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Date: April 30, 2024 Tue
Time: 3:28 am
Time: 3:28 am
Results for juvenile detention (california, u.s.)
1 results foundAuthor: Buchen, Lizzie Title: California's Division of Juvenile Facilities: Nine Years After Farrell Summary: Since its inception, California’s youth correctional system, the California Youth Authority (CYA), was an institution riddled with overcrowding, abuse, suicides, and high levels of violence. In 2000, Inspector General Steve White testified that it was “impossible to overstate the dimension of the problem.” The system had a dismal record of rehabilitating its wards, more than 80 percent of whom returned to state custody within three years of release. In 2003, a coalition of advocates filed a lawsuit against CYA in Farrell v. Harper, alleging “inhumane conditions” and pointing out that “rehabilitation is impossible when the classroom is a cage and wards live in constant fear of physical and sexual violence from CYA staff and other wards.” The following year, then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a consent decree acknowledging the critical problems and pledging to implement significant reforms, including reducing levels of violence, providing more education, treatment, and rehabilitation, and improving medical and mental health care. In 2005, the agency was reconstituted as the Division of Juvenile Facilities (DJF) and merged with the adult prison system in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR). In March 2006, the Safety and Welfare Planning Team, a panel of state-approved correctional experts, found DJF was “not a system that needs tinkering around the edges, this is a system that is broken almost everywhere you look.” Moreover, the team concluded that the state’s juvenile facilities had “[become] like adult prisons.” Among its list of 17 significant problems, the team reported: “high levels of violence and fear,” “antiquated facilities unsuited for any mission,” “an adult corrections mentality,” “hours on end when many youths have nothing to do,” and “poor re-entry planning and too few services on parole.” Later that year, the team filed the Safety and Welfare Remedial Plan (hereafter “Remedial Plan”) describing its requirements for a new state youth corrections system that would address these serious issues and be founded on a rehabilitative, rather than a punitive, model. This publication reviews the progress DJF has made in implementing these Court-ordered reforms, using qualitative and quantitative data from the court-appointed expert in safety and welfare, the Special Master who oversees all Farrell reforms, and the CDCR. DJF now has fewer than 800 youth in three facilities — O.H. Close Youth Correctional Facility (OHCYCF), N.A. Chaderjian Youth Correctional Facility (NACYCF), and Ventura Youth Correctional Facility (VYCF) — down from approximately 10,000 youth in 11 facilities in 2000. Although overall levels of violence and abuse are down, CJCJ finds insufficient progress in nearly every area of reform. Seven years after DJF was ordered to implement the Remedial Plan, all of the above-listed problems remain significant concerns. Details: San francisco: Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, 2013. 10p. Source: Internet Resource: Research Brief: Accessed May 1, 2013 at: http://www.cjcj.org/uploads/cjcj/documents/state_of_djf.pdf Year: 2013 Country: United States URL: http://www.cjcj.org/uploads/cjcj/documents/state_of_djf.pdf Shelf Number: 128596 Keywords: Juvenile CorrectionsJuvenile Detention (California, U.S.)Juvenile Inmates |