Amending the Juvenile Justice Crime Prevention Act

What is this policy about?

AB 1007 will amend California’s Juvenile Justice Crime Prevention Act (JJCPA) to ensure the state effectively invests hundreds of millions in grant dollars into programs that:

  1. Protect youth from contact with the juvenile justice system through an investment in community-based youth development,
    prevention, and intervention services;
  2. Improve planning and coordination of youth-serving agencies by local counties, including greater community and youth representation in decision-making; and
  3. Align with best practices by increasing county reporting and state oversight.

How does it align with yli’s values?

Black, Brown, and Indigenous young people – our youth – bear the brunt of our state’s harmful youth “justice” system. This system is not “broken” – from its inception, it was built to cage and criminalize youth of color.

As a social justice organization, yli supports policies that defund and replace punitive systems with systems that support our youth to thrive. yli youth in Marin and Fresno have worked directly on the issue of juvenile detention, successfully advocating to pass key local and statewide policies to reduce or eliminate juvenile fees. Marin’s Social Host Ordinance established a restorative justice process for youth as an alternative to incarceration, and Fresno’s Boys & Men of Color launched a campaign to ensure that SB 190 – a California law that repeals a slew of fees like registration, drug testing, legal representation, housing, ankle monitors, among other – was enforced in Fresno County.

What is yli doing about it?

We have just signed a letter of endorsement, and we are voicing our support on social media: Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Who sponsored this policy?

  • ACLU-California
  • Alliance for Boys and Men of Color (ABMoC)
  • Anti-Recidivism Coalition (ARC)
  • Children’s Defense Fund-California (CDF)
  • Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice (CJCJ)
  • Honorable Reginald Jones-Sawyer, Assembly Committee on Public Safety Chair
  • MILPA Collective
  • W. Haywood Burns Institute
  • Urban Peace Institute
  • Youth Justice Coalition – Los Angeles

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