May 28, 2009
Just released! Closing California’s Division of Juvenile Facilities: An Analysis of County Institutional Capacity
Just released! Closing California’s Division of Juvenile Facilities: An Analysis of County Institutional Capacity by the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice’s Daniel Macallair, MPA, Executive Director Mike Males, PhD, Senior Research Fellow and Catherine McCracken, M.S., Program Director Read the full report at Also check out “More calls for California to shut down its youth prison system ” by Karen de Sá of the Mercury News.
Publications May 1, 2009
Closing California’s Division of Juvenile Facilities: An Analysis of County Institutional Capacity
Closing California’s Division of Juvenile Facilities: An Analysis of County Institutional Capacity
Blog Apr 9, 2009
Fix the Prisons? Part II
I stated in Part I of this blog that the prison system is “functional” in that it benefits some segments of the population. One obvious segment it benefits is all of those who work inside. Indeed, with $68 billion in annual expenditures on the American prison system plus strong unions in many states you have a very strong vested interest in keeping the prison a going concern (the “reforms” would serve mostly to make working conditions and pay and benefits much better). Then too we have all…
Blog Apr 8, 2009
Fix the Prisons? Part I
Senator Jim Webb, an outspoken critic of America’s prison system, has argued that we need to “fix our prisons” (Parade Magazine ), I would like to offer a different perspective and pose the following question: Do we really need to “fix” or “reform” the prison? I ask this question for many different reasons, not the least of which is the obvious fact that despite the overwhelming evidence that prisons have not been a big factor in reducing crime (note that not only does the US have the highest…
Blog Apr 1, 2009
Locking Up Teenage Vandals in Texas
I came across this article in the Corpus Christi paper about two teenage taggers who were arrested for a “vandalism spree.” For these crimes they were placed in a juvenile hall for three weeks and then released on house arrest with electronic monitoring. This presents a good example of why the United States leads the world in youth and adult incarceration. When will be learn that incarcerating children for minor crimes does not make them better citizens. Incarceration is for…
As strange as its sounds, American history repeatedly shows that legalization of certain drugs leads to expanded, not reduced, “wars on drugs”: In the late 1800s, the crisis of middle-Americans’ addiction to new, legal patent medicines saturated with opiates, cocaine, and alcohol was buried under vicious official crusades vilifying the Chinese and opium and black men and cocaine. After the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, the explosion in drunk driving and abuse of newly legalized alcohol by…
Blog Mar 19, 2009
Marijuana bill is wrong vehicle for legalization
At first glance, AB 390 by Assembly Member Tom Ammiano (D‑San Francisco) to legalize the cultivation, sale, and use of marijuana under a regulation and taxation system similar to that applied to alcoholic beverages would seem to epitomize the sensible, humane policies for which he is known. By nearly every standard, marijuana is less troublesome than alcohol, better use can be made of law enforcement resources than to arrest and prosecute 70,000-plus Californians for marijuana every year, and…
Mar 9, 2009
Daniel Macallair and Catherine McCracken educate California state Judges on juvenile dispositional options
Daniel Macallair and Catherine McCracken educate California state Judges on juvenile dispositional options Executive Director Daniel Macallair, MPA and Sentencing Service Program Director Catherine McCracken, M.S., are leading experts in the development of presentence investigation reports for youthful offenders. Recently Mr. Macallair and Ms. McCracken educated California state Judges on juvenile dispositional options at the exclusive 2009 Juvenile Law Institute.
Executive Director Daniel Macallair, MPA is the leading national expert on juvenile institutional mitigation. He draws on his twenty-years experience in the development and analysis of youth and adult correctional policy. Recently, he presented on “Juvenile Incarceration as Mitigation” at the annual CACJ/CPDA capital case defense seminar. Their website is www.cacj.org .
Executive Director Daniel Macallair coauthored expert testimony at sentencing- “Proof of Facts” Daniel Macallair, Executive Director coauthored recent updated version of G. Thomas Gitchoff’s “Proof of Facts: Expert Testimony at Sentencing” for the American Jurisprudence encyclopedia of US law. Please contact
CJCJ’s Sentencing Service Program releases the 2008⁄09 Juvenile Placement Manual The Sentencing Service Program first released its Juvenile Placement Manual in 2002 to assist individuals in the…
For the past 20 years the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice has critically examined the control exercised by special interests group over California’s prison policy — especially the state’s prison guards union. With their ability to spend millions of dollars to defeat political enemies, the guards union has achieved unprecedented success in promoting their agenda and resisting reform efforts. In her recent editorial, Sacramento Bee editor, Pia Lopez, analyzes the historical influence…