Bridging the Digital Divide For Youth in Foster Care and Justice Systems
For the past eight years, the Youth Law Center has led transformative policy efforts to bridge the digital divide for system-impacted youth. Youth in foster care and juvenile justice facilities-disproportionately Black, Latinx, and from low-income communities—are among California’s most digitally excluded populations. In 2018, our advocacy resulted in the passage of AB 2448, establishing internet access rights for youth in residential placements. In 2022, we secured $15 million annually to fund college programming in juvenile facilities. In 2023, legislation required all county probation departments to offer online or in-person college courses. And in 2024, YLC began efforts to ensure digital equity policy wins resulted in real access for youth in foster care and juvenile justice.
Securing Meaningful Access to Mobile Connectivity Through the California Lifeline Foster Youth Program
In today’s digital world, lacking access to cell phones and the internet poses tremendous barriers for young people in foster care and juvenile justice. For most young people, a smartphone is a gateway to education, employment, healthcare, legal support, and social support. As highlighted in Youth Law Center’s 2024 special report, On the Threshold of Change, for youth in foster care and juvenile justice, these essential tools are too often inaccessible, further exacerbating their isolation and disconnection, limiting information, connection, and support, and exposing them to vulnerabilities and instability. Addressing this digital divide is not just a matter of convenience—it is a matter of equity, safety, and opportunity for youth. The pandemic and the recent wildfires in Los Angeles magnified the reality that cell phone and digital access are not a privilege; they are a necessity.
Juvenile Justice Internet Access Project
For eight years, the Youth Law Center has advanced an advocacy campaign to ensure that youth in the juvenile justice and foster care systems have the Internet access they need for postsecondary education access and family connections. Youth in the juvenile justice system come from underserved communities that already face digital inequity- disproportionately Latinx and Black communities facing poverty and discrimination- and their isolation in systems amplify the need for connectivity.
In 2017, the Youth Law Center launched a legislative campaign to mandate that foster care and juvenile justice systems provide youth access to the Internet, knowing that nearly all youth in California’s detention facilities and many youth in foster care facilities had no access at all, and experienced serious educational, relational, economic and social consequences as a result. Our first bill to provide the right to internet access, AB 811 (Gipson, 2017) was vetoed by the Governor, but we successfully passed AB 2448 (Gipson) in 2018. The Electronic Frontier Foundation was an important partner in our policy advocacy, and mobilized their network to urge passage. To build on this effort to ensure this important population of young people had access to postsecondary education, in 2022, our advocacy resulted in a historical $15 million annual allocation in California’s budget to community colleges to specifically provide postsecondary programming and support to juvenile justice impacted students, and in 2023, we were able to pass a new requirement that all county probation departments offer in-person or online college courses in youth detention facilities.
Now that we have successfully built the policy infrastructure that requires internet access in juvenile halls, camps, ranches, and residential facilities for youth, and secured a mandate that youth detention facilities offer college courses (that are now possible with internet access) and built the annual state investment to fund community colleges to offer those courses, it is critical that we are able to work on ensuring these policies are implemented effectively and youth have the access to technology to which they are now legally entitled.