Please Don't Give Up On Us:
Stories from Incarcerated Children and Youth in CA
I wasn't even gonna list this action. Why bother? No one's gonna go. Except Helen and Stacey. It's true. Only a few of us give a shit about "justice involved" youth. Even though all of the kids in Los Padrinos are "pre-disposition" which means they are just waiting to see a judge. So they haven't been found guilty of anything! And guess what? There's not bail in juvenile hall. Because of semantics -- kids aren't being "punished, or tried," they're being detained. If you go to Los Padrinos -- which a handful of us have, in fact Helen goes every week! -- it looks a helluva lot like jail.
Oh, also, you've probably heard -- or maybe not -- since as I said no one really cares... CA Attorney General Bonta is considering putting our juvenile halls in receivership, so instead of Probation, a third party would oversee them. That's because kids are dying and ODing in there. But no one really knows because... well, I said it already.
Okay, so I was feeling pretty hopeless about this action, but for some reason I asked Helen and Stacy and Peggy if they thought it might be a good on-ramp for anyone who's interested in learning aobut our Youth Justice system, and they both said Hell, yes! (Ok, I added the "hell" but they said yes!)
So here goes:
OYCR stands for Office of Youth and Community Restoration. It's a state agency that was established to help in the transition from a punitive state-run juvenile system (yes, the state used to run juvie) to a county-based system focused on rehabilitation and healing. OYCR promotes restorative justice (of which I am a big believer). It also supports the reintegration of youth back into their community.
The OYCR is hosting a seminar entitled: Please Don’t Give Up on Us: Stories From Incarcerated Children and Youth in California. This will be a conversation with justice-involved youth and the community advocates show serve them. The purpose of this session is to illustrate how systems can support healing and rehabilitation. Not that I thikn any of us really care about that, but if you do, this is a great place to start.
Please Don't Give Up On Us:
Stories from Incarcerated Children and Youth in CA
Tues, Aug 19
Noon - 1pm (PT)
ZOOM