvenile incarceration

Supporting radical changes to its juvenile justice system, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday endorsed a sweeping plan that would move hundreds of young people out of juvenile halls and detention camps run by the Probation Department.

Amid a shrinking juvenile justice system, a new California bill is part of a statewide debate about how the state should serve young people at greatest risk of involvement with the criminal justice system.

I was locked up for a year, just after I turned 17. I was at three juvenile halls for about six months and then at a juvenile camp for about five months.

A new report from the Urban Institute offers guidance for local jurisdictions on how to repurpose juvenile facilities, as well as how to “capture and redirect” savings from reduced reliance on incarceration, while maximizing state and federal funding streams to create a “continuum of care” for youth and families in their own communities.

Nearly six years after he spent more than a month locked up in a juvenile hall in Los Angeles County, Francisco Martines vividly recalled the conditions in his cell. Inside the small concrete room at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey, Calif.,

Youth who are involved with the criminal justice system are at greater risk for early death than their peers. There is a large body of research behind this knowledge. However, less research has been done about the extent to which youth are involved with the criminal justice system, and if there are differences between mortality rates for youth who are arrested versus those who are sentenced into the adult justice system, and those who hit different stops on the spectrum in between.

Last month, The Imprint began “Positive Youth Justice: Curbing Crime, Building Assets,” a series that imagines an entire continuum of juvenile justice services built on the positive youth development (PYD) framework.