Juvenile offenders in California might now have a better chance at rehabilitation instead of facing a mostly punitive sentence in a youth prison system that often only reinforced the patterns of neglect and violence that led many of them into trouble in the first place.
On Saturday, California shuttered its last three state-run youth lockups and passed day-to-day operations of juvenile halls to county probation departments. The plan decentralizes care of youth offenders and prioritizes keeping them closer to home in facilities focused less on punishment and more on reformation — all in hope of breaking “the school-to-prison pipeline,” as Gov. Gavin Newsom put it in 2020.
