What a Drop in Youth Crime Says About Curfews and Boot Camps: Nothing Good Take Part, October 30, 2012
There is a shift taking place in the landscape of California’s juvenile justice system. In an effort to move away from a punitive model which has historically framed youth involved in the juvenile justice system as a liability, a new framework has emerged. Traditionally, juvenile justice has been rooted in a deficit based approach that focuses on addressing the youth’s problem behaviors such as poor decision making or addiction. By placing emphasis on the acts of delinquency alone,…
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 26, 2012 San Francisco, CA: After a record plunge in youth crime, fewer youths were arrested in California last year than at any time since 1957, when California had three million fewer teenaged youth. New figures released by the Department of Justice’s Criminal Justice Statistics Center show 149,563 Californians under age 18 were arrested in 2011, the lowest number since statewide figures were first issued in 1957 (144,978). When the growth in the juvenile…
Blog Oct 25, 2012
Texas juvenile justice community solutions
Texas continues to break new ground with pioneering county-based solutions to serving justice-involved youth. In addition to the promising state-level reforms CJCJ blogged on last week, a new report details how Texas counties are proving to be effective incubators of innovation. The report, released last week by the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition (TCJC), highlights the model practices of 12 Texas counties and provides fiscal and political recommendations that would enable all counties to…
Blog Oct 23, 2012
No on Prop. 35: The wrong tool for a good cause
Proposition 35, the Californians Against Sexual Exploitation Act (CASE) aims to address the increasing prevalence and public concern regarding human trafficking in California, specifically as it relates to the sexual exploitation of children. It proposes to do this by greatly increasing the existing sentences and penalties for trafficking offenses, and expands sex offender registration laws, including new mandates to report email addresses and internet usernames. Prop. 35 would also broaden…