The Legislature's Role in CA Juvenile Justice Reform

YLC Staff Attorney Sue Burrell was invited to write a guest blog for the National Council on Crime and Delinquency’s “NCCD Blog” on the California Legislature’s role in California juvenile justice reform.  Sue’s piece discusses the legislative enactments that helped to depopulate the state’s troubled juvenile institutional system over more than a decade.  Through a series of substantive law changes affecting length of stay, financial incentives, and realignment of resources to counties to serve youth closer to their home communities, the Legislature changed the face of juvenile justice in California.  Population in the state institutional system dropped from a high of more than 10,000 youth in the mid-1990’s to fewer than 700 in 2013. 

 

Legislature’s Role in Juvenile Justice Reform: A California Example (pdf)

Legislature’s Role in Juvenile Justice Reform: A California Example (live blog)