Juvenile Justice

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.

Just three years ago, nearly 3,000 juveniles served time in adult prison or jails across New York state.

Texas is one of the last states to treat all 17-year-olds as adults in the eyes of the law.