by Bob Walsh
Governor Moonbeam of the formerly great state of California has proposed a budget that includes $3.8 million to keep young criminals in juvenile housing until age 25. The current max-out age is 23.
The proposal would also allow young criminals sentenced as adults to spend their ENTIRE stay as guests of the state in juvie if they could run their sentence out prior to their 25th birthday. Currently they have to move to an adult prison when they turn 18.
It would also allow DJJ to place up to 76 young criminals in one of two special facilities rather than send their happy ass to prison.
The head of the National Center for Youth Law's California Youth Justice Initiative, Frankie Guzman, supports keeping young criminals out of prison as much as possible. He regailed all who would listed with tales of woe of his own stay as a guest of the state and how much nicer it was for him to be in juvie than it was in a REAL prison.
Housing baby criminals costs about 3X as much in juvenile housing as it does in state prison, about $80k per year as opposed to $30 k per year.
And I thought that the whole idea of locking criminals up was to protect society, not to throw warm-and-fuzzies to the criminals. Silly me.
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