Justice

Youth Advocate Programs, which in recent years has secured a high-quality research result and a big philanthropic bet, has now locked in a long-term succession plan within its ranks. 

The Harrisburg, Penn.-based

Newly elected Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón is moving quickly to change how youth are prosecuted and held accountable for crimes – hiring a public defender to overhaul long-standing juvenile justice policies, ending the practice of trying children in adult court and halting the prosecution of truancy cases. 

A staggering 1 in 4 youth incarcerated in California’s prison system for juvenile offenders has been infected with the deadly coronavirus, a grim tally that has grown amid recent outbreaks.

Wendelyn Julien, the CEO of Los Angeles County’s Court-Appointed Special Advocates program, is stepping down from her position at the end of the month after she was chosen to lead a new local office that will oversee the Probation Department.

More than two years after the California Department of Justice launched an investigation into deficient and inhumane conditions in Los Angeles County’s juvenile detention facilities, the county and its school district settled on plans to clean up the problems over the next four years.

California will spend more than $8 million to find safer homes for children returning from troubled out-of-state residential programs, in response to a Chronicle and Imprint investigation into rampant reports of abuse at the facilities.

In September, Kwamaine Much was just starting his new job in his hometown of Rochester, New York, when the need for his work as a youth advocate became all too apparent: Protesters flooded the streets chanting the name of Daniel Prude, a Black man who died after Rochester police suffocated him while he was in the midst of a mental health crisis.

In 2002, a then 16-year-old Aminta Williams got into a fight with a neighborhood acquaintance near her home in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn.