Gardena PD Brings
Juvenile Justice Home
By Chief Ed Medrano, Gardena PD
Juvenile Justice Policy Landscape
In recent years, there has been significant reform in the
criminal justice system in California. In Los Angeles County, these
reforms had the further consequence of closing the entire informal
juvenile justice courts. For Gardena, and all of Los Angeles County, these changes have had many real and unfortunate impacts;
vast amounts of youth cited for misdemeanors or status offenses
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receive limited services and are largely falling through the cracks
of an overburdened County Court and Probation system. Most
cases are given nominal attention and court mandated diversion,
which existed for misdemeanors and status offenses, is now completely absent. Juvenile citations are either dismissed with minor
consequences, reduced, or are assigned to probation officers who
already carry large caseloads.
Historically, low-level youth offenders will continue down
the wrong path and commit higher-level offenses when the
underlying reason for their poor decision-making is not being addressed. Moreover, juveniles don’t commit offenses in a vacuum;
rather, a host of issues are well-known contributors to juvenile
delinquency. The list of contributing factors include poor attitude,
lack of parental supervision, broken homes, antisocial tendencies,
peer influence, and violence at home. It should then be no surprise that many youth continually reoffend and become deeper
entrenched in the system.
What can be done to help these low-level offenders from
becoming higher-level offenders later in life?
An unconventional approach that Police Chiefs may consider
is creating a juvenile diversion and intervention program to help
identify youth in need of additional assistance. Although these programs are not new, the advent of a local program working in close
collaboration with the local police agency helps increase success and
provides for a community centered approach to at-risk behavior.