About Elevating the Voting Rights of Incarcerated Youth in California:
Due to recent, sweeping changes to California’s juvenile justice system, the number of voting-age youth in county juvenile facilities is expanding. However, many young people in the juvenile justice system lack the information or access they need in order to exercise their right to vote. Through Public Records Act (PRA) requests to 40 counties, the Youth Law Center has compiled the first statewide review of voting policies and practices in California’s juvenile facilities.
In Elevating the Voting Rights of Youth: How California Can Ensure Voting Access in County Juvenile Facilities, we provide an analysis of the current voting policies in juvenile facilities across the state. Our report identifies problematic gaps, lifts up promising practices, and offers recommendations for both state and county action to protect youth voting. In addition to the report and its analysis, we are posting the public records responses that we received from each county here. We’ve also created fliers in English and Spanish to raise awareness of the voting rights of youth in the juvenile justice system.
We hope that together, these resources will help expand voting access for youth inside county juvenile facilities.
Click here to read the full report.
Resources:
Click here to access the documents we obtained from each county in response to our California Public Records Act requests.
Flier Summarizing Voting Rights of Incarcerated Youth [English] [Spanish]
Join the Webinar:
Click here to RSVP to join the webinar for our report on Wednesday, May 8, at 1 pm PT.
Recent Press About This Issue: