The study calls for closure of the entire Division of Juvenile Facilities (DJF), proposing that its enormous budget could be better spent funding county probation offices to handle the remaining juveniles in state custody. According to CJCJ’s analysis of bed space at the county level juvenile facilities, the state could send the approximately 1,600 kids handled by the state agency back to counties, with room to spare.
The big challenge there is how to assimilate murderers and other violent felons into county systems that have never had to handle those types of juvenile offenders.
Read the report here
