100 signatures reached
To: Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors
Keep Your Promise: Fully Fund Youth Justice Reimagined
We are calling on the LA County Board of Supervisors to keep their commitment to Youth Justice Reimagined and immediately:
1. Fully fund Youth Justice Reimagined (YJR): Fully fund YJR at $75 million for year-one in the June 2021 budget. We urgently need youth jobs, peacebuilders, mentors and 24-hour youth centers to support LA County youth.
2. No more Probation hires: Commit to cutting all vacant and frozen positions from the juvenile probation budget. YJR phases out juvenile probation into a rehabilitative and care-first system. The County should be funding YJR instead of hiring more probation officers.
3. No new camps and halls: Commit to opening no new juvenile camps and halls, and transfer control of closed camps and halls out of Probation. These funds should instead be used to build out the YJR vision, including Safe and Secure Healing Centers.
4. Create a Just Transition plan: Bring community and county together to identify where the county needs more jobs, and create a plan to phase out juvenile probation into other county departments, including a detailed timeline with targets and metrics.
5. End School-based Probation: School-based probation accelerates the school-to-prison pipeline and stands counter to the goals of Youth Justice Reimagined. YJR would fund youth development workers in schools to build student safety and success with a culturally-rooted, care-first approach.
1. Fully fund Youth Justice Reimagined (YJR): Fully fund YJR at $75 million for year-one in the June 2021 budget. We urgently need youth jobs, peacebuilders, mentors and 24-hour youth centers to support LA County youth.
2. No more Probation hires: Commit to cutting all vacant and frozen positions from the juvenile probation budget. YJR phases out juvenile probation into a rehabilitative and care-first system. The County should be funding YJR instead of hiring more probation officers.
3. No new camps and halls: Commit to opening no new juvenile camps and halls, and transfer control of closed camps and halls out of Probation. These funds should instead be used to build out the YJR vision, including Safe and Secure Healing Centers.
4. Create a Just Transition plan: Bring community and county together to identify where the county needs more jobs, and create a plan to phase out juvenile probation into other county departments, including a detailed timeline with targets and metrics.
5. End School-based Probation: School-based probation accelerates the school-to-prison pipeline and stands counter to the goals of Youth Justice Reimagined. YJR would fund youth development workers in schools to build student safety and success with a culturally-rooted, care-first approach.
Why is this important?
On November 24, 2020, the LA County Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a motion calling for $75 million for Youth Justice Reimagined, a plan which would phase out our ineffective system of juvenile punishment and build a new system based in care and youth development. Our current system targets, criminalizes and incarcerates youth of color into cycles of trauma and recidivism. Youth Justice Reimagined emerged from a year-long, collaborative process that dared to reimagine youth safety and wellbeing, and the defunding of juvenile Probation. The plan builds upon research, restorative practices, and decades of youth organizing across LA County.
But in April, the LA County CEO, Fesia Davenport, deemed that any investment in Youth Justice Reimagined was “premature;” and therefore allocated no funding to this urgent need in the upcoming budget. In that same budget, and in direct contradiction to the spirit of Youth Justice Reimagined, the CEO maintained Probation’s $1 billion budget. Of that, over $500 million would go to juvenile Probation, including $409 million to juvenile camps and halls which sit mostly empty.
Youth Justice Reimagined is not premature, it is LONG OVERDUE. $75 million is the minimum needed for year-one of Youth Justice Reimagined, and is only 7% of the Probation budget. Any less will be a bounced check from LA County to the future of our young people. It is unacceptable to give Probation $1 billion and youth development $0.
But in April, the LA County CEO, Fesia Davenport, deemed that any investment in Youth Justice Reimagined was “premature;” and therefore allocated no funding to this urgent need in the upcoming budget. In that same budget, and in direct contradiction to the spirit of Youth Justice Reimagined, the CEO maintained Probation’s $1 billion budget. Of that, over $500 million would go to juvenile Probation, including $409 million to juvenile camps and halls which sit mostly empty.
Youth Justice Reimagined is not premature, it is LONG OVERDUE. $75 million is the minimum needed for year-one of Youth Justice Reimagined, and is only 7% of the Probation budget. Any less will be a bounced check from LA County to the future of our young people. It is unacceptable to give Probation $1 billion and youth development $0.