Working Together: Building Local Monitoring Capacity for Juvenile Detention Centers

This report describes a project undertaken when the California Legislature defunded state inspections of juvenile defender centers as part of its 1992 budget negotiations. The legislation substituted a “self inspection” process that called for local jurisdictions to monitor themselves. The Annie E. Casey Foundation provided funding to YLC to provide training on how to do facilities assessments using then-existing California regulations, and legal standards from case law, professional standards and statutes. The report includes a proposed self-inspection instrument, a section on how to train inspectors and how to perform and inspection, and how to handle follow up and quality assurance. it also discusses some of the things that happened as a result of the project, and policy issues surrounding self-inspection.