By Jeremy Loudenback, The Chronicle of Social Change, June 14, 2019.
As California works toward finalizing a new state budget, the legislature this week provided some long-awaited clues about the future of reforms to the state’s Division of Juvenile Justice (DJJ).
A budget approved by the state legislature now appears to call for the creation of an $8 million “therapeutic communities” pilot project inspired by a successful alternative to youth incarceration in large facilities. That’s a part of a set of state investments in the budget designed to shift the juvenile justice system away from traditional correctional models.
“The therapeutic model, the Missouri Model so to speak, can happen within DJJ, on a unit with three or smaller groups, all going through this journey together,” said DJJ Director Chuck Supple at a May budget hearing.
The Missouri Division of Youth Services pioneered a model of secure confinement that is predicated on moving youth offenders out of large institutions and into small residential facilities close to the young people’s communities.
A shift to a therapeutic model like Missouri’s appears to be at odds with DJJ’s history.
The system now holds about 700 of the state’s most serious juvenile offenders in three institutional facilities. That is a far cry from 20 years ago when the agency held more than 10,000 youth and was known as the California Youth Authority.
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