Teji, Selena
Selena Teji is the Communications Specialist for the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice in San Francisco, CA. She has a Juris Doctorate specializing in international law from UC Hastings, and has expertise in data-driven juvenile and criminal justice policy analysis in California.
Wasting Juvenile Justice Tax Dollars
By Selena Teji
Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice
California has demonstrated it no longer has the capacity to serve the state’s high-risk juvenile offenders by a 75% recidivism rate and continued scrutiny under the Farrell lawsuit, now in its ninth year. The state-run Division of Juvenile Facilities (DJF) is still unable to provide adequate education and programming to its youth population despite reform efforts and a per capita cost of approximately $190,000 this past year alone. Not to mention that the facilities themselves are in dire need of reconstruction.
California’s Governor Sends Wake-Up Call to the State’s Counties
By Selena Teji and Emily Luhrs
Juvenile Justice Information Exchange
In his first move of 2012, California’s Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget proposal for FY 2012-2013 appears to be part compromise, part wake-up call to the state’s counties, indicating he is serious about closing the state’s youth correctional system, the Division of Juvenile Facilities (DJF) once and for all.
Ideally, this proposal should provide some relief for counties because now there is the opportunity for funding of local juvenile justice programs. The proposed budget will postpone the “budget triggers” and allocate an initial $10 million to counties to plan for juvenile justice realignment, followed by approximately $100 million each year. The catch? No new commitments will be made to DJF as of Jan. 1, 2013 and counties will have no choice but to handle their high- needs and high- risk population locally.