For Our Children
Invest in What's Right
Earlier this year, Juvenile Justice Information Exchange published a
story with an encouraging headline: "Juvenile prison populations
reach all-time lows
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". At a time when our nation seems to be taking many steps
backward, this headline initially gave me a thrill of hope that
progress is still possible. However, that headline only tells us
part of the story.
The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention revealed the
number of children and youth incarcerated in juvenile prisons fell to
an all-time low in 2020, the most recent year for which federal child
incarceration data is available. It showed the number of young people
in those facilities had fallen 77 percent compared to what it was two
decades ago at the turn of the millennium.
While those statistics seem promising at first glance, right now, on a
typical day, 25,000 young people are still held in juvenile detention
facilities across the country, according to the U.S. Department of
Justice. That's more than the capacity of Madison Square Garden,
in New York, or any other arena in the NBA.
Furthermore, Black and Brown children are still disproportionately
imprisoned in this country, which adds to the list of barriers they
are likely to face in adulthood because of the color of their skin.
CDF's State of America's Children 2023 report found, of
the 265,000 young people arrested in the United States in 2021,
one-third were Black, while Black children only represent 15 percent
of the nation's youth population. What's more, two-thirds
of young people in the juvenile justice system are Black and Brown
young people.
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In March, The Sentencing Project detailed the grave impact
incarceration can have on young people long-term. Their report found
incarceration produces counterproductive outcomes. Among other things,
juvenile incarceration does
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not reduce delinquent behavior, impedes young people's success
in education and employment, and does lasting damage to the health and
well-being of these young people.
That's why I am troubled by some state lawmakers, who continue
to fund this flawed and harmful system with ridiculous amounts of
money.
Recently, California lawmakers floated a plan to approve a proposal
labeled Assembly Bill 695. The bill would have effectively provided
Los Angeles County $1 billion in state funding for physical
renovations to its juvenile detention facilities, according to our
policy experts at Children's Defense Fund-California. That would
have been in addition to $200 million LA county had already budgeted
for facility renovations.
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All the while, Los Angeles' juvenile halls have been a major
source of controversy this year.
Just this May, California's Board of State and Community
Corrections found the county's two juvenile halls unsuitable for
confining youth. As our Children's Defense Fund-California staff
recently testified to lawmakers, the state's orders were in
response to the egregious physical, sexual, and emotional abuse that
has gone on for decades in LA county's juvenile probation
system. The state's own board agreed!
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"LA County has been unable to correct items of noncompliance
that threaten the well-being of youth, including:
inadequate safety checks; room confinement that extends beyond what is
outlined in regulations; the lack of programs, recreation and
exercise; inadequate staffing; and use of force," the
California Board of State and Community Corrections said.
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CDF's California State Director, Thomas Harvey, noted this
pattern was not new:
"If we took the lawsuits, the DOJ investigations, and the
seemingly endless series of articles about it seriously, we
wouldn't be talking about adding another billion dollars to that
system."
So, this begs the question: why didn't lawmakers propose
spending all that money on programs that would actually help
California's youth instead of ones that hurt them?
As CDF-CA Youth Justice Director Milinda Kakani recently put it:
"Continuing to invest in the status quo is an investment in the
failure and trauma of our young people."
California, the fifth largest economy in the world according to
Forbes, has 1.4 million young people living in poverty. The California
Department of Public Health said that figure accounted for sixteen
percent of the state's population in 2021.
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Could you imagine what $1 billion could do for the mental and physical
well-being of all those children and youth in need? That money could
help fulfill their nutrition, education, and housing needs.
Instead, some California lawmakers want to use it to fund expanded
child prisons instead of fixing the systemic problems that in many
cases land our young people there in the first place.
I am pleased Governor Newsom (CA) ultimately vetoed that proposal last
Sunday, as reported here in the Los Angeles Daily News.
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Still, we at Children's Defense Fund call on leaders, not just
in California, but across the United States, to think differently
about how they use taxpayer money to serve young people. There are so
many policy and practice reforms that can help support healthy
behaviors and improve the personal outcomes of our youth.
Our leaders must focus more of their time toward providing them the
positive opportunities they need to thrive. It is not only what they
need but deserve.
?
For our children,
Rev. Dr. Starsky Wilson
President and CEO
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