Overview Cameo House Community Options for Youth (COY) Detention Diversion Advocacy Program (DDAP) Expert Witness, Court Navigation, & Sentencing Mitigation Services Juvenile Collaborative Reentry Unit (JCRU) No Violence Alliance (NoVA) Overview Technical Assistance California Sentencing Institute Next Generation Fellowship Legislation Transparency & Accountability

County approves jail contracts Daily Journal, May 92012

Juvenile realignment: is local supervision the answer? Victorville Daily Press, May 42012

It’s all relative, as the saying goes. It is true that there have been recent improvements to California’s youth correctional facilities, Division of Juvenile Facilities (DJF). Youth are no longer being fed blender meals and are no longer being educated in cages as they were just a less than a decade ago. However, the recently touted successes include meeting provisionary goals as outlined in the 21st Special Master Report of the Farrell lawsuit, such as developing implementation plans and…

A recent ACLU report found that that 24 of the 25 largest California counties plan on using realigned state funding to pay for dramatic expansions of jail beds. CJCJ’s Brian Heller de Leon reviewed the report in his blog, Adult realignment and the county jail building boom . The ACLU report notes, Counties that have chosen a path of jail expansion — as many of the Big 25 county realignment plans indicate they have — are trying to solve the wrong problem. They seek to absorb the realigned…

A March 2011 study through the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) concludes that long-term juvenile incarceration does not decrease reoffending, and may actually increase recidivism rates for lower-level youth offenders. Researchers conducted more than 21,000 interviews over 8 years with more than 1,300 felony offenders ages 14−−18 in the cities of Philadelphia and Phoenix. Researchers also interviewed parents and peers and examined arrest records. Their…