Young Women’s Freedom Center has released a report produced in partnership with the Vera Institute, “Freedom and Justice: Ending the Incarceration of Girls and Gender Expansive Youth in California.
The report outlines the progress we’ve made in some counties and gives a roadmap for how California legislators can fully end juvenile incarceration and truly invest in youth justice.
California
needs to get over
youth incarceration.
Here's how
we get there.
Incarceration is a harmful and ineffective response to the challenges girls and gender-expansive youth are facing.
Girls and gender-expansive youth experience harm at EVERY point in the juvenile legal system – the young people interviewed for this report described verbal, physical, and sexual violence from arrest through incarceration, as well as failure to meet basic needs. The trauma from these experiences can last a lifetime.
This report explains WHY that is and HOW policy makers in every county in California can end girls’ incarceration and create community-based solutions that promote safety.
