Youth organizers will call on Alameda County leaders Wednesday to end youth incarceration in the county, according to the Free Our Kids Coalition, which opposes a new county juvenile camp.
The youth-led event starts at 3 p.m. at the California Ballroom at 1736 Franklin St. and is open the public.
Youth organizers want county leaders to instead invest in caring and other forms of rehabilitation for youth, such as mental health care and diversion programs, which they said are successful at changing the lives of youth for the better.
“What does a young person need?” said Dieudonne Brou, a coordinator at Urban Peace Movement, which helps Oakland youth become leaders and is part of the Free Our Kids Coalition.
Brou said the county spends $800,000 a year to incarcerate each child in its custody and it hasn’t made the community safer.
County officials were not immediately available Tuesday to confirm that figure.
Ericson Amaya, a lead organizer with Oakland-based 67 Suenos, which promotes political education, activism and trauma healing, said it’s a big expense for a small population.
Brou asked why the county is not investing that money to provide housing or a college fund that would help stabilize children. Youth that encounter the justice system are more likely to end up in jail or in prison in the future, he said.
The first point in a 10-point plan by the youth said they want the county to move away from punishment as a way of rehabilitation. Punishment has led to a school-to-prison pipeline.
Like calls to defund the police, the second point in the plan calls for the county to divest from law enforcement, probation and juvenile halls and invest in healing, education and “positive youth development.”
The seventh point calls for defunding and demilitarizing police departments. Other points focus on youth needs such as healthy food and health care.
Incarceration adds to the trauma faced by youth, organizers said, and incarceration disproportionately affects Alameda County youth of color, according to data available from the Alameda County Probation Department.
Ninety-eight percent of incarcerated youth in the county are youth of color while 80 percent of detained youth or those on probation are Black or Hispanic, data show.
Wednesday’s town hall is part of a two-part series on ending youth incarceration.
Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price is invited. Price did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the youths’ proposal.
6 comments
I guarantee all these youth were from upper class backgrounds. Lets let out all the shooters and killers back into the community. School to prison pipeline is a myth. Most of those youth have been arrested before and keep on committing crimes.
No thank you we are ready have enough criminals prowling our streets & don’t need any in training.
Are we talking about the Murderers, Maimers and Destroyers of Social peace and safety? Or the well behaved ones that just need reparations, instructions and respect a peaceful, productive society? Is it too much to expect these gentle and wrongfully accused innocent children to be drug free?
I’d like to know the source of the $800,000 per year figure. My research shows that number to be about one-third that amount.
Children in the first grade need to be motivated to learn. Not by telling them the world is against them but by letting them know what the world has to offer those who want to learn. If parents haven’t motivated a child with the right motivation when they start school now they are already lost. Not enough are self starters. The minute the race pimps get into these kids they are destroyed. The worst thing going for Black people now are those seeking reparations and those who won’t support the police, believe in equity, and those who think White people want to keep them down. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Some of the kids I picked up as a paramedic were as hard boiled as any ex-convict. They need to be locked up.
Comments are closed.