Youth Justice - Youth Forward

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Youth Justice Reform

As a result of state legislation passed in 2020, Sacramento County Probation has been receiving significant new funding from the state to improve its juvenile justice system. Since 2021, in partnership with the Public Defender’s Office and other community organizations, Youth Forward has been advocating for greater investments in community-based efforts to help young people leaving the system successfully reintegrate in their local community. Recently we won an agreement in which Probation will set aside $150,000 to support reentry efforts. Also, since 2024, we have been working with the Sac Fire Department to develop a new job training program for young people who have been impacted by the criminal justice system and/or the foster care system to become emergency medical technicians (EMT’s). This program will launch in the summer of 2025 and is modeled after the very successful EMS Corps in Alameda County.

Toward a Healing-Centered System

Youth Forward is currently coordinating an effort with Sac Kids First partners to improve the youth justice system. We would like to see a system centered on a partnership between Sacramento County Probation Department and youth-serving community-based organizations, with a primary focus on supporting prevention, healing, and safe re-entry. We believe that a significant amount of the new funding received by Sacramento County should be invested in youth-serving organizations that are best equipped to help young people transition out of the juvenile justice system back into the local community.

Justice2Jobs

In 2018, Youth Forward led an effort with city and county officials that led to the expungement of criminal records for past marijuana convictions of over 5,000 Sacramentans. From that effort grew the Justice2Jobs Coalition, a community power-building project that rejects criminal punishment and bureaucracy and advocates for the creation of humane systems. We convene and catalyze the Sacramento region’s legal, economic, and anti-criminalizing policy reform community. We use criminal records repair and other restorative practices to center the voices of those with lived experience. We look at justice systemically—excavate and report facts, interrogate processes, and create solutions for healthy, equitable, and inclusive neighborhoods.

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