YOUTH JUSTICE COALITION

History : What Are We Fighting For? : Victories : Decision Making :

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End Life Without Parole : Dollar for Dollar : No School to Jail Track : Deon Whitfield Work Group : Shut Down CYA/DJJ : War On Gangs : Ban the Box :

 

What Are We Fighting For?

We demand that LA County give young people RESPECT, POSITIVE OPPORTUNITIES AND A FUTURE BEYOND DEATH IN THE STREETS OR LIFE BEHIND BARS.  

To make that happen, this is what we want for ourselves and other youth:

 

Establish a Countywide Task Force of youth and parents who have experienced the system, community leaders, public officials and legislators to reduce LA’s reliance on lock-ups with a mandate to reduce detention and incarceration rates by 75% by 2010 (for all facilities located in or “fed” by counties – juvenile halls, jails, probation camps, ranches and secure placements, CYA/DJJ and state prisons). As part of this effort, work with the state to offer counties financial incentives for reducing the length of stay in juvenile halls, expanding use of alternatives and addressing disproportionate confinement of youth of color.

For every dollar used to lock a young person up, spend an equal or greater allocation of funds to support community-based, owned and operated alternatives to arrest, court, detention and incarceration. (Check out the designs by YJC members for an alternative to court for youth with graffiti charges, and a community-based youth center that can serve as an alternative to detention and incarceration which is being realized through the YJC’s Chuco’s Justice Center and Free L.A. High School.)

End the transfer of youth in adult court. Review all extreme sentencing of young people, within ten years of the sentence. This must include a review of current cases. Eliminate California’s use of Juvenile Life Without the Possibility of Parole – JLWOP. (FREE RUBEN CASTRO AND MARQUISE WILKINS! REPEAL PROP 21!)

SHUT DOWN CYA/DJJ!! Develop a plan to close all CYA/DJJ facilities by 2010. Replace them with small (50 bed maximum), community-based facilities that focus on youth development, education, job training, and drug treatment. Immediately bring L.A.’s youth home from CYA/DJJ -- use Camp Challenger as an alternative to CYA/DJJ until new programs can be developed. If these aren’t enough solutions for shutting down CYA/DJJ and creating something better, then do it because during the recent past, five youth died in California Youth Authority. Do it out of respect for Roberto Lombana, 19; Deon Whitfield, 17; Durrell Feaster, 18; Joseph Daniel Maldonado, 18; and Dyron M. Brewer, 24.

Create a Statewide and Local Departments of Youth and Community Development to manage juvenile justice. The management of state and local juvenile justice must exist OUTSIDE ALL DEPARTMENTS OF CORRECTIONS OR PROBATION, with the maximum involvement of youth, parents and community-based, non-profit organizations in their design and implementation. (Many states, including Missouri and New York, have state-run models separate from State Corrections.)

Until CYA/DJJ is replaced by local youth development centers, make immediate changes to the current conditions at CYA/DJJ.

Close all juvenile beds in adult prisons and jails. Establish state law prohibiting the future lock up of anyone under the age of 18 in adult jails or prisons. As stated above under #6, reject any efforts to transfer more youth 16 - 24 into adult prisons including proposals to lower the age jurisdiction of the DJJ from 25 years to 21 years, and to transfer more youth from CYA/DJJ into adult prisons before the age of 25.

Create a task force of parents, youth and mental health professionals to address the mental health needs, over-medication and misdiagnosis of youth in lock-up. When we’re locked up, that’s probably the hardest place to tell if someone is actually mentally ill.

Challenge LA County and the State of California to end the “WAR on GANGS.” A War on Gangs is a War on Youth.

Enforce voting rights for people in the system. Stop blocking, discouraging or otherwise violating our legal rights to register and to vote. Allow non-partisan, community-based organizations into all facilities – juvenile halls, Probation camps, County jails, CYAs/DJJs, state and federal prisons, courts and visiting lines to run voter education, registration, absentee voting and other get-out-the-vote activities. Educate all Probation, juvenile hall, jail, CYA and prison staff of our voting rights under California State Law – (including the rights of everyone detained in juvenile halls and jails, and everyone serving time for a misdemeanor to register and vote). Work to expand voting rights to people who are taxed without representation, including lowering the voting age in LA County to 16, and allowing all people regardless of their parole, incarceration or immigration status to vote.
IN 2005, THE YJC WON PARTIAL VICTORIES IN THIS AREA WHEN IT REACHED AN AGREEMENT WITH THE L.A. COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF PROBATION AND CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS AND REHABILITATION TO ENSURE THAT YOUTH IN THEIR CUSTODY HAVE ACCESS TO VOTING REGISTRATION FORMS, VOTER EDUCATION AND ABSENTEE BALLOTS.

End the school-to-jail tracking in public and charter schools, including the criminalization of students, the mass push-out or disappearance of students into the streets without any options, zero tolerance policies that ban students from educational options, and the police lock-down of our schools. Make sure that every young person on Probation or Parole and all youth coming home from lock-up are immediately enrolled in a quality education program, and end the illegal blocking of system-involved youth from schools and entire districts. Work with students, teachers and parents to build school safety committees to develop a peace plan for their school. Re-organize huge schools to create smaller schools or “academies” to reduce class sizes and respect students’ rights. End the unequal funding for schools in poor communities, including the under-funding and poor quality of Probation and continuation schools. Without these changes, our schools will continue to look and act more and more like prisons: We are now getting searched in our classrooms and hallways by police and drug-sniffing dogs; many schools have more Probation officers than guidance counselors; police raids of schools are common and increase the violence and fear; school security, school police and local police often stir up conflicts in school or misread the roots of conflict; police and other school staff are using language, actions and policies that are racist, homophobic, anti-immigrant and sexist and increase violence against individuals and groups of students; school staff no longer controls school discipline, so police regularly arrest people for things better handled at the school; our school newspapers are censored; we have little or no say in the running of our schools or the choosing of curriculum; student, teacher and parent solutions to school safety are usually not supported, such as peer mediation, gang intervention workers in schools, student courts, etc.; we still get a white-washed version of history, language and culture that adds to our anger at school; when people are arrested they are often unfairly and illegally kicked out without a hearing, expelled from entire school districts, or blocked from returning to school when they return from lock-up, without being given any real educational options.

Support people to return from lock-up to communities.

 

A. Ensure that anyone leaving lock-up – (juvenile halls, Probation camps, County jails, CYAs/DJJs and state prisons) – are given the documents needed to succeed on the outside including school transcript(s), test scores, California I.D. and/or Driver’s license, voter registration card, immunization record, medical records, and necessary medication/prescriptions to prevent a break in treatment. People who are undocumented should receive: information on the benefits of citizenship and opportunities to begin/complete citizenship processes while inside; information on the deportation risks for convicted people who are not citizens; and referrals to immigrant support organization.

 

B. Ban the box requesting information on past convictions on city, county, state and federal government job applications in order to expand employment opportunities. Push for non-profit and corporate jobs to take similar steps. End discrimination against convicted people in regards to public housing, public assistance and financial aid. Create government and private job set-aside programs to link convicted people to job training and employment – including requiring hiring by all companies that receive government contracts. Ensure that all jobs that people are trained for inside lock-ups are linked to a living wage job upon release. (For example, people in juvenile and adult prisons regularly prevent and fight California wild fires – saving millions of lives and properties – but are banned from even applying for city and county fire departments.)

 

C. In order to connect people in the system and their families to resources for employment, career training, education, health, housing, drug treatment, legal services, etc., establish family resource centers staffed by social workers, youth and parents – (youth and parents who have experienced the system first-hand trained and funded to work as advocates) -- outside every court and lock-up; as well as a mobile youth outreach truck that can travel to schools, parks and other locations where youth hang out. These resource teams should also be at the scene anytime a young person is a witness, victim or alleged perpetrator of violence in order to prevent future victimization and/or system involvement.

 

D. Ensure that parents – including parents under the age of 18 – remain in close and constant contact with their children during their incarceration and support them to reunite with their children upon release. Establish programs for parenting education and legal advocacy in order to re-establish legal guardianship whenever possible. Do not punish prisoners further by crippling them with back child support that was built up during their time in lock-up.

 

E. Children and youth of detained and incarcerated parents/siblings must have regular, physical contact with their family members, and should face no discrimination or dehumanizing treatment during visiting or in their community by law enforcement, school or other officials due to their family’s incarceration.

 

F. End the billing of all families for the time their youth are detained, incarcerated on Probation or Parole. These fees are causing financial and emotional hardships for families and work against the successful return of incarcerated people to our families.
ON FEBRUARY 13TH, 2009, THE YJC WON A MORATORIUM ON THE L.A. COUNTY PROBATION DEPARTMENT’S BILLING OF FAMILIES FOR LOCK-UP IN JUVENILE HALLS AND CAMPS.

 

Enforce the human and civil rights of immigrants. Block any expansion of police powers to inquire about a person’s immigration status. Reject any policies that limit immigrant access to public education, financial aid and other public resources. People – including youth – are regularly deported to countries where they face being killed at the hands of mercenaries and government death squads. Youth are often returned to countries where they have no history, no family, no home and no employment. End the deportation of all youth, including youth with convictions, and reunite youth with their families.

Hold Police and Prison Guards accountable for their actions. L.A. District Attorney Steve Cooley has not prosecuted a single case of police brutality. The State Attorney General’s office must appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate police brutality and corruption in L.A. County, especially in cases where unarmed people are killed by law enforcement. The State Attorney General must also investigate deaths and abuse in juvenile halls, county jails, Probation camps, state prisons and CYA/DJJs.