Public News Service interviews CJCJ’s Maureen Washburn, co-author of a new report analyzing the prosecution of youth as adults.
“Researchers from three nonprofit groups that work on juvenile justice also found that Yuba, Kings, Sutter, Napa and San Joaquin counties have the highest rates of direct file and San Francisco has the lowest — because there, all juveniles are granted a fitness hearing before a juvenile-system judge.‘What this highlights is that it’s not being used consistently by prosecutors,” said Maureen Washburn, one of the report’s co-authors and a policy analyst for the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, “that it’s being used kind of at the discretion of a prosecutor and doesn’t align with rates of crime that are happening in that county.’ ”
Read the full report “The Prosecution of Youth as Adults” »