Inspired to write this because of a story I read today about Maria Santana's son and his story in the juvenile justice system...
California essentially gave up on Maria Santana’s son when he was 15 years old and was locked up in the Division of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) youth prisons. Initially told he would be released in four years, Maria’s son has been languishing for nearly 10 years. With eight other children and recently losing her job, Maria can’t afford to drive six hours to Ventura to visit him.
It costs approximately $200,000 per year to lock up a young person in DJJ. So what has the taxpayers’ $2 million dollar investment in Maria’s son brought him, his family or his community? When his mom sees his resignation, his broken spirit and the scars on his body from rubber bullets, she knows that the state has failed him. He’s certainly not the only one. Despite costing more than $436 million annually to warehouse only 1,300 youth, DJJ fails 72 percent of the time -- meaning that 72 percent of the young people are rearrested soon after release. This recidivism rate is really high.
We’re paying $200,000 per youth per year for lockup in a violent, failed system. In comparison, a young person in a California public school merits only $7,100 per year for education. California adult prisons cost $8.2 billion, locking up 160,000 adults, but our public college system gets far less --$5.5 billion to educate more than 650,000 students.
So what's the answer? How do we fix this situation?
No comments:
Post a Comment