Reforming
The Future of Juvenile Justice in California By McKenzie Jackson For Samual Brown, co-founder of the Anti-Violence Safety and Accountability Project and his wife, Jamilia Land, who is also an activist, criminal justice reform in the Golden State does not involve locking away youth offenders and tossing away the key. “The answer is not putting them inside a baby jail preparing them for an adult jail,” said Brown, who was imprisoned for two decades beginning at 19 years old. “The answer is to get them into a program that allows them to speak, talk about what they are going through, to participate in activities that are not available in their immediate surroundings,” Brown continued. “By doing that, we teach them social-emotional learning and plant seeds of pro-social behavior and change their course. We need an entirely new approach to how we deal with criminality.” California’s newly formed Office of Youth and Community Restoration (OYCR) focuses its programs more on rehabilitating young people than punishing them. The OYCR, a division of the California Health & Human Services Agency (CalHHA), was created as part of the state’s overhaul of the juvenile justice system, which will close three of California’s four juvenile justice facilities by July 2023. Instead, it will provide rehabilitation services to incarcerated youth ages 13 to 25 at facilities in their home counties. OYCR, said Dr. Mark Ghaly, CalHHA’s secretary, hopes to give imprisoned youths the best chance to be successful in their community. “This is a total reform here,” he remarked. “In truth, a juvenile
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