Overview Cameo House & Women's Services Community Options for Youth (COY) Detention Diversion Advocacy Program (DDAP) Sentencing Planning and Support Services Juvenile Collaborative Reentry Unit (JCRU) No Violence Alliance (NoVA) Technical Assistance Overview California Sentencing Institute Next Generation Fellowship Legislation Transparency & Accountability

Making War on the Drug War California Progress Report, November 42009

Historic Hearing on Marijuana Legalization in the California Legislature Drug War Chronicle, October 302009

I thought that after studying and writing about juvenile justice for more than 30 years nothing would shock me, that I had seen and heard everything. I was wrong. The title of a recent story in the Los Angeles Times gives a hint to what it is about: Flawed county system lets kids die invisibly.” The story begins with the death of 17-year-old Miguel Padilla, who had run away from a licensed group home” (Leroy Haynes Center in La Verne, CA) in April 2008. He didn’t get very far. Unknown…

Youth Prison Model Sets High Bar Wall Street Journal, October 122009

It has become a truism that there is a close connection between school failure and juvenile crime, as demonstrated by literally hundreds of studies over the past 100 years. As if to remind us once again, here comes yet another study, this one by the California Dropout Research Project at UC Santa Barbara. As reported in today’s Los Angeles Times , dropping out of school costs the state $1.1 billion each year and if we decreased the number of dropouts by half it would save $550 million per…